4 There’s a new
establishment in Clifton Square, John Browns. Abolitionists? No. Absolut? Yes.
5 College Hill cook
shares her family recipes in hot selling cookbook.
6 College Hill writer
publishes first novel. Its setting is far away, but the inspiration came from close to home.
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER Vol. 6 No. 1
COLLEGE HILL
• CROWN HEIGHTS • UPTOWN • SLEEPY HOLLOW
DECEMBER 2010
COLLEGE
(C)HILL The campus that never made it to the neighborhood and the chill that quickly set in. PAGE 8
Above: North Hall towered over Winfield’s “College Hill” from 1887 to 1950, when it was razed for being in poor repair. It could have towered over Wichita’s College Hill. Left: 1887 map of Wichita. The red push pin marks the spot where a university was planned. ILLUSTRATION: THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER
LETTERS
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ DECEMBER 2010
A PRIMER A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Please mark your calendars and plan to attend….
The Annual College Hill Trolley Tour Sunday, Dec. 12, 5:30-9pm Dress your house up for Christmas… the Trolley may come down your street! CHNA Christmas Members Meeting “A casual business meeting and gathering” Tuesday, Dec. 21, 7-9pm East Heights United Methodist Church - Hedrick Hall Visit the CHNA website @ collegehillneighborhood.com Be an active member of the Great College Hill Residential District of Wichita. Neighborhood Association Memberships are limited to College Hill Residents… Join or renew today - $20 for 2011 annual period beginning January 1, 2011 CHNA – PO Box 20707, Wichita, Kansas – 67208 Information?..... call Mike Ferguson at 682-5265
The biggest turkey on your holiday table should be your bird. Not your coffee. I roast only the finest coffees from around the world. Your gathering deserves nothing less.
W
e’ve been doing this neighborhood newspaper thing for awhile now and it is probably a safe bet that not all of our readers today understand how or why we do this thing to begin with. We know that we have loyal readers that date back to our beginnings in 2007, but we get enough questions from new residents curious about the paper thing that just arrived on their porch that I’d like to use this space this month to explain what it is that The College Hill Commoner is about. If you’ve heard the story before, or have your own notions, feel free to skip ahead. For the rest of you, a primer. We’re a free monthly newspaper. We are independently owned, a literal mom and pop shop, run entirely out of the home. There is no office, staff, intern or delivery driver. We occasionally spring for some crack freelance reporters and photographers (and are lucky to have the donated contributions of neighborhood historian Jeff Roth published in our pages) but otherwise try do the thing ourselves. That means we sell and build the ads, snap the photos, write the stories, lay out the pages, send it off to the printer, pick up a couple bags of rubber bands from Office Depot and then roll and throw the papers onto your porches. This requires a lot of walking and takes a number of days. We’re lucky to have a few hardy volunteers that help us by delivering the paper on their streets (some pick up three or four streets). We can’t thank them enough. What sort of stories do we include in the Commoner? We follow our noses and hearts and chase the stories that most interest us. We wish we could include more every month but there is only so much we can do story-wise each issue and still get everything else done, too. Call in your suggestions. We’d love to hear them. A common misconception: we are affiliated or produced by the College Hill Neighborhood Association. We’re not, but we do attend and cover its meetings for news stories and as residents we are supporters of its efforts (the association is kind enough to support us through advertising). Why do we do it? Simple. Because we can and because we love our neighborhood. We started the paper as under-employed creative types in search of an outlet. We’re not business people. That hasn’t changed. Finally, we should note that The Commoner is only part of what we’re doing down here on Holyoke Street. We’re also raising a family and the editor has a full time job apart from the newspaper. We give the paper our full attention whenever we can, but that tends to be evenings and weekends and those odd moments when the children are quiet. So, apologies if we miss your call the first time. Or if we haven’t gotten to that story that you really want to read. Or if the paper has not yet arrived on your porch this month. Hold on, neighbor. It’s coming. We’re working on it. Promise. BARRY OWENS EDITOR
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER
FRESH ROAST COFFEE COMPANY
NE corner of Douglas at Clifton Mon. - Sat. 7am to 11:30 am 778-0846 www.freshroastcoffeecompany.com
VOLUME 6 ISSUE 1 DECEMBER 2010
PUBLISHER
J ESSICA F REY O WENS
EDITOR
B ARRY
OWENS
CONTRIBUTORS 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 ❚ DECEMBER 2010
A neighborhood eating & drinking establishment. All ages welcome.
Come as you are, but come often.
Open for lunch, dinner and last call. Watch the game (NFL, college, whatever is on) in the Underground Bloody Mary bar on Sundays 11-3 OPEN EVERY DAY 11AM-2AM. SUNDAYS 11-10
3700 E. DOUGLAS. IN CLIFTON SQUARE 686-5299
We can’t make this stuff up.
Call with your story suggestions: 689-8474
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ DECEMBER 2010
At John Browns: Abolitionists? No. Absolut? Yes. In Clifton Square, a new neighborhood pub opens its doors. B Y B A R RY OWENS The neighborhood has another restaurant and Clifton Square a new tenant. John Browns, a dining and drinking establishment, opens this month in the former Clifton Wine and Jazz space in the square at 3500 E. Douglas. Owner John Fitzthum says his hope is that the bar and restaurant will fill a niche in College Hill (which now looks ripe with local dining and drinking options) by offering a cozy neighborhood pub atmosphere. It also has a local feel, decorated with art created locally and black and white photographs on the wall depicting people and scenes from early Wichita. “The idea is to keep it local,” Fitzthum said. Fitzthum is a neighborhood native. He grew up near Kellogg and Oliver. He moved to Colorado where he attended Colorado State and went into business as a Subway franchise owner and real estate developer in the Veil area. He returned to Wichita to raise his family.
BARRY OWENS
“Veil is Hollywood,” he said. “We wanted to raise our kids the way that we were raised.” John Browns is open seven days a week, offering lunch, appetizers, soup, sandwiches, desserts and a full bar. Because it is primarily a restaurant, it is open to all ages. The restaurant will serve food until last call. “If you order at last call, you will get it to go,” Fitzthum said. Fitzthum is toying with the idea of offering takeout as well. “You could pull up on Victor Place, call us, and we’ll bring it out to you,” he said. “Curbside serv-
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ice.” About the restaurant’s iconic name … it’s not who you’re thinking. John Browns is not named for the famous Kansas abolitionist. John “Brown” is a nickname Fitzthum earned in college, he said, where he was known as the “last American Cleveland Browns fan.” “I became John Brown,” he said. “My wife was Julie Brown. My Dog was Jed Brown.” Fittingly, the basement level of John Browns is called the Underground. The downstairs lounge can be reserved for private parties but is otherwise open for patrons night and
Above: John Browns, a dining and drinking establishment, opens this month in Clifton Square. Owner John Fitzthum, left, says that the bar will offer a “cozy and quaint atmosphere” for neighbors to drop in for a before dinner drink, or after dinner dessert, or to while away an afternoon watching the game.
day. It is equipped with televisions for watching sports or whatever strikes your fancy. “There is always a game on, but we invite people to come down and turn it to the History Channel and have a glass of whiskey if they want,” Fitzthum said. The bar will also serve coffee made to order in a French press. Fitzthum said his hope is that John Browns can become a comfortable neighborhood hang out for all ages. “I want people here in the afternoon inking deals over a glass of scotch,” he said. “Or studying.”
5
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ DECEMBER 2010
Home Cooking Leads to Hot Selling Cookbook College Hill cook shares family recipes in ‘Nahima’s Hands’ BY BARRY OWENS Andrea Cassell says she did not set out to write a cookbook. She had only set out to write down her grandmother Nahima’s recipes following her passing last year at the age of 101. “I decided that I was going to recreate some of her recipes (that did not have measurements, by the way) and write them down as a legacy for my children,” Cassell said. So she did, in long hand, adding some of her own into the stack until enough had accumulated that she could, literally, fill a book. The result was “Nahima’s Hands,” a uniquely intimate cookbook that includes family photos along side family recipes. Aside from the recipes, Cassell also designed the book, including collages and hand painted graphics. She was explaining this the other day from her living room on North Crestway, where cartons of her book were stacked around the coffee table. It was the second run of the book following an initial run of 1,200 that quickly sold. The book is available at neighborhood stores, including Watermark Books, Eighth Day
Andrea Cassell in her College Hill kitchen. Cassell recently compiled her family recipes into a cookbook , “Nahima’s Hands,” which has become a surprising hot seller. BARRY OWENS
Books and Maxines. It is also available at www.nahimashands.com. “I think the thing that people are really responding to is how warm the book is,” Cassell said. “It’s not just about the idea of food, it’s about the idea of family.” Andrea’s Syrian grandmother, Nahima (Abouid) Albert, immigrated to the United States shortly after marrying in 1926. She and her husband owned and operated a corner grocery in Miami where young Andrea spent her days while her mother taught school. It was there, at
Nahima’s knee, that Andrea says she learned about hospitality and cooking. She includes many of the Mediterranean dishes that she learned from her grandmother in the book but says she took pains to make them simple. “It couldn’t be about cooking like it was back in the day when my grandmother would be cooking all day long,” Cassell said. Instead, she broke the recipes down into simple and inviting steps. Most are simply a list of ingredients followed by a
short paragraph of instructions. “I want people to read my book and say ‘this looks easy and I can create this without a lot of work and time for my family,’ ” she said. From soup and salads, to desserts and breads, to hummus and tabbouleh, to chicken dishes, slow cooker recipes and more, the book includes a wide range of Mediterranean fare. It also also includes wine pairings.But Cassell says she would be happy if readers took away just one lesson from the book. “I’m out to help people come back to the family, come back to the table,” she said.
ARTS
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚DECEMBER 2010
Local Novelist Finds Inspiration in College Hill BY BARRY OWENS The book is not about College Hill, but author Clare Vanderpool says local readers will recognize the neighborhood in her recently published novel “Moon Over Manifest.” The book, published by Random House, is a novel for young readers. It is a work of historical fiction, set in southeastern Kansas during the Depression era. But Vanderpool says she was inspired by the neighborhood and her life spent here. The spirit of such a familiar place informs the story. “You can find signs of it throughout the whole book,” she says. In fact, sharp-eyed readers might also recognize the neighborhood on the back cover. That is the bathhouse in the background of the author’s photo. “Moon Over Manifest” tells the story of Abilene Tucker, a young Depression era girl who explores a small Kansas town in hopes of learning more about its past, her father and herself. In many ways, it is a tale of an unrooted child seeking a place to call home. Abilene has spent most of her life on the road with her father, with no real place to call home. When he drops her off in Manifest for the summer while he works a railroad job, Abiliene learns for the first time about sense of place. Exploring a character’s life as an unrooted rolling stone appealed to Vanderpool, she said, once she contrasted it with her own happily rooted life here in the neighborhood. “Having lived most of my life in College Hill [she grew up on Vassar and now lives on English], place is very important and, for me, true places are rooted in the familiar— the neighborhood pool, the sledding hill, the shortcuts, the places where memories abound. But I wondered, what would a true place be for someone who has never lived anywhere for more then a few weeks or months at a time.” Manifest, the fictional setting of the book, is modeled after the small southeastern Kansas town of Frontenac. Her mother’s family is from the area. Vanderpool researched the town and the two eras in which the book is set – 1936 and 1918. “It didn’t really feel like research because it was interesting to me,” she said. “I’m a hugely nostalgic person.”
Life-long College Hill resident Clare Vanderpool, at left, recently published her first novel, “Moon Over Manifest.” The fictional town of Manifest is based on Frontenac, Kan., but Vanderpool said the inspiration for the book comes from growing up in College Hill. COURTESY PHOTO
As any parent or writer will tell you, it can be difficult to write with the children about. Vanderpool, a mother of four, said she found the time when she could—early mornings, nap times, while the children were at school. It took her 16 years to complete the novel. When she got the call from her agent, who asked if she was sitting down, she slipped outside onto the front porch for some privacy. When told that Random House wanted to publish her work, she said she got in the car and drove down the block “just to make sure that the conversation wasn’t interrupted by the kids.” The book was released in October and is available in the neighborhood at and Watermark Eighth Day Books. Though understandably thrilled to be published (the book has been well received by critics) Vanderpool remains grounded. “My life is the same,” she says, pointing out that one of the most rewarding aspects of her recent publication is that her children have now read her book. She’s traveled to New York a time or two for editing and business as well as hit a few book conventions out of state, but naturally returned to where it all began—back home in College Hill.
“True places are rooted in the familiar— the pool, the sledding hill, the shortcuts, the places where memories abound.”
Excerpt from “Moon over Manifest,” by Clare Vanderpool.
he air in Miss Sadie’s parlor was hot and thick. I thought sitting on one of those red velvety couches chockfull of fringy pillows was probably akin to suffocating. Still, I had to find my compass. I took a deep breath and ventured around the room. Suddenly, the double doors of the parlor whooshed open. A large fleshy woman stood before me in full regalia. Her eyes were all made up, earrings and bracelets jangling. The sign in the window said Miss Sadie was a medium. From the look of her, I’d say that was a bit wistful. The heavy red dress she wore brushed across the floor, tossing up dust as she hobbled to an ornate chair behind a round table. She seemed to have a bad leg and took some time squeezing herself between the arms of the chair. Thinking she hadn’t seen me, I turned to make a clean getaway. “Sit down,” she said her voice thick and savory, like goulash. She put her hands flat on the table. “Let us see if today the spirits are willing to speak.” Suddenly, it became clear. A diviner. A Medium. This woman was a fortuneteller and a spirit conjurer. If you believed in that sort of thing. I stood near the front door. “I’m not here for—” “Silence!” She held out a hand, motioning me to the chair across from her. I sat.
T
She slid a cigar box across the table. I almost told her, “No thank you,” but then I saw a little slot cut into the lid. Now, I didn’t usually have two coins to rub together, and when I did, I was real slow to part with them. But if this was the only way to get my compass back, I guessed I’d have to go along with it. I dropped in a dime. Miss Sadie peered inside the box and slid it back to me. She tapped her fingers on the table. “Today is hot. The spirits are reluctant.” I wondered if her divining abilities allowed her to see the other coin in my pocket. I might be wanton enough to risk eternal damnation on Miss Sadie’s spiritualism, but I’d be hung if I’d waste another dime. “You can tell the spirits it ain’t getting any cooler.” I pushed that cigar box back. She heaved a sigh so heavy it might’ve been mistaken for a dying breath. “Very well. What is it you want? Your fortune? Your future?” I squirmed, not knowing what to say. She peered at me hard and asked again. “What do you seek?” Maybe it was the way she studied me so hard that made me feel like she could see right through me to the brocade wallpaper behind me. I didn’t know what made me say what I said next, and I wasn’t quite sure what I meant by it. It just came out. “I’m looking for my daddy.”
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ✺DECEMBER 2010
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HISTORY
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ DECEMBER 2010
North Hall towered over Winfield’s “College Hill” from 1887 to 1950, when it was razed for being in poor repair. It could have towered over Wichita’s College Hill.
PHOTO: FROM THE AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
COLLEGE (C)HILL The campus that never made it to College Hill and the chill that quickly set in. BY JEFF A . ROTH In the summer of 1884 surveyors were taking measurements amid the ripening corn fields on the hill east of town. The wagon path reaching out from Chisholm Creek would soon be graded as the eastward extension of Wichita’s Douglas Avenue (nearby farmers having acquiesced to the opening of the 80’ wide road through their hedges). Land owners and realtors alike speculated about news that September of a college to be built on
the rising slope. A newly platted addition, filed on September 30, 1884, was the first official mention of the name, College Hill. But the recruitment of a college would involve competition with other Kansas communities vying for the same economic benefit and cultural symbol, all touting their respective advantages and “inducements.” The final decision was followed with recrimination by some, relief by others, and servings of sour grapes in the local papers.
A sign points toward Southwestern College in Winfield. Had things worked out differently, a similar sign today would point travelers to the campus in College Hill.
South Central Kansas was “all ears” the following spring when the Methodist Episcopal Church officially announced its intention to locate a college (or seminary), somewhere in the region then considered “southwest” but central to the Methodist’s four conferences in Kansas. The name proposed for the institution was Central University. The towns of Newton, Eldorado, Wellington, Winfield and Wichita began to assess their chances to land the school. Locally, Rev. Dr. D.W. Phillips was successful in convinc-
ing M.R. Moser, James Haward, A.C. Payne and Samuel Deenan on Wichita’s eastern slope to organize their College Hill Addition to feature a rectangular 15 acre park, aptly named College Park, to offer to the Methodists for their college campus. It was squarely situated over the half section line where Douglas Avenue would otherwise be graded, bounded by the streets of Park Avenue (Rutan) to the west and East Park (Yale) to the east. The natural beauty of the site, plus the support of such a large and centrally located city as Wichita bode well for the College Hill site. Optimism reigned supreme. Early on prominent real estate brokers of the day, the Stites Brothers, jumped the gun and advertised, “Choice 2 1/2 acre lots in the College Hill Addition…near the park and seminary.” The trustees of the Methodist Church appointed their “location committee” who in turn announced the minimum requirements they would consider. These were euphemistically called “offers of aid.” The competing communities would CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ DECEMBER 2010
HISTORY
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COLLEGE (C)HILL CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
have to come up with no less than 20 acres of land for the school, at least $15,000 in cash, plus whatever else that would distinguish their proposal. Additionally, the committee’s travel expenses would have to be paid by those communities wanting to be visited, reviewed and considered. An alarm went up among some of Wichita’s civic leaders that prompt and unified action would have to be taken to raise sufficient cash to accompany the naturally desirable site being offered. Throughout Wichita, however, there wasn’t a unanimous desire for a college for the hill, some viewing the recruitment of commerce and manufacturing to be better investments. “I wouldn’t give a tinker’s anathema to make this a college town,” opined one critic. The day of reckoning arrived May 12, 1885. Delegations from Winfield, Newton, Harper, El Dorado, Hutchinson and Wichita presented their offers of land, cash, pledges and other inducements. Hutchinson offered, in addition to land and cash, a “cabinet of minerals valued at $4,000.” Wichita’s proposal was presented by J.C. Rutan whose home at the northwest corner of Douglas and Park Street would be a stone’s throw from the college campus and directly across from the proposed the trolley loop. He presented the College Hill backers’ package of incentives: 20 acres of land and $15,000; the latter ante being upped to $30,000 during the proceedings. But Wichita was trumped by the town of Winfield which offered $40,000, 20 acres of land, a promised $20,000 annuity, and all the free limestone required to build the building. The Wichita Beacon observed dryly, “Winfield having the longest pole gets the persimmon.” In the aggregate, the competing towns had pledged $275,000 for the proposed Southwest Methodist school, bids seen by some to be entirely out of proportion with the value of such a school. The Eagle decried the “auction style of the disposing of the matters,” It carped that the Methodists had lost sight of College Hill’s natural advantages and were distracted by the lucre in the game. In one of its harshest indictments it stated, “Nobody but a body of preachers destitute of business ideas would have made such a mistake.” In the heat of the moment the Eagle’s editor Marshall Murdock took a swipe at one of their previous Kansas colleges, Blue Mount, calling it a “failure” since the Methodists had giving it up to the state in 1863. It was turned it into an agricultural school, today’s Kansas State University. Subsequent editorials carried a sour grapes theme: that Wichita’s leading spirits were, after all, relieved that the college would be located elsewhere
“Nobody but a body of preachers destitute of business ideas would have made such a mistake.”
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
The following paradoy song was published in The Eagle in June of 1885. It skewered College Hill by parodying a song from the popular Broadway musical “Cold Day When We Get Left.”
‘COLLEGE (C)HILL’ A SONG. BY POLAR WAVE. Tune: “A cold day when we get left.” Brilliant and round rose the full-orbed moon, On a warm summer’s night, in the early June; And with radiant rays of silvery light, Was the emerald landscape all benight. Looming up to the east of this city of mud, Serenely beyond the Chisholm’s1 dark flood, Where the waters in tumult roll down from the mill 2, Stood the mountain of knowledge men called “College Hill.” Its fame has spread far and its name was known wide, And many a Wichitan pointed with pride, To the high-rising walls of the temple of learning, That already this eminence proud were adorning 3. And the deep, sacred soil that covered this hill, Had been bisected, cut up, and divided, until Each lamb of the flock 4, that abjures worldly pelt, Had a small little slice, “all alone to himself.” And the soft moon rose high, and high up in the sky, And the breezes of midnight gently whispered a sigh, For a conclave of preachers, assembled in state, Were preparing an edict for College Hill’s fate. The sun brightly rose, as ever before, But College Hill smiled in his glances no more: The preachers, ere morn, had “sat down”
upon it, And sunk it beneath the reach of a plummet. When the fiat went forth that leveled the hill, It came to the flock like a dumb-ague 5 chill; And some of the brethren were taken so sick, They squandered a quarter to ride home in a hack 6 ! When asked by their friends what made them so ill, They replied with a chatter and gasp, College (c)hill! Today, as you wander the city about, If you don’t wish your sanity taken in doubt, When asked by a stranger about College Hill, Point downward and tell him to go to--the deal! LATER. The deacon 7 is happy and his visage is up, Revealing a face shining like a tin cup, For the word comes from Winfield this evening by mail That an elephant there, is held by the tail, And they’ll gladly let go, if the people here still, Will take him to graze on our own College Hill. FOOTNOTES 1
Today’s Canal Route. The water mill, namesake for Hydraulic at 1st Street. 3 Schools other than Wichita University to the south 1886 and Fairmount to the north 1887(?). 4 Christians, real estate investors including among others, Presbyterians A.A. Hyde and Hiram Lewis. 5 Archaic term for a fever believed to be caused by stagnant air. 6 A depot wagon (and taxi cab predecessor) available for hire from any number of liveries in town. 7 Dr. Phillips, the original promoter of the College Hill college prospect. 2
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ DECEMBER 2010
COLLEGE (C)HILL A July 1887 map of Wichita still depicts the park in the middle of Douglas Avenue, street car line to its center. “Central University” was listed in the map’s margin of college projects still pending in 1887.
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
and that they would be relieved of the burdens it inevitably would have brought. Winfield was sarcastically congratulated by the Eagle editor for having “captured the elephant.” The real estate promoters of College Hill however did not entirely give up the prospect of a college in their midst. They still saw a college as a draw not a hindrance to home lots sales. For the next two years they courted the Presbyterians to come to College Hill, but the latter ultimately declined the opportunity, content to build a preparatory school instead, Lewis Academy at Market and 3rd street, no longer extant today. During the hot days of the summer of 1885 there were amusements to distract one from the bad news in the papers. The Rink Bijou Theater troupe arranged to present (in a recently converted roller skating rink) a popular comedy and musical show which was contemporaneously playing in Boston and New York entitled, “Cold Day When We Get Left.” Eastern reviews gave it high marks. Playbills declared, “You will laugh with all your might.” Local retail advertisers got on the bandwagon with ad copy such as: We Never Have a COLD DAY At Innes & Ross Our Customers NEVER GET LEFT It Pays to Trade AT Innes & Ross Appearing
resigned
to
the
MAP: FROM THE AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
Methodists’ decision, the writers at the Eagle had fun with a parody of the show’s lyrics and poked fun about the college debacle, inferring buyer’s remorse. The parody from the play was published under a pseudonym on June 17, 1885 [See parody on previous page]. Winfield citizens read the poem in the Eagle and their editor responded in kind: “We sympathize with the “Deacon” in his afflictions, but must inform him that Winfield likes
the elephant and will hold on to him. He will graze on the Winfield “College Hill” where the feed is so much better than in the “Deacon’s” pasture. Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 25, 1885. As if to rub salt in an open wound, the school’s building committee ran ads in the Wichita Eagle a few months later soliciting sealed bids from local contractors for the construction of Winfield’s new college building. The resulting edifice was Southwestern College’s North Hall, opened in 1887 (and used until 1949, it’s demolition undertaken in 1950 after having been declared unsafe by the State Fire Marshall). In the wake of the failed college and real estate development gambit, further yet less elaborate effort to promote the hill bears mentioning.
One that stands out involved the newly platted Frisco Heights Addition north of Central Avenue, part of pioneer A.J. Cook’s farm (Wesley Medical Center and northward). Its incorporators, A.A. Hyde, George C. Strong and Hiram Lewis were determined to capitalize on the picturesque “…crest of a gentle eminence commanding a magnificent view of the city…” They constructed an observatory tower 40’ high upon the highest point of Cook’s Hill and equipped it with George Strong’s telescope. The tower sported a flag pole flying the “national banner.” It was claimed that from the “grand tower” Goddard could be discerned and Clearwater was clearly visible with the aid of Mr. Strong’s telescope. “Central University,” the college that was hoped for College Hill, remained a concept in print for a few more years, still being mentioned on maps “booming” Wichita as late as July, 1887 (although the specific location for the college was left unstated). Advantages and incentives were still being tried during the last of the boom years to get a school or church built in “College Park.” However by 1887 the darkening specter of Wichita’s real estate crash was looming and the vision of College Hill’s own college amidst the streets of Vassar, Yale and Holyoke was forever extinguished.
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ DECEMBER 2010
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