Nearly all of Auburndale's early commercial buildings were made of wood, and three fires destroyed the center of its business district in 1912, 1913, and 1915. The 1913 fire grew worse when flames reached a large cache of dynamite and caused a major explosion. After this disaster, Mayor E. S. Anderson appointed a committee to draft a fire zone ordinance requiring fire-resistant structures in the downtown commercial district. Under that requirement, John Patterson, an active member of Auburndale's early business community, built the Patterson Retail Building in 1916 using masonry construction. The masonry vernacular building exemplified a style that became more common in commercial buildings of the 1920s, and it later housed at least two drug stores and a professional office.