Tag Archives: University of Missouri

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See inside 315 N. Tenth St., a 1882 Italianate historic home

Everyone loves to take a peek inside someone’s house. Here’s your opportunity to take a look inside an 1882 Italianate-style home in Columbia, Missouri.

This house at 315 N. Tenth St., was once the home of Samuel H. and Isabel Smith Elkins. Today, it houses Village Glass works.

That’s why you can get this online peek inside. Here’s a link to a March 11, 2011 slide-show published in the University of Missouri student paper, The Maneater. The slide show is of photographs taken by Peter Yankowsky and it shows the home owner, Susan Fiegel, working with glass. You can take a tour of the house in person by visiting during business hours.


http://www.themaneater.com/slideshows/2011/3/11/114/

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Historic buildings uses, owners change

The Missouri Theatre opened in 1928 and initially performances included music, a newsreel, cartoon, dancing and a feature film.

Then, over the years, the theatre’s functions changed, featuring only films for a time, then it nearly faced destruction in the 1980s.

This Sept. 11, 2011 article in the Columbia Daily Tribune outlines the many changes of the theatre and its owners.

From 1928 until today, the Missouri Theatre has had many owners as well. When it was named to the National Register of Historic Places, the building was owned by Shirley Stone Cox, according to the nomination form, which outlines the buildings notable features.

Now, the Missouri Theatre is leased by the University of Missouri-Columbia, with an option to purchase it at the end of the three-year lease agreement.

While historic buildings remain, their uses change with the times, but in this case, it seems the use will return to its multiple uses of its origins and its most recent use of a venue for performances, films and music, no longer just a movie theatre, its use from 1953-1983.

 

 

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Missouri Theatre to be leased by University of Missouri-Columbia

Deb Sheals, a historic preservation consultant, said it best: Saving a historic building requires putting it to work.

Now, the Missouri Theatre will be put to work by the University of Missouri. This article by the Columbia Daily Tribune notes that the manager of MU’s Jesse Hall plans to put the Missouri Theatre to work. He notes in the article that he often turns away performances and now MU will have another venue.

This is great news, as the Missouri Theatre has struggled under the cloud of debt, federal tax credits and changing management.

The theatre began life in 1928. In 1953, it was leased to Commonwealth and operated as a movie theater until 1987. It was then purchased by the Missouri Symphony Society and renovated in 2006. For more information on the history of theaters in Columbia, see this June 25, 2010 article published in the Columbia Business Times.

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Industrial development redux

It is interesting to see how history repeats itself. Once again, those in charge of Columbia’s economic development are casting their eyes toward ways to bring more industrial development to the city.

That’s old news. “In 1873 the city government believed that Columbia ‘should give every possible encouragement toward fostering a spirit of manufacturing industris, offered tax advantages to new industry,” according to “Columbia: From Southern Village to Midwestern City,” by Alan R. Havig.

In 1906-1907, Columbia raised funds “to build a plant, provide a railroad siding and supply low-cost utilities and workers,” according to Havig’s book. The plant was the Hamilton-Brown Shoe Factory, which still exists, although today it is an office building.

Hamilton-Brown operated the shoe factory until 1939 and in between, the city authorities decided the company had met its side of the agreement, despite it employment of just a little more than half the 600 workers it had promised, and deeded the building to Hamilton-Brown.

However, the number of workers at Hamilton-Brown was significant, with 340 people on its payroll, compared to the 350 peopel employed at University of Missouri at the same time.

In May 2010, IBM announced it would open a technology service delivery center in Columbia, saying it would employ roughly 800 workers. According to a May 17, 2010 article in the Columbia Tribune, the incentive package to IBM includes buying the building where the company will do business and then leasing it to them for $1 a year for 15 years.

In contrast, today the University of Missouri employs more than 8,000 people, which does not include the University Hospital and Clinics employees.

So is luring employers to Columbia a good idea? I don’t know, but I know it’s not a new idea.

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Oct. 11, 2010 event to highlight J.W. “Blind” Boone Home

A scale model of a proposed statue of J.W. “Blind” Boone, an early jazz and ragtime musician, will be unveiled at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 11 at the Reynolds Alumni Center at the University of Missouri.

Tickets to the reception are available by contacting Terra Crane at TKCrane@gocolumbiamo.com.

But you can see a historic view of the house at 10 N. Fourth St., by going to this website at blindboonehome.com/history/ The website includes information on Boone as well as photographs of the home and Boone playing the piano inside the home.

The proposed statue will depict Boone at the piano. It is to be installed in a Tribute Garden to be developed on the grounds of the home where he lived from 1889 until his death in 1927.

 The statue by Harry Weber was commissioned by the John William Boone Heritage Foundation, which is headed up by Clyde Ruffin, professor and chair of the Department of Theater at University of Missouri and pastor of Second Missionary Baptist Church.

Contributions for the statue and garden are being accepted at the website.

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Built by a cabinet maker’s apprentice – Taylor House – 716 W. Broadway

If you’ve driven past the Taylor House Inn at 716 W. Broadway, you’ve driven by a piece of history nearly forgotten today.

No, it’s not contained in the 1909 Colonial Revival home itself, although that is impressive, especially after its $1.3 million renovation in 1999 by Deborah and Robert Tucker.

It is the fact that this two and one-half story home of roughly 7,000 square feet was built by a man who attended school only through the age of 12, when he was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker. Today, the age of being apprenticed to someone is long gone.

The story of John Newton Taylor and his wife Elizabeth F. Reed of Huntsville is told in the National Register of Historic Places. The home was placed on the Register on May 25, 2001 and named to Columbia’s Historical Preservation Commission’s List of Notable Properties in 2002.

716 W. Broadway, Taylor House, photograph courtesy of Columbia's Historic Preservation Commission and FitzImages Photography

716 W. Broadway, Taylor House, photograph courtesy of Columbia's Historic Preservation Commission and FitzImages Photography

Born in Pennsylvania, John Taylor  moved to Iowa and worked as a cabinet-maker. There he married Lida Stroup and they moved to Huntsville in Randolph County, Missouri. They went on to have four children, but she died in 1886 and he married Huntsville, native Elizabeth F. Reed in 1890. They went on to have seven children.

The Taylors built their house in 1909. John Taylor had piano and furniture stores in several mid-Missouri towns, including Columbia and gradually he went into the automobile business, even acquiring the local Dodge dealership before the car was even on the market, according to the NRHP nomination form. In 1917, Taylor ran an ad in the Boone County Atlas proclaiming himself a wholesale and retail dealer in pianos and automobiles, the document notes.

Taylor also served on the board of directors for the Columbia Commercial Club, the nomination form notes, and the Taylor House Inn website states he was on the Columbia City Council and the Stephens College Board of Directors.

By his death in 1932 at age 83, he was a prominent businessman. His obituary was printed on the front page of the local newspaper with a photograph, the nomination form states, and the mayor and city council all attended. City employees were even given time off for the funeral, the document continues — noting his son Thomas Taylor was a city councilman at the time.

More information on the history of the Taylors, including photographs, is available on the Taylor Home Inn website.

After his death, wife Elizabeth continued to live in the house with her daughter Eleanor, who was then an assistant professor at the University of Missouri. In 1935, Elizabeth had the house divided into a tri-plex and continued to live in the home. Elizabeth also developed the surrounding acreage.

As the years passed, the house passed out of the Taylor family and fell into some disrepair.

Then, in 1999, Deborah and Robert Tucker, then owners of Tucker’s Jewelry, renovated the home, converting it into a beautiful bed and breakfast. You can take a tour of the home as it is today via the Taylor Home Inn website.

The home also has been featured on HGTV, and the video highlights the home, its renovation and historical finds the Tuckers came upon.

The home was also featured in a January 13, 2010 Columbia Missourian article on an effort to have a section of West Broadway placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

All this in a home built by someone who only attended school through the age of 12 and then went on to become a cabinet-maker. Yes, historical homes do tell us about who were were and, in this case, with his automobile business, where we went.