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Builded by the People (1906)
In 1906, Graham County, Kansas reported on its progress. The Reveille Souvenir (Hill City) promoted the western county's alfalfa and hay production, and its 2200 quarter sections of land available for...
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Moulins à Vents
Since moving to Kansas, I've become fascinated with historic windmills. They still populate the landscape, some remarkably intact and others denuded of every moving part. T. Lindsay Baker's American...
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Architect Otho McCrackin
Hutchinson, Kansas architect Otho McCrackin (1893-1962) attended Washington University before serving as a pilot in the balloon division during the First World War. His drawing skills were utilized in...
View ArticleAffordable Housing & The Argonauts (1880)
In 1880 The Galveston Daily News reported on the establishment of a new architecture /planning syndicate in San Antonio, Texas. The secret society --- led by Confederate brigadier general Hamilton...
View ArticleBoom & Bust Syndicates
During the 1880s and early 1890s big real estate development "syndicates" proliferated. Platting activities simultaneously peaked in such cities as Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and San...
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States on Stage (1884)
Chicago designers Trowbridge and Petford developed this advertising map for H.W. Hill & Company, the nation's largest manufacturer of hog rings. Hill had utilized the cartographic format for a...
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The Kansas Module (1887)
William H. Sadlier Company published the first two volumes of its Excelsior Geography in 1875. An additional volume appeared the following year. The works were part of a series that the Sadlier family...
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The Joker (1884)
In 1884, P.W. Zeigler advertised his stoves, tinware, pumps and drive wells. He also sold Joker solid-wheel wooden windmills, an unusual type manufactured in Peabody, Kansas and known for its...
View ArticleFrank Herbert's Windmill (1977)
In March 1977, the Associated Press reported that Dune author Frank Herbert (1920-1986) had chosen to live a self-reliant life of "techno-peasantry." From his six-acre homestead on Washington's Olympic...
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Food Moderne
In 1948, the Carnation Company hired Beaux-Arts educated architect Stiles O. Clements (1883-1966) to design its new corporate headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. The company decided to...
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Wiedorn in Kansas
New Orleans landscape architect William Wiedorn (1896-1990) taught landscape gardening at Kansas State Agricultural College from 1920-1924. During part of that time, the college advised on more than...
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Paving Paradise
In the summer of 1926, Coffeyville, Kansas was supplying massive quantities of its vitrified brick to Florida cities. Getting the pavers to Tampa was no easy feat due to a railroad embargo:"Coffeyville...
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The Square House
A previous post mentioned the preponderance of flat-topped hipped roof structures in Kansas. They could be found on farms, in rural towns and urban centers. By the 1930s, property owners hoping to...
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Wiedorn in Kansas II
A previous post introduced William S. Wiedorn's work while employed as an assistant professor of landscape gardening at the Kansas State Agricultural College. During this period, he published "A Brief...
View ArticleWiedorn in Kansas III
In 1924, landscape architect William S. Wiedorn published an article intended for Kansas property owners desirous of improving their yards. "Beautifying the Home Grounds of Kansas" included general...
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The Goose-Egg Architect
Architect Henry Evert Wichers was born in Dispatch (Smith County), Kansas in March 1898. After earning his bachelor's and master's degrees from Kansas State College,* Wichers joined the faculty as a...
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Missouri-Kansas-Mississippi Architect
Architect Charles Louis Proffer (1925-90) was licensed to practice in Kansas and Mississippi. Born in Sikeston, Missouri, Proffer sought his architectural education at the University of Kansas after...
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Experimental Silos
In 1909, University of Nebraska graduate Claude Harrison Hinman (1879-1967) began teaching classes for Kansas Agricultural College Farmers' Institute. Traveling along the Santa Fe Railroad and...
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Linoleum
The S.P. Dinsmoor Residence located in Lucas, Kansas contains some fine examples of early twentieth-century sheet linoleum. The parlor features a printed woven pattern (above) and the upstairs area has...
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Segregation Forms: Redlining
The University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab has developed a fantastic resource that provides access to hundreds of so-called "security maps" created between 1935 and 1940. The product of the...
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Goblet Tanks (1917)
100 years ago, the Roger W. Hunt & Company Employees' Bulletin reported on the use of reinforced concrete in the design of water tanks along the Gulf Coast. Featuring an image of the tallest tank,...
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Field Trip: St. Petersburg, FL
In October, a wrecking crew demolished the former Pheil Hotel (410-424 Central Avenue, 1916-23). Built by an early St. Petersburg mayor and his heirs, the eleven-story building became a bank when...
View ArticleIron Jail (1859)
I've been conducting a lot of research on American prison architecture lately, and came across this story in the Patriot (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) newspaper:Famous Iron Prison Soon to be Replaced by a...
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Chisholm Trail
Kansas State University is celebrating the legendary cattle trail’s sesquicentennial with a notable exhibit featuring historic books, music, photographs, maps, cowboy attire and artifacts. “Chisholm...
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Field Trip: Ciudad de Mexico
Knowing that the former Mexican Mining Pavilion from the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition (New Orleans, 1884-85) had been returned to Mexico after the fair, I ventured up to Santa...
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