Five Kansas properties nominated for national historic register

Five Kansas sites have been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places by the Kansas Historic Sites Board of Review.

Properties include a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired house, historic apartments, a limestone rock culvert, a farm and some prehistoric sites in Riley County.

Currently, Kansas has more than 1,300 listings on the National Register of Historic Places, the nation’s list of historically significant properties.

To be eligible for listing, buildings must meet certain criteria, including age, integrity and significance. Properties must be at least 50 years old to be considered. They can be eligible if they are associated with significant events or people.

While the historic designation can bring prestige to a property, it can also bring money, specifically tax credits for improvement. Owners of historically designated properties can receive up to 25 percent of their improvement investment back as state tax credit.

The nominations were made during the board’s Nov. 7 meeting.

The nominees are:

▪ The Beal House, 1624 Indiana St. in Lawrence, was nominated as a local example of Usonian architecture. University of Kansas architecture professor George Malcolm Beal used famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian design principles on the house’s roof and calculated site-specific sun angles to take advantage of solar gain in winter and shade in summer. Beal helped shift the design of KU’s architecture program from classical to modern. The house also was the residence of Betty Jo Charlton, the first female legislator from Lawrence, who served from 1979 to 1994.

▪ Senate & Curtis Court Apartments Historic District, 900-914 SW Tyler St., Topeka, are Tudor Revival-style apartments. The multifamily residential building was designed by prominent female architect Nelle Nichols Peters. For the first two decades of the 20th century, Peters was actively designing buildings not only in Kansas but also throughout the nation. In a profession largely dominated by men, Peters built apartment complexes, houses, churches, office buildings and hotels. The period of significance for the Topeka apartments is 1928 through 1930.

▪ East Badger Creek Culvert, 182nd Road near Winfield in Cowley County. The stone culvert, constructed in 1905 and 1906, was nominated for its masonry arch significance. Because of its size, the culvert was not included on a statewide survey of stone bridges conducted by the Kansas Department of Transportation during the early 1980s. Built primarily by artisans from about 1890 to 1917, the stone bridges and culverts were assembled without cranes or the heavy construction equipment that crews use today. With only horses and men, each 800- to 1,000-pound stone was placed.

▪ Woodland Place Stock Farm, 180 Hickory Road, Courtland vicinity, Republic County. The farm was nominated for its significance with historic agriculture. The barn was built in the Midwest Prairie style.

▪ Prehistoric sites of Wildcat Creek Watershed, Riley County. The watershed spans 99.5 square miles and offers archaeologists a glimpse of the past 13,000 years on the Great Plains. Numerous archaeological sites are in the area.

During the November meeting, the Kansas Historic Sites board of review also voted to list one property on the state historic register and remove two from both registers.

▪ Colorado-Derby Building, 201 N. Water, Wichita, was added to the Register of Historic Kansas Places. The nine-story building is an example of the Modern Movement as a mid-20th-century building.

Two properties removed from the national register include:

▪ Highland Water Tower, 108 N. Genessee St., Highland, Doniphan County. The tower was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 but was dismantled this past summer.

▪ George W. Young Barn, 14704 91st Road, Winfield vicinity, Cowley County. The 1881 stone barn was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997 but, in 2005, was destroyed by fire, leaving only the four walls standing. The ruins were incorporated into a new structure within the past 10 years, disqualifying it.

This story was originally published November 15, 2015 at 9:19 PM with the headline "Five Kansas properties nominated for national historic register."