The Elks Club. Emporia, Kansas
Cody came across this postcard. He asked me: “where was this?” (Click to enlarge.)
I had no idea.
I did love the decoration of the club. Those gas/electric chandeliers! The table in the foreground! The patterned wallpapers! I was also interested in the brightly lighted area to the right. An atrium?
My curiosity aroused, I contacted my friend Steve, who was born and raised in Emporia, and is omniscience with regards to the history of the city. Obviously, I adore him!
He replied to my inquiry: “The original building was extensively remodeled and enlarged to three floors in 1926. It was damaged by fire in 1950. That corner has always been a parking lot during my lifetime. The Elks moved to the second floor of the newly completed Gazette Building at 517 Merchant in November 1910.”
You can appreciate my adoration.
The corner, today. It is hard to process that beauty once existed here.
The building as shown on an 1899 Sanborn Insurance Map. The big Xs indicate stables. Yellow indicates a frame building; pink is brick. The section of building on the bottom is 1-story (see the 1, upper right).
1911 Sanborn. The corner structure is now 2-stories, and has a ‘lodge hall’ on the second floor. And…pool? I am fascinated by the “Air Dome” to the left.
1923 Sanborn. The second-floor lodge is now an armory, the stables are now a furniture warehouse, the frame middle section is now brick, and a garage replaces the Air Dome.
I have driven past this forlorn corner a million times. Yet, all of a sudden, I see it differently. It is no longer just a parking lot. If I squint my eyes and still my soul, layers of history are revealed, and I can clearly see…
…beauty again.
4 Comments
Leave a Comment
Your email address will NEVER be made public or shared, and you may use a screen name if you wish.
Beautiful! The Sanborn map shows a skylight so perhaps that’s the brightly lit area in the old photo.
Also, air domes, who knew that was a thing? With a quick Google search I came up with a few old pics (not of Emporia)
https://www.kshs.org/index.php?url=km/items/view/224698
https://www.facebook.com/OurSt.LouisHiSTORY/photos/pcb.939685709707378/939685033040779/?type=3&source=48
Melts my heart. But this is America – tear down the old and ornate and put up new ugly Thank goodness for people like you Ross 🙂
That is so cool, the wallpapers, lighting and antique furniture. Oh to go back in time to see it all in person. A shame the building was destroyed by fire and replaced with, what else a parking lot. Like the Fifth Dimension song from 1973-Ashes to Ashes.
That corner was the telephone office before it was a parking lot. This and other history of Emporia can be found at the Lyon County History Center at 711 Commercial.