The College Hill Commoner_April 2010

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4 The Commoner’s 6 College Hill

10 Hopping down

guide to historically painter Curt Clonts the bunny trail in returns to feathered College Hill Park. designated homes form in latest show. in College Hill.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER Vol. 4 No. 5

COLLEGE HILL

• CROWN HEIGHTS • UPTOWN • SLEEPY HOLLOW

APRIL 2010

FIRE STATION NO. 5

A LOOK BACK AT COLLEGE HILL’S FIRST FIRE STATION

The original Fire Station No. 5 at Hillside and Second streets, circa 1909, which served College Hill and surrounding neighborhoods.

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WICHITA FIRE DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES


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LETTERS

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ APRIL 2010

GOING THE DISTANCE A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

W In response to last month’s article about J. Hudson McKnight, long time College Hill resident Don Malone provided this photograph of his grandparents’ home on Kellogg Street as it appeared in 1910. His grandfather Harry Malone (standing at center) was McKnight’s “sharecropper” who, for a share in the proceeds, farmed McKnight’s alfalfa fields (now displaced by the Kellogg & I135 interchange). Do you have old family photos with a connection to College Hill? Help make history. Contact contributing writer Jeff Roth at jeff.roth@rides.com or 684-1919.

COURTESY PHOTO: DON MALONE

WHAT DOES $20 BUY? QUALITY OF LIFE TO THE EDITOR: Annual dues to the College Hill Neighborhood Association are $20. I’ve been asked by several members: “what do I get for my money?” Fair question. Spent money is a relative thing. Most of us would travel another mile or two to save 75-cents per gallon of gas for our cars. That $20 is relatively meaningful. If you are selling your house and the buyer offers you $299,980 instead of your $300,000 asking price, you would probably accept it; that $20 is not so meaningful. You probably wouldn’t even discuss it. But it’s the same amount of money. The $20 you give for your annual membership fee is in the category of “very meaningful” for the College Hill Neighborhood Association and it should be for you. It helps support the Christmas Trolley Tour, the children’s Easter Egg Hunt, the Spring Garden Tour and the Family Fun Fair each year. It helps support the new Web site that

will be launched on or before June 1. It offsets our advertising and promotion costs. It buys renovations to the Christmas pool display in College Hill park. It helps offset the cost of the plastic doggy bags that are in the dog waste dispensers in the park. Some of the money accrues for special purposes, like possibly purchasing art for public places in our residential district or to underwrite special programs like “art in the park” or “Shakespeare in the Park.” or other programs and ideas that may be of interest to College Hill residents. And it goes toward purchasing awards given periodically to deserving residents and business operators in the community. In short, the $20 you give to your neighborhood association goes a long way. BILL HESS President, College Hill Neighborhood Association

e got a hold of a list of the historically designated landmark homes in College Hill last month, attached it to our trusty clipboard, and took a selfguided tour. We’ve been on the tour before. It’s actually one we’ve taken once a month for going on three years now, but this was the first time we took special notice of the homes at the ends of the driveways. I confess that during our regular stops, when we are throwing the paper, we usually only take note of how deep the lawn is and how far we have to walk to get to the porch. Short walk, fine home. Long walk, pretentious manor. By our designation, that puts the fine homes on Quentin Street at the top of the list no matter that not a single one of the residences has been deemed historically important. (So far.) The official list [see story, page 4] features homes ranging from the impressive Robert Clapp (son of L.W.) place on Belmont modeled after Sheffield Manor to the more modest but certainly charming two-story clapboard Grace Wilkie house on English Street. There are more than a dozen homes on the list. Our American Foursquare on Holyoke is not among them. That’s a pity, considering how much of a ruin it already looks. But we have high hopes for our children. We’re expecting great things. Perhaps our humble hovel will one day be as popular to tourists as Edgar Allen Poe’s Baltimore tenement or Larry Bird’s childhood home. That would make the old man proud. Of course, what would make him even prouder is if this old house became known as the birthplace of a pair of world renown architects, famous for designing ridiculously fine homes with prominent porches that extend all the way to the sidewalk. BARRY OWENS EDITOR

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER VOLUME 4 ISSUE 4 APRIL 2010

PUBLISHER

J ESSICA F REY O WENS

EDITOR

B ARRY Want to join or renew? Send $20 to C.H.N.A., P.O. Box 20707, Wichita, KS, 67208. For more info: Mike Ferguson, treasurer, 682-5265

OWENS

CONTRIBUTORS

D AVE K NADLER , J EFF R OTH

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER

Published monthly by The College Hill Commoner 337 N. Holyoke Wichita, K.S. 67208 316-689-8474 editor@collegehillcommoner.com www.collegehillcommoner.com

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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ APRIL 2010

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Of Bravery and Bicycles

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n theory, Wichita should be a great place to ride a bike. It’s relatively flat, the streets are relatively wide, and the weather is relatively mild. The people, when they’re not in their SUVs and flipping each other off on Kellogg, are the friendliest sort of people you could ever hope to meet. And yet. On a recent beautiful Sunday afternoon, driving from Crown Heights to DAVE KNADLER Old Town and back, I saw not a single person riding a bike. That’s not an anomaly. Most days, you have a better chance of finding a $20 bill along the road than another bicyclist. That’s not such a good thing. I’m not pointing fingers; after all, I wasn’t riding either, even though it was definitely the kind of day for not only having the windows down, but having them gone altogether. College Hill is beautiful this time of year. But riding a bike around here is like getting out on the dance floor: Nobody wants to be first. You can see why. Wichita drivers tend not to see anything that’s not

another car, and when they do, they’re a single lane of traffic. If that happens, not amused. A person on a bike is still a bicycle commute from our neighbornot considered part of traffic, but an hoods to downtown and back suddenly annoying disruption of it. Wichita becomes a lot more pleasant. boasts 100 miles of bike trails, but this And bike commuting is something is still the only city the city should encourage: I’ve ever lived in it means slightly fewer College Hill is where you’re actually cars on the road, slightly beautiful this time less demand for gas, and encouraged to ride on the sidewalk. of year. But riding a slightly less obesity From the city’s bike around here is among its residents. The Web site: like getting out on tradeoff is that more bike traffic might add a few “In the interest of the dance floor: seconds to somebody’s safety, one should use Nobody wants high-speed commute. the sidewalk when ridI know; there’s anothing on a busy street to be first. er tradeoff: Somebody (except in the Central might get killed. We’re all Business District aware of the risk after the where it is illegal).” tragedy on Douglas four Two things strike me about that statement: First, that it is years ago, which reinforced the percepnecessary to warn bicycles off the tion that riding a bike in this town is just street, even though they’re considered not worth it. But one big reason bicyvehicles in every other respect. Second, clists feel vulnerable in this town is that that it makes an exception for the there are so few of them. Drivers, even Central Business District, which is the ones who aren’t jerks, just aren’t probably the one place where you’d used to seeing people pedaling. So if actually want to be on the sidewalk, the city really does give us Wichita’s first dedicated bike lanes this year, let’s particularly during rush hour. Fortunately, things may be changing try to make sure those lanes get used. In the meantime, it’s spring in a even here. I’m told that painted bike lanes are planned for First and Second mostly level city, and this happens to Streets sometime in the next few weeks, be a city with a lot of routes to get and that the striping job will include from point A to point B. If you decide reducing one or both of those streets to to try riding in the weeks ahead, do it

in the spirit of a pioneer: Be vigilant and strong of heart. Someday bicycling will seem normal even here, but in the interim, here are a few things to keep in mind: • Dress to be seen and ride like you’re invisible. Never assume that eye contact is the same thing as somebody knowing your intentions, or you theirs. • Keep both hands on the handlebars and close to the brakes. Trust me; you’ll need to stop unexpectedly once in awhile. • Take it easy. You’re not trying to win the Tour de France. You don’t need one of those spandex outfits emblazoned with logos. Pace yourself; pick a low, easy gear; get off and walk your bike if you feel like it. – Finally, most bike injuries occur at intersections and during rush hour. Use Google Maps to pick a route that avoids the worst areas and give yourself time to take a longer but safer route. Even with that, you’ll be surprised at how soon you’re going through the door. That’s the miracle of not cruising for a parking space. That’s it, then. Be careful out there. And if you happen to find a $20 along the road, it’s mine. Writer Dave Knadler lives in Crown Heights.

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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ APRIL 2010

(Blank) Slept Here Manors of early movers and shakers could get signage We’re a house proud bunch here in College Hill, and rightfully so. No other neighborhood in this city can boast of block after block of so many well maintained homes, many of them dating back to the turn of the past century. While it is no secret that College Hill has interesting architecture, some of the stories behind the homes (and the people who built them and first lived there) are likely a mystery to most. Enter the College Hill Neighborhood Association which last month announced plans to provide placards outside of the

historically designated landmark homes in the neighborhood. Of course, it will be up to the current homeowners to decide if they want to display a placard on their property. In the meantime, these pages offer snapshots of the houses and their history. It might prove useful next time you are out in search of, say, the Grace Wilkie house. “Oh, I’ve heard of it,” said one English Street resident who was recently asked for directions. “But I don’t know where it is.” Turns out, it has been sitting at the end of his block for 77 years.

ALLEN-LAMBE 255 N. ROOSEVELT This one is hard to miss. It is the only Frank Lloyd Wright residence in the state. It was completed in 1919 for Gov. Henry Allen. Tours are available by appointment.

ROBERTS 235 N. ROOSEVELT Chicago architect Lawrence Buck is credited with this Craftsman style residence, modeled after another of his designs that was so winning it was published in Ladies Home Journal.

LONG 3401 E. SECOND Senator Chester I. Long put this Victorian on the map when he moved in in 1911, but the former farmhouse (modified by Long and again in 1976) has been on the College Hill landscape since 1887.

HILLSIDE COTTAGE 303 S. CIRCLE Prominent early Wichita architect Willis Proudfoot built this cottage as his personal residence in 1887. He didn’t stay for long. In 1901, it was leased out as the original Wichita Country Club.

JACKMAN 158 N. ROOSEVELT Built for Charles Jackman, owner of Wichita Milling Company, this Spanish Colonial Revival house is the work of Lorentz Schmidt and George Siedhoff, the familiar names behind the Hillcrest and East High, among notable others.

BATH HOUSE COLLEGE HILL PARK Our handsome bath house was built in 1937 as a Works Progress Administration project in 1937. It was designed by local architect Edward Forsblom.


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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ APRIL 2010

(BLANK) SLEPT HERE

AVIARY 330 S. CIRCLE While Proudfoot was building his home at one end of Circle Drive, his partner George Bird built this perch at the other in 1887. “Aviary” is a pun on the architect’s name.

NEWBERN-GORE 400 S. ROOSEVELT Named for two subsequent wealthy owners – Reymond Newbern, gas, and Harry Gore, oil — this American Foursquare is listed as a prime example of the form.

VAN ARSDALE 201 N. BROADVIEW Credit Lorentz Schmidt (again) for this residence, originally home to William Van Ardsdale. Van Ardsdale was president of the Arkansas Valley Interurban Railway Company.

GRACE WILKIE 4230 E. ENGLISH There have only been two owners of this house. The first, Grace Wilkie, was dean of women at University of Wichita where a building there, a former dorm, also bears her name.

PRYOR 263 S. PERSHING Ralph Pryor was the first owner of this house in 1926. But the name you would know is that of the builder, Walter Morris. It is a fine example of the style prevalent in Lincoln Heights.

BLASER 136 N. CRESTWAY Contractor Frank Blaser built this home for himself in high Spanish Revivalism style. It so typified the look that it is featured in the book A Field Guide to American Houses.

CLAPP 320 N. BELMONT It’s difficult to capture the scale of this home in a single photograph. It was built for Robert Clapp, son of L.W. Clapp and was reportedly modeled after Sheffield Manor in England.

POWELL 330 N. CRESTWAY Grain merchant Lon Powell had this Tudor-Style home built for his family in 1926. Once again, Lorentz Schmidt gets credit, with assists from partners Overend and Boucher.


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“The End of January,” by Curt Clonts

ARTS

“Warmed by a Tangerine Moon” by Curt Clonts

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ APRIL 2010

“Flight Over Coast,” by Curt Clonts

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“Manual for Happiness,” by Curt Clonts

Painting Outside the Cage Curt Clonts returns to feathered forms with “The Birds Eye View of Colored Air” BY BARRY OWENS “I don’t claim to know a lot about birds,” Curt Clonts, a College Hill native and painter of vibrant works, was saying the other day from his studio at Friends University. “The birds in the park, when I hear them I know what they are. I can identify a redheaded woodpecker and a cardinal and a robin. I put a feeder in my backyard to attract them and I find myself watching them more. But I don’t know a lot about them,” he said. So how to explain the flocks of them perched in his latest show, “The Birds Eye View of Colored Air,” which opens this month during Final Friday? There they air, flying across the coast, or warming themselves in the sun, or lined up like hieroglyphics. Clonts says he is not sure where they came from, or why he started painting them in the first place. He recalls painting his first shortly after his father, Harlan, died in 1991. They have since become more than occasional visitors to his work over the years. A spontaneous painter, Clonts prefers to get his materials in front of

Curt Clonts in his studio at Friends University.

him, put on a little music, and see what happens. “When you are a young artist you think all the time about what something needs to be or what it needs to become. But when you’ve been doing it a while and it sort of becomes a part of you, then you don’t worry about that. You just put a surface in front of you and you go to work. It becomes what it becomes.” Clonts cycles through subject matter, he said, and at least one of the pieces in the show is an abstract. But

BARRY OWENS

the rest feature birds. He’s learned not to question it. “A bird can go where it wants, do what it wants. When it comes down to it, the only thing that can kill a bird is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They have more freedom than we do,” he said. “Total freedom, that’s what they mean to me.”

“The Birds Eye View of Painted Air” opens this month during Final Friday at Artifacts, in Lincoln Heights Village, and runs through May.


THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ APRIL 2010

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HISTORY

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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ APRIL 2010 Left: The original Fire Station No. 5 at Hillside and Second streets, circa 1909, which served College Hill and surrounding neighborhoods. Below: Wichita fire fighters, from left to right, Johnson, Cole and Hazzard pose in front of the station in 1917.

WICHITA FIRE DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES

WICHITA FIRE DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES

FIRE STATION NO. 5 A look back at College Hill’s original fire station. BY JEFF A. ROTH

L

ate in the afternoon the station bell at Hillside and Second strikes a sequence that the men immediately recognize. The cadence of “dong, dong…pause…dong, dong, dong…pause…” sparks them to action as clearly as someone yelling, “fire in the east side district.” They hope it’s nothing more than a grass fire, perhaps in the park. From their second floor quarters they half fly, half drop down the polished brass poles. Captain just happens to reach the trip lever on the wall first. He unleashes the hanging collars from the ceiling above to the anxious horses below. Then they’re gone, the first firefighters of Fire Station No. 5…circa 1907. Today’s 1950s-vintage fire station sits unobtrusively on Hillside, waiting for the next Uptown, College Hill or Sleepy Hollow alarm. Decades earlier, a two story grey brick firehouse stood there, home to four firefighters and their loyal teams of steeds with familiar names such as Tom and Jerry, Dutch and John, Peanuts and Charlie, and Bully and Jack. The signal they were hearing came from the Gamewell Fire Alarm System housed at the Central Station downtown. It sounded a sequence, similar to the Morse Code.

The original Fire Station No. 5 was razed in 1953 and replaced with the modern style building shown here. It has changed little over the decades.

WICHITA FIRE DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES

As soon as a citizen tripped one of the red alarm boxes or telephoned in the report of a fire, the Gamewell signal rang in every fire station in town. The sequence of the ringing, accompanied by ticker-tape readout, told the firefighters what vicinity a fire was in. If the sequence named a location in your district you were the team sent in to fight. Downtown backup with a horse drawn steam-powered pumper would

be provided if the fire was a big one. The horses were well trained. At the sight of the men clamoring for gear they knew it was time to perform. They dutifully took their positions astride the fire wagon’s tongue. A pair of open collars hung above them from the ceiling — winched and held there by thin cables since the last call. These hinged halves of a traditional horse

collar, called hames, were the 1896 invention of Wichita firefighter Robert G. Armstrong. He also devised a winch system that when tripped, allowed a governed and controlled drop of the hames to the horses’ necks for quick coupling, wagon attachment, and rapid departure. As observed by one veteran firefighter, “It is not how fast you go, but how quickly you get started that counts.” In the early days of the east side, homes and businesses located there were suffering the town’s greatest losses to fire. The horse drawn wagons were having to make a two mile run from downtown to reach a fire on the hill. Station No. 5 was built to address that vulnerability. The upstairs was fitted with quarters for the men: sleeping rooms, a bath, lavatories and lockers. A haymow, or loft, at the rear of the second story held baled hay and bins of oats for the horsepower below. Fore and aft brass poles assured faster response times than the stairs would otherwise allow. Their fire wagon was painted red, pinstriped and identified as, “Wichita F.D. No. 5.” It was a “comCONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE


THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER â?š APRIL 2010

HISTORY

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FIRE STATION NO. 5 Coded alarm bells and a ticker tape machine, right, alerted College Hill firefighters to the location of a blaze. Below: Early Wichita firefighters race to a call. Far right: Fire Station No. 5 as it originally stood. An exact twin of the station (Fire Station No. 6) still stands at 1300 S. Broadway and serves as the Kansas Firefighters Museum. JEFF ROTH

WICHITA FIRE DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES

WICHITA-SEDGWICK COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

bination fire wagon� carrying a combination of ladders, hoses and a 45 gallon soda-water tank. When a fire hydrant was unavailable, as in the early days of College Hill, fires could be fought by means of a chemical reaction. Pressure to shoot the water would be provided by a glass bottle containing sulfuric acid suspended inside the sealed water tank. At the appropriate time the bottle was inverted with a crank, dumping the acid into 45 gallons of bicarbonate of soda. It created a carbon dioxide eruption like a school experiment, or more appropriately, like an old brass fire extinguisher, albeit on a much larger scale. It was not uncommon to have grass fires in the unmowed Merriman Park, especially after the Wichita Country Club abandoned it for greener links. Grass fires could also be fought with a pair of nickel-plated hose cart torches mounted at the rear of the

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WICHITA FIRE DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES

A fire wagon with hames open and ready for the horses. The harnesses were lowered by a winch for quick coupling. The city’s last horses were retired from service in 1918.

Patent drawing for the hames horse collar, invented by Wichita firefighter Robert Armstrong. The hinged collars were part of an automated system of harnessing the horses and getting the wagons out quickly when the alarms rang.

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wagon. When these oil-pots were lit, they enabled the firemen to start backfires to purposely burn away grass in the path of the fire and deprive it of the fuel it need to continue. With the fire extinguished and homes around the park safe once again, the men returned to Station 5 to await the next ringing of the Gamewell alarm. In-between horse grooming and equipment maintenance, the idle hours were filled with activities such as grounds keeping. A survivor of their early

efforts remains to this day. On the southeast corner of Station No. 5’s lot there exists an estimated 100year old Eastern Redcedar, Kansas’ only native evergreen tree. It was planted in the earliest days of the station. With a circumference of over 7 feet, it ranks as one of College Hill’s grandest and oldest residents. Station No. 5 had a kindred spirit of sorts, a twin in the form of Station No. 6, now the Kansas Firefighters Museum & Memorial at CONTINUED ON PAGE 11


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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ APRIL 2010

Photos by BARRY OWENS

Hippity-Hoppity

Sun on the hill, light breeze in the trees, candy in the grass. It doesn’t get much better than Easter Sunday afternoon in College Hill Park. Early this month, hundreds of families turned out to parade through the park with the bunny and then make a mad dash through the meadow in search of sweets.


THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ APRIL 2010

Another handsome old building paved over to make way for the automobile. Fire Station No. 9, as it stood from 1942 to 1988 at Kellogg and Dellrose, was razed to make way for the Expressway.

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FIRE STATION NO. 5 1300 S. Broadway. Built in 1909, the quake. At the end of the disturthis building is a time capsule and bance the ground floor to the rear was an exact copy of College Hill’s first covered with oats, shaken out from station. Now a registered historical the ceiling above. Perhaps the quake landmark, Station No. 6 displays was a harbinger of “old” No. 5’s fate. fire fighting artifacts including a It was razed a year later to make way combination fire wagon, an for the modern station that exists Armstrong collar and winch, and today. One other College Hill fire station even hose cart torches. The museum also displays the city’s only horse bears mention, Station No. 9. Today drawn steam-powered pumper as well Station No. 9 is located on Edgemoor as equipment of the next era, the north of the Kellogg Expressway. motor-powered wagons. These pieces However, from 1942 to 1988 Station of equipment, arising out of the dawn of the automobile age, were so revolutionary at the time that people didn’t know what to call them. The “automobile apparatus” was variously called the “motor fire apparatus” or the “motor fire truck,” before “fire engine” was finally settled upon. Station No. 6 was the last firehouse in Wichita to be built durWICHITA FIRE DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES ing the horse drawn era Early Wichita firefighter Harry Hirst makes a new friend outand was the last to uti- side Fire Station No. 5 during the winter of 1907. lize horses in service to the city. Its last horses were retired in 1918. No. 9 stood as a distinctive Art Deco Station No. 5 soon adapted to a landmark at Kellogg and Dellrose. new motor fire truck, a 1916 Originally built in response to growth Seagraves combination pumper: lad- in southeast Wichita during World ders, hoses and the ability to pump a War II, years later it was decided its steady stream of water with its mission lay further to the east. It gave engine. The horse stalls were up its College Hill location during the removed and the doors of the station expansion of the Kellogg were enlarged to accommodate the Expressway. new truck. College Hill’s fire fighting Whether from Station 5 or Station horses were all but forgotten until the 9, whenever you meet a firefighter at afternoon of April 9, 1952 when a 5.5 a neighborhood block party or Richter Scale earthquake sent tremors College Hill Park event, consider that from El Reno, Oklahoma, all the way he (or she) protects the lives and up to Wichita. It was reported that old property of the folks in the hill district Station No. 5 “did a two-step” during as a part of a century-old tradition.

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