The Disappearing Corner Lots

“Other than dreams of immortality nerve many a pioneer to make the fight for his rival site for the seat of government of a state, or of a county, or for a railroad station. It is a dream of corner lots, of speculation, of bonds and mortgages, and deeds and commissions, and sudden wealth.”

C.H. Gere (1886)

 

With the above words Mr. Charles H. Gere opened his January 12, 1886 presentation to the Nebraska State Historical Society entitled “The Capital Question in Nebraska, and the Location of the Seat of Government in Lincoln”. He plainly stated the real estate advantages of winning such a competition, but he also acknowledged the symbolism of the corner lot in those days.

One “fight” for a county seat that wasn’t successful was Elvia in Merrick County. The county and it’s would be seat of government was named in honor of the wife of Henry De Pay, the Speaker of the Nebraska House of Representatives. Her maiden name was Elvira Merrick. No one is quite sure of the pro[osed location of the town, but it was reported to be “beautifully located upon a paper in the office of Dr. Henry, of Omaha, and supposed by the fortunate possessor of corner lots, to be about two miles southwest of the present town of Clark's, the old military road.”  

There wasn’t a fight for the seat of York County government. Dispassionately located at the geographical center of the county, the town was platted with uniform lots surrounded by streets running at right angles. The plat was recorded at the courthouse in Seward and soon the selling of corner lots had begun.

In 1878 William Knapp bought a double corner lot at the corner of 6^th and Iowa, legally lots 4 and 5 of Block 53, from the South Platte Land Company for $90. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad had used the South Platte Land Company to build towns along their right of way. As was usual in the early history of prairie towns, Mr. Knapp used the lots as an investment rather than as a building site. The Knapp family resold the lots three years later at a 650% mark up.

Artemus and Edith Ward built the first house on the property in about 1885. Mr. Ward was assistant cashier at Nebraska National Bank. The Ward’s new address was 419 E. 6^th. The house had a wraparound porch which faced the neighborhood that climbed East Hill. By 1899 there was a 1 ½ storey stable and three other out buildings behind house. While it was probably a modest home it was enhanced by sitting back on a large corner lot.

The Ward house was replaced in 1900 by Andrew and Vesta Wilkens. The new house was a one storey Victorian cottage. Again the house set back on the corner lot with a two storey stable on the alley behind the house. A rounded porch looked up East Hill. The porch was mimicked by a large rounded window near the front entrance. The front entrance was under a square tower. Those three features were complimented by other Victorian ornamentation.  This information is knowable because the house still exists. If you are thinking there is no Victorian cottage at the corner on 6^th and Iowa read further.

Charles and May Schrandt were the last to live on this large corner lot. Mr. Schrandt was Vice-President of the Farmers National Bank, but by 1915 their family had relocated to Long Beach, California. In 1916 they sold the property to George Shreck who was the York Postmaster and the President of York Gas and Electric Company. He didn’t buy the house at 419 E. 6^th as a home, he bought it as an investment. He had earlier been in the business of real estate, loans and insurance.  Like early town builders his dream of corner lots were “of speculation, of bonds and mortgages, and deeds and commissions, and sudden wealth.” Well, probably not sudden wealth, but rather a good profit on his investment.

George Shreck subdivided the two lots creating three small and irregular building sites. He moved the Victorian cottage back away from the corner. Its address became 609 Iowa. With the move the rounded porch was replaced by one which was square, but the other Victorian features survived. Shreck was then able to sell two building sites that faced 6^th Street.

In 1917 George Shreck sold the building site closest to the alley for $1500. To allow the new owner to build a garage behind the proposed house, Shreck sold a parcel with the following very convoluted legal description.

                A part of lots Nos. Four (4) and Five (5) in Block No. Fifty three (53) in the

original town, now city of York. More particularly described as follows…

                                Beginning at the southwest corner of said Lot No, Five (5) and

running thence north along  the west line of said lots Ninety feet; thence

east parallel with the north line of said Lot No. Four (4) forty feet, thence

south parallel with the west line of said lot twenty feet; thence east parallel

with the north line of said lot fifteen feet; thence south parallel with the

west line of said lots seventy feet to the south line of said Lot No. Five (5),

thence west along said south line fifty five feet to the southwest corner of

said Lot No. Five (5) and place of beginning.

 

With that the concept of uniform lots came to an end at the corner of 6^th and Iowa. The irregular lot was sold to a William Collett who was involved in real estate. He never lived in the house, but rather built a house and a detached garage with the intention of selling it. The first occupant of the home at 421 E. 6^th was a widow named Ella Gross.  When Mrs. Gross bought the house in the spring of 1918 someone in the County Clerk office had to again hand copy the above real estate description into a deed record book.

The now much smaller corner lot was sold to Earl Dean. Of the two lots facing 6^th Street, Mr.  Dean paid $600 more for his smaller lot indicating that corner lots still had a certain appeal. On May 9, 1918 the York Daily News-Times reported that Dean had begun the construction of “a modern bungalow”. It was described as having “some decidedly modern features with sleeping rooms on the roof of the building.” The sleeping rooms were under what is called a monitor roof, which is a raised structure running along the ridge of a house, with its own roof running parallel to the main roof. The rooms were probably intended to serve the same purpose as the sleeping porches described previously in this series.

 

                                                 

                                         Earl Dean house at the corner of 6th and Iowa

 

 

The following year Mr. Schrenck sold the Victorian cottage that he had relocated to Ed St. Martin. With that sale Schrenck completed his redevelopment project at the corner of 6^th and Iowa. He had resold the property for $3000 more than he had originally paid. That is $47,175 when adjusted for inflation. Even subtracting the cost of moving the Victorian cottage, plus interest and paperwork costs it is likely that George Shrenck “speculation” paid off.

 

 

Victorian Cottage which formerly sat at the corner of 6th and Iowa



In 1919 the other three corners of the intersection of 6^th and Iowa still had homes on double corner lots. Today only the northeast corner would be described as a grand corner lot. One lot off of 6^th Street on the other two corners now sit circa 1930 Tutor style homes.

                                                                        

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At the corner of 4^th and East, near St. Joseph’s Catholic Church the same type of redevelopment also occurred. A double corner lot with one house was replaced by four houses. But here the story is best told when it highlights the career of a York builder whose work can be seen all over York. That man is Ora Clark.

 

The home at 408 East Avenue was in decline by 1919. The house had sold for $3,900 in 1889, but by 1919 sold for just $1,800 when purchased by Ora Clark. The house was razed and eventually replaced by four new houses. The first house built was a bungalow on the corner and numbered 403 East Avenue. That house was purchased from Ora Clark in March of 1921. It was followed by the construction of two smaller bungalows built on the adjacent lot. Those houses sold in 1923 and 1924 and were numbered 409 and 413 East Avenue. Eventually a one and a half storey house was built facing 4^th Street and numbered 517 4^th Street. The bungalows represent some of Ora Clark’s earliest work in York.

 

Ora Clark was the son of a contractor working in the Taylor and Burwell, Nebraska area. At the age of eighteen he began working for his father. Ora relocated to York in 1918. With that he continued to build on a career that lasted 65 years.   Mr. Clark went from redeveloping a corner lot in 1919 to platting new subdivisions during the post-World War II building boom.

 

Ora Clark as a Young Man

 

A 1951 York Daily News-Times profile said that “a Sunday afternoon drive around the city of York is like flipping through an itemized account of [Ora’s] major undertakings.” At that time he had already built 125 homes in York. That number continued to grow over the next fourteen years, with his Arbor Heights, Arbor Court and Country Club Heights developments.

If you live in a 20’s bungalow, a 30’s Tudor or a midcentury modern, a “Sunday afternoon drive” probably won’t be necessary. A check of your abstract will very likely reveal that you are living in an Ora Clark home. The early deeds will also carry the name of his wife Nolah. Those deeds provide a form of the immortality that C.H. Gere said fuel the dreams of pioneer town builders.

 

Ora and Nolah Clark

 

The use of double corner lots by more than one redeveloper probably had to do with access to existing infrastructure. That is illustrated by a caveat included in selling the Victorian cottage which once dominate the northwest corner of 6^th and Iowa. The legal record stated “this deed is made subject to sanitary sewer right of way as now located.” One would think that being moved from the front and center location of a corner lot to the back yard that once housed the privy would be insult enough. 

 

 

 

The Sleeping Porches of York

In April of 1912 the York Daily News carried a story about York County Surveyor Anson Codding’s construction of “a sleeping porch on the west roof of his home at 909 Iowa Ave”.  An unnamed doctor was quoted as saying “It’s a great thing as far as health conditions are concerned.” Mr. Codding and a few other residents of York were joining an early 20^th century building trend that was an attempt to deal with a health issue that concerned many Americans. However, the articles sub headline reported that “the fad has not become popular in this city”.

According to Mortality Statistics-1905, a report prepared by the then Department of Commerce and Labor, between 1900 and 1904 pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) killed 172 of every 100,000 U.S. residents. The respiratory disease thrived in urban areas where poorly nourished people mixed freely with their infected neighbors in overcrowded housing. Among the leading causes of death, tuberculosis ranked second only to influenza

While a large percentage of those who died of TB in those years were residents of urban areas; rural America was affected also.  Nationwide 130 of every 100,000 died of TB in rural areas, with Midwest numbers being somewhat lower. For instance, Omaha experienced TB deaths at a rate of 108 per 100.000. Still alarming, but much lower than the national average.

At the time the medical community was prescribing sleeping in fresh air as a preventative measure in the fight against the tuberculosis epidemic. A New Jersey doctor condensed the thinking of the time into a short article in the April 1917 Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey. In his article about sleeping in a well-ventilated room, Dr. McClay asked; “Why not by open air sleeping prevent nearly all tubercular disease and thus practically eliminate the disease.” He conclude with; “Good health, good appetite, rosy complexion, and freedom from disease of the bronchial mucous membrane rest on proper sleeping in a constantly refreshed atmosphere.”

A “constantly refreshed atmosphere” in the age prior to air conditioning was provided by a sleeping porch. These porches were commonly placed on the second floor to provide for a secluded place for sleeping. They were ideally placed on the side of the house where they were most apt to catch a breeze. They captured the breeze through screened windows on two or three sides of the porch.

In the older neighborhoods of York one can find numerous examples of this natural approach to prevention of a dreaded disease. Some are integral to the original design of the house, while others were obviously added later. Some of the later additions seem to cling precariously to the roof of a preexisting porch.

An example of a sleeping porch that was built as part of the original construction of a home can be found at 613 East 6^th Street. Fred and Hannah Van Wickle built their home sometime between 1911 and 1915. At that time Fred Van Wickle was running a grain and lumber company at the corner of 4^th and Lincoln Avenue. As the accompanying photo shows the porch, which is over a driveway, is accessed from the second floor. Windows on the north, east and south allowed fresh air to flow through the room.  

 

It is not known how well the porch addressed the Van Wickle’s physical health, however their financial health faltered and the home was foreclosed on by the First National Bank in 1925.

An example of a sleeping porch that was a later addition can be found at 424 Nebraska Avenue. The home was built around the turn of the 20^th century.  A retired farmer named Martin Price purchased the home in 1917.  Price had moved to town from his farm located on the southeast edge of the city.

It was most likely Price who added the home’s wrap around front porch and built a sleeping porch above the existing back porch. The sleeping porch has windows facing north, east and south. According to Sanborn Fire Maps both porches were built sometime between 1915 and 1922. 

Private homes were not the only buildings with sleeping porches. A local history, York County, Nebraska and Its People, engaged in a bit of boosterism as it described the McCloud Hotel which was built in 1917. The author Theron E. Sedgwick writes; “The hotel has something unique in the way of sleeping porches. No other hotel in Nebraska has looked after the comfort and the housing of guest better than the McCloud Hotel.” The porches can be seen on west side of the top floor of the current Towne House building.

The McCloud Hotel sleeping porches were an elaborate example of a lodging promotion used by others offering public accomodations. Mrs. Cox’s Home Boarding House at 323 W. 6^th Street advertised “Good Airy Rooms and Meals” in the 1915 City Directory.

The sleeping porch “fad” long ago succumb to modern medicine and air conditioning.  None the less that awkward room at the back of the house that is not heated or air conditioned, and has likely become a catchall space, has an interesting history. Under the right conditions, embracing that history might provide for a good night’s sleep.

 

The City Climbs East Hill

The plat of the original town of York was registered in Seward County just before Christmas of 1869. The map and accompanying field notes were filed there because prior to 1970 the area designated as York County was attached to Seward County for administrative purposes.

On April 26, 1870 the people of York County went to the polls to elect those individuals who would organize the government of the county. Only eighty six votes were cast, and at first governmental functions were haphazard.

There was no court house in which to safely store county records, in fact in York there was only the pre-emption shack which sat near the current day Nebraskaland Glass building. The shack was used for county meetings, but the official records were kept by the elected officials.  The first County Clerk D. R. Creegan stored the record he was responsible for in his sod house in Thayer Township. “A cracker box under a very low bed” kept the records as safe as possible. Presumably the original plat of York remained at the Seward County Courthouse until it could be safely stored in York.

The original plat shows that the new town ran from First Street to Eleventh Street including the lots which abutted the north and south boundaries of the town.  The residential blocks that abutted the west side of York Avenue formed the town’s western boundary. The 66 foot right of way that runs along every section line later became Division Avenue, but wasn’t part of the original survey. Not surprisingly the town’s eastern boundary was formed by East Avenue.

As the year 1870 opened York was little more than parallel lines on a piece of paper. If it had a life beyond that it resided in the hopes of the few people living in the county. However before long the city was overflowing its boundaries.

Eventual new additions were surveyed and filed with the County Clerk. Then, with the actions taken by private organizations and individuals, the city began climbing East Hill.

In October of 1879 the Nebraska Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church established a seminary on the east edge of York, Nebraska. The campus of ten acres was located on East Hill overlooking the city. A building was planned to face East Avenue with a tower dominating the view up Fifth Street from the central business district.

In 1880 the Trustees of the Nebraska Conference Seminary acquired another 10 acre tract of land that joined the seminary grounds at the corner of East Fourth and College. The land was surveyed and platted as the Seminary Addition by A. B. Codding and filed with the County Clerk on January 10, 1881. Sale of lots in the new addition would be used to fund the seminary. 

Only the north wing of the proposed building was finished and occupied. The seminary closed in 1888 as part of the establishment of Nebraska Wesleyan. The campus and its buildings became the Ursuline Academy in 1889, and later St. Joseph’s Church and School.

 

The survey of the Seminary Addition plat was done in conjunction with the Stevens Addition which occupies the 10 acre tract just to the north. That addition is named for a Civil War veteran from Illinois named Thomas Stevens.

Stevens was a student at Marshall College in Illinois when the Civil War interrupted his studies. He left school to enlist in the 122nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Company B. During the war Stevens served his unit as an Orderly Sargent. In December 1964 he was wounded at the Battle of Nashville. A bullet through the left arm above the elbow left his arm permanently disabled. As a result of his wound, Stevens was discharged from the Army. He returned to Illinois where he married Eliza J. Fletcher and began a law practice.

In 1879 Steven’s came to York to establish a new home for his family. He bought the 10 acres on the east edge of the city which he had surveyed and laid out as building lots. In February of 1880 Stevens moved his family to York. He established a law practice and was elected the mayor of York in April of 1882.

The two additions have three streets running south to north from Second Street to Sixth Street. Bordering the additions on the west and running beside the former seminary is College Avenue.   Blackburn Avenue runs along the west edge of the additions, and today spans most of the town. That street may have been named for Rev. W. S. Blackburn who was appointed as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in York in the fall of 1879. 

The heart of Seminary and Stevens Additions is Thompson Avenue. The first president of the Methodist Seminary was Dr. Edward Thompson. Though the spelling of the name of both the street and the college president varies through the years depending on the source material, it is assumed that the street was named for the first head of the school.

On the southwest corner of 6th and Thompson sits a house that today hides the fact that it once was the home of prominent members of the community.  The property was for much of its history known as 525 Thompson. 

When the home was first built about 1882 it was a small Folk Victorian cottage. Over the years it doubled in size and morphed into a Craftsman style bungalow before later renovations diminished its distinguishing features.

The house once served as the home of Franklin and Mary Baldwin. Franklin Baldwin was a retired farmer from Sandwich, Illinois when he moved to York. Baldwin worked as a realtor and abstractor out of an office at 610 Lincoln Avenue. In 1887 Franklin Baldwin was elected to the board of directors of the First National Bank and became Vice-President of the bank the following year. He retired from the bank in 1894. The Baldwins bought the home 6^th and Thompson in 1888, and enlarged it to its current dimensions sometime before 1909.  Franklin Baldwin died August 5, 1905.The house was home to Mary Baldwin until 1914

Sometime after 1922 a porch was added to the house. The porch was built in the Craftsman style which was popular in the Midwest during 1920’s. The addition featured a sleeping porch with windows on three sides to facilitate air flow. An open porch was supported by battered half columns on brick piers. The porch railing was composed of closely spaced square wooden balusters. Sometime after 1970 the porch was enclosed and the house which now opened up on 6^th Avenue took on the remuddled look of a house whose life cycle has it now serving as a rental property.

On the northwest corner of 5^th and Thompson sits a true Craftsman style bungalow. The house was built in 1923 by Walter and Catherine Seng of McCool Junction.

The bungalow has a low pitched side-gabled roof with a gabled dormer on the front. Under the gables are wide eaves with exposed rafters. There are also brackets under the gables. A partial width front porch is under a shed roof which is supported by tapered square brick columns. The walls are clad with brick up to the bottom of the windows and stucco from there to the eaves. The stucco is embedded with white and red quartz. The roof was probably originally tile. A matching garage sits behind the house.

The Sengs had bought a farm and moved from Illinois to Nebraska in October of 1887. Within six months they were welcomed to their new home by the Blizzard of 1888. The family stayed on the farm just two years before moving into McCool Junction. In town Walter Seng built an insurance and loan business. In 1904 Seng became the cashier for the newly organized Farmers and Merchants Bank of McCool Junction. He became President of the bank in 1911.

In 1923 Walter Seng bought the lot on the corner of Fifth and Thompson in York and built a retirement home. The Sengs moved to York in August of that year. However, Walter Seng became seriously ill just months after the completion of the new home. Despite treatment at the Mayo Clinic, he died on the morning of November 16, 1923. Before Mr. Seng died he transferred ownership of the home to his wife for “$1.00 and love and affection.”        

Catherine “Kate” Seng lived in her Thompson Street home for thirty-two years following the death of her husband. In 1953, two years before her death, she transferred ownership of the house to her four children for “$1.00 and love and affection.”

It is a time worn phrase, but there is truth in the saying, “If these walls could talk.” Up and down Thompson Avenue, and on every street in York, there are houses that serve as an artifact of past lives. The search for the story behind those artifacts reveals how the city grew beyond East Avenue.

Cars Drove the Business District North

“Revolutionary changes in modes of transportation have completely transformed every urban community in the last two decades. The character of the people, their wants and their purchasing power change with the years and with the means of transportation and communication. It is for this reason that experienced merchants spend so much time in a study of the movements of the human tide.”

The Influence of Automobiles and Good Roads on Retail Trade Centers, 1927

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With those words the Committee on Business Research at the University of Nebraska opened their report of a 1927 study on the effect of the automobile on consumer habits. The report deals with consumer decisions about where to shop. Shopping patterns were changing as the automobile expanded the area that were easily accessible to the individual consumer. What the report didn’t cover was impact the automobile was having on the size of retail centers.

At the end of the 19^th century any given town had horse related businesses on the edge of the central business district. However, with the coming of automobiles those businesses involved in horse drawn transportation, and the residential areas adjacent to the central business district, were pushed aside.  During the first decades of the 20^th century the people of York watched, and participated, as cars drove the central business district north up Lincoln Avenue. They watched, and participated, as the pace of life quicken.

At the corner of 8^th and Lincoln Avenue, just outside the business district, stood two buildings devoted to the owners of horses and horse drawn equipment. The rest of the 800 and 900 blocks of Lincoln Avenue were residential, complete with a Presbyterian Church.

It is well known that Henry Ford was a major force in the evolution of transportation from horse drawn to horse power being provided by the internal combustion engine.  He began selling his Model T in 1908 and by 1913 had perfected the assembly line which would allow for the mass production of his cars. As the number of cars produced went up, the price of cars came down. In 1913 Ford Motor Company produced over 170,000 units of the Model T which sold for $525. At that price owning an automobile became affordable for middle class Americans and the car became the preferred mode of personal transportation.

In 1914, in the face of this emergent change in transportation technology, a York harness dealer placed a large ad in a local paper stating that “Contrary to all prophecies the day of the horse is not ended.” He was supported in that position by the fact that not far north of his courthouse square business Albert Allen still operated The Farmers Exchange, a horse livery, feed and sale stable at 802 Lincoln Avenue.

The harness dealer, E. C. Knight, was further supported by the fact that on the farm horses dominated the internal combustion engine. It wasn’t until 1945 that tractors provided more power for agricultural work than did horses. Yet near future would bring major changes.

None the less, in 1916 Mr. Allen sold his livery barn to three men who planned to move their automobile dealership, the York Auto Company, into the building. The livery building was repurposed in part by opening up large windows onto the corner of 8^th and Lincoln. That move marked the beginning of an expansion of the central business district into the adjacent two block area of Lincoln Avenue which had previously been residential. 

 

 

Next door at 812 Lincoln Avenue stood a business owned by Norman Tilden. It had originally been a carriage repair shop, but in 1912 he announced that he had “decided to engage in the auto repair business”.  Tilden told automobile owners that “we have bought the best machinery and tools that money could buy, and have secured the services of one of the best repair men in the state.” In a nod to his existing customers he said; “Don’t forget we are still in the carriage and wagon repair business.”

In the spring of 1917 Tilden placed a newspaper advertisement for the Smith Form-a-Truck which could be attached to a Model-T chassis.  Advertising for the Form-a-Truck claimed that for the price of one “good team and harness” the truck could do the work of four horses and that when “the engine stops your cost stops”.  Norman Tilden was further distancing himself from his former horse related business.

That same year Norman Tilden, now 57 years old, decided to sell his business. He had built the building in the spring of 1890 and opened Tilden Wagon Shop. Twenty seven years later, having watched the emergence of the automobile, he decided to sell out.

Norman Tilden was born into the age of the buggy. He lived across Lincoln Avenue from his business and walked to work each day.  However, it should be said that he wasn’t a man that resisted the change he watched coming.  His business had evolved along with changes in technology. In 1915 he offered for sell an automobile called the Argo. It was an electric car that was almost a century ahead of its time.

George Rodgers, an automobile insurance salesman, purchased the business.  The auto repair business continued under the management of Norman Tilden and a Hupmobile dealership was added.  The building, often referred to as Tilden’s Old Stand, continued to serve automobile owners under various owners until it was demolished in 1929.

Early in 1929 the city council was asked to use zoning laws to define the business district limits. A story in a local newspaper, the New Teller, said that residents on north Lincoln Avenue were concerned about the “encroachment of business and industry on territory which home owners in the vicinity feel should be left sacred to dwelling houses.” It was not the first time that the issue had been brought up with city officials. This time the target was a builder named Ora Clark.

Residents were concerned that Clark was piling lumber near 11^th and Lincoln. Some of that lumber was likely to be used on a building he was planning for the site of Tilden’s former shop. Later that year he built a 60 x 110 foot brick garage building with a front of ornamental brick, terra cotta and tile “in keeping with the ideals of the business district.” The building was home to a series of automobile dealerships and is now commonly known as the former Moses Ford building.

Some of the zoning concerns of Lincoln Avenue residents surely were the result of the demolition in 1920 of the F.O. Bell house which sat on the northwest corner of 9^th and Lincoln Avenue. F.O. Bell was the first person to successfully settle in York. Shortly after the town had been plated, he arrived in York and operated a general store out of the former claim shack which sat at the current site of Nebraskaland Glass. Mr. Bell prospered and eventually built his family a home at 905 Lincoln Avenue, one block north of the business district. He had bought the corner lot for five dollars in 1871 and added the adjoining lot at a cost of $25 in 1875. His brick French Second Empire house was built circa 1875.

In 1919 Oscar Rystrom bought the property and replaced the 45 year old house with a building that housed a Dodge dealership. The building featured stain glass windows and terra cotta decorations. A close look at the building today reveals a terracotta R near the roofline, an architectural reminder left behind by the original owner.  

 

The extension of the business district north up Lincoln Avenue faced the headwinds of a depressed farm economy following WWI and the Depression. In 1939 the Rystrom Company decided to close the business. The building became the property of the holder of the original mortgage at a cost of just $1100. The company had apparently been unable to retire the debt during the 29 years it was in business.

In 1917 Standard Oil Company built a “beautiful up-to-date oil filling station” on the southwest corner of 9^th and Lincoln. The York Daily News-Times reported that the company would “landscape and beautify the grounds.” That description is in keeping with Standard Oil policy in those years of building bungalow style buildings with landscaping. The filling stations mimicked a house in a nod to the residential character of some of the locations where new stations were being built.

Not all Lincoln Avenue houses were razed. When plans for the new filling station were announced it was reported that the house on the site was being moved to 324 W. Tenth. The house movers planned “to make some changes in the house so that it [would] be convenient and modern throughout”.

As a testament to the fact that change is constant, the site of The Farmers Exchange/York Auto Co. building is a parking lot. Ora Clark’s garage is now home to human services agencies.

The Rystrom Building is home to Penner’s Tire and Auto. When Penner’s relocated to the corner of 9^th and Lincoln in the late 1980’s it marked a return to that intersection of the name Penner.  Shorty Penner had operated the Standard Oil station before moving to a more modern location at 6^th and Nebraska Ave.

Valentino’s Pizza now occupies the much modified Standard Oil building that still reveals its former role as a filling station. The diagonal front of the building originally accommodated cars pulling up to the pump.  Closed up, but still visible, garage door openings bear witness to two former service bays.  

Pushed by changes in transportation technology, while at the same time restrained by the economic realities, the York business district continued to expanded north up Lincoln Avenue. Today just three houses remain in that area to remind us of a day when life was lived at the pace of a pedestrian or a horse drawn vehicle.

Ghosts of the Chicago Northwestern

Before I lose those readers who aren’t interested in the spectral remains of past lives; let me start by saying that the subject of this piece is the physical remains of past structures.

Eventually features of the built environment come to the end of their usefulness.  The structure is then removed, repurposed or simply falls into disrepair. Often a hint of a structure’s former existence and purpose is left behind. Those physical hints are referred to by some historians as “ghosts”.   

American history is traditionally seen, and written, as a movement of people from east to west. The highlights of that school of writing are the Oregon Trail, the Transcontinental Railroad and the Lincoln Highway. The first is iconic in Nebraska but had little to do with the development of the state. The Transcontinental Railroad opened up a narrow strip of the state as it headed for points west. The Lincoln Highway, now US 30, allowed more freedom of movement for those who had already settled. That freedom was often not kind to the survival of small towns.

The heavy lifting that led to the full development of Nebraska’s potential was done by small regional railroads. The network of track that they built once lay on the land like a spider’s web.  Built in the mid to late 1880’s, the settlement work of these railroads was reflected in the numerous small town quasquicentennial (125 year) celebrations recently held in this state. However, the development of improved roads made many of those spur lines obsolete by the end of 1940’s. The removal of those rail lines has left behind reminders of their earlier existence. The “ghosts” of past rail lines exist in and around York. 

In 1887 the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad (FEMV) entered York County on its southerly route from Fremont to Hastings. It was part of a trio of lines that the railroad built into south east and south central parts of the state, the other two lines heading for Lincoln and Superior.

Approximately six miles northeast of downtown York, at the intersection of County Road 16 and County Road O, lays the unincorporated village of Houston. The village was platted in 1887 by the Pioneer Town Site Company as part of the building of the FEMV Railroad. The plat shows five east/west streets and two north/south streets all of which are now vacated. The corner of Fremont and Marathon was projected to be the main business intersection, a town builder’s ambition which is now just lines on a piece of paper.  Railroad Street, now Houston Road, runs at an angle parallel to the former tracks. On the west side of Houston Road sits three modern homes. On the eastside of the road an abandoned elevator rises above the trees that have overtaken the warehouse lots that once abutted a working railroad. The weathered wooden elevator is all that is left to witness the hopes of the former rural market center.

 

The FEMV entered the City of York at 14^th and Michigan running at an angle that had it crossing diagonally through the intersection of 6^th and Delaware. Just south of 2^nd and Blackburn the rail line made a sweeping turn that oriented it toward the central business district. The depot grounds straddled Lincoln Ave. between 3^rd and 4^th Streets.

Rail bed work that track builders did to accommodate East Hill’s descent into the Beaver Creek watershed has left behind two ghosts; one very dramatic, the other much more subtle. On the York College campus, southeast of the Holthus Fieldhouse, a beautiful limestone culvert carries runoff under a still existing stretch of rail bed. The circa 1887 structure provides a reminder of the stone craft of long ago workers. 

To allow for a gentle incline leading into the central business district the FEVM tracks crossed Blackburn Avenue below grade.  When the railroad was still operational a viaduct lifted Blackburn’s traffic over the tracks. With the removal of the tracks Blackburn now proceeds at grade level, but the trench through which the rail road ran still exists. Over grown with trees the trench at first glance looks like a dry creek bed, but is in fact a subtle ghost waiting to tell its story.

In 1908 the FEMV was absorbed by the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad (CNWRR). In the 1920’s side tracks on the depot grounds served J. F. Grosshan’s Grain and Lumber and E. S. Clarke Lumber Co. which were located on the sites of the present day Grand Central Foods and City Hall respectively. A freight depot shared the Grand Central Foods block and the passenger depot was directly across Lincoln Avenue.   

The 1920’s also saw the improvement of rural highways and the rise of the automobile. That change in technology eventually brought the need for short spur lines to an end. In 1942 the CNWRR abandoned the line which ran through York.

Deed records show that in June of 1943 the Chicago and Northwestern sold their holdings in the Houston area, that “being Fifty (50) feet in width on each of the center line of the railroad (now removed)”. At that time, presumably, the elevator at Houston began to disappear into the overgrowth.

Today a cursory look at the area the CNWRR depot grounds once occupied reveals no signs of the formerly bustling center of commerce and transportation.  However, a closer look reveals an interesting transition from the age of rail to the age of the automobile.

Primary source material like deed records don’t record what happens to the buildings on a parcel of land. However, that information can be obtained from wise elders. That is the source of a ghost story about the repurposing of the Chicago and Northwestern freight depot as a service station.

The CNWRR freight depot was moved two blocks south along Lincoln Avenue. It became the office and garage of the H. Ells Oil Company. Located at 2^nd and Lincoln Avenue, the current Bosselman’s Pump & Pantry location, the former depot was joined by a café and tourist cabins.  The company’s tag line was, “You are always welcome on H. Ell’s Half Acre.” The depot building was able to survive by being adapted to a change in transportation technology.

 

H. Ell’s conventional automobile service business, despite later building a modern service station, gave way to the trend toward chain convenience stores. Nonetheless, the ghost of the depot still survives as a warehouse near the corner of 4^th and Division.

A back roads Sunday drive between Gresham and Henderson will reveal an unexplained cut in a ridge that runs across a pasture of brome grass; the cut is a witness to track builders working to maintain a level rail bed. One will also find village streets that run at an angle and a trapezoid shaped building, all still conforming to a rail line long abandoned. These are ghosts of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad.

The Night the School Burned

On the evening of Tuesday, February 13, 1917 the sky over York was partly cloudy, a light breeze blew from the north and the temperature was forecast to grow colder. Shortly after 7:00 a group of boys was walking on 7th Street. As they passed Central High School, located at the intersection with Grant Avenue, they saw "some sort of an explosion." Their attention was drawn to flames that illuminated the basement windows to the left of the front entrance.

Shortly after the alarm was sounded, School Superintendent Walter Stoner arrived. He entered the burning building and rescued most of the permanent records. However, the smoke was so dense that little else could be rescued. The struggle to knock down the fire was doomed from the beginning. A lack of water pressure caused the stream of water to barely reach the cornices of the building. There was also an abundance of flammable material in the building, including coal stored in the furnace room and lumber stored in the manual training department.

At 8:00 it appeared that the firemen were "getting the best of the fire." But then to the shock of everyone present fire began pouring from a roof top ventilator. By 9:00 the 25 room building was fully engulfed. A room on the first floor was the last to catch fire. Pictures on the wall of the room were described as visible to spectators "as they complacently awaited their doom." At the same time the sound of radiators falling into the basement could be heard. 

The attention of the firefighters soon turned to preventing the fire from spreading to other buildings in the area. There was only a slight breeze, but the heat of the fire was sending embers high into the air. The sparks then floated south endangering nearby buildings.

By 9:30 the fire receded leaving behind only a skeleton of chimneys and exterior walls.

The school served students from kindergarten through high school. Some of the younger students were in a celebratory mood. A third grader danced around shouting "let her go!" Another young student shouted "I hope she burns clear down." The children were gleefully anticipating a long vacation.

The building was not a source of pride for the community. Among the hundreds of spectators who gathered to watch the fire there were few who mourned the demise of the building. What did pain them was the loss of gifts made by graduating classes; the "pictures, statuary, books and furniture bearing inscriptions from the donors." Several "fine pianos" were also lost to the flames. Those items and years of shared experiences were the heart of York High School. The next day only the memories would remain.

Pigeons that had been dislodged from their roosts on the school house circled above the scene. Their disorientation reflected that of the citizens who watched the fire from the surrounding streets below.

The building was originally built in 1888. In 1906 a new addition was added including a new front entrance which moved the building closer to 7th Street. The older section had been remodeled. But by 1917 every "nook and corner of the building" was being used to educate about 900 students. The school board had already begun discussions on the building of three new elementary buildings. They were making plans to replace two existing elementary buildings, and build a third, to open up space in the overcrowded Central School. Now the problem of overcrowding had become a crisis.

The night the school burned a sequence of events unfolded that would reach into 1930. The following day as some met to make arrangements to reopen classes, others worked to assess blame.

The school board met the next day in an office in the First National Bank building. They formed two committees; one was tasked with the acquisition of school supplies and the other with securing classroom space. Board members also agreed to submit a bond issue of $225,000 to the voters.

Churches and others contacted board members offering the use of buildings for the interim. The superintendent told the Daily News-Times that he believed the school would reopen in a week or ten days.

 At the same time Mayor William Colton gave a statement to the York Daily News-Times saying that "he was in no way to blame for the lack of water pressure" during the fire. The mayor said he had "expostulated with the water company time and time again...to get them to provide adequate pressure in time of fire." The mayor also direct aquisitory comments toward the school board saying that the building "was a fire trap with no legal fire escapes in violation of state law." He extended his remarks saying that he thought "the authorities are not doing their duty, to neglect the safety of the students."

The fire department found that the center of the fire was in or near the furnace room. It was thought that spontaneous combustion of coal stored in bunkers in that area was the probable cause of the fire. The fire department also communicated their appreciation to the Bradshaw Fire Department who "came down with a line of hose ready to render any assistance." It was noted that the "boys" from Bradshaw "didn't wait to be asked."

By Thursday the Superintendent and School Board announced that classes would reopen on Monday, February 26. The High School would meet at Fraternal Hall, grammar department [probably 10 to 14 year olds] at the Congregational Church, fourth grade in rooms above the laundry, third grade at the Presbyterian Church, second grade at the Public Library and finally first grade and kindergarten at the Methodist Church.

The Mayor and the water company were still arguing about water pressure. The water company said the fault didn't fall on them. Rather they faulted the fire department for attaching five lines of hose to a six inch main. They said only one or two lines should have been used to maintain pressure. They also pointed a finger at citizens who used garden hoses to protect nearby buildings. The day of the fire the water pressure had been reported to be 75 pounds at its highest and 40 pounds at the lowest. It was said that pressure should have been 120 at the least. The Mayor called a meeting about water pressure for the following Monday.

The policy making process moved ahead very quickly. The school bond election was set for March 20th, just five weeks after the fire. The voters approved the bond with 78% voting in favor of passage. Two years before the passage of the 19th Amendment the electorate also included women. Of those going to the polls, 40% were women.

Within two weeks it was revealed that the fast moving process was not without its problems. The bond issue was passed without a reliable cost estimate for the three planned elementary buildings. It was originally thought that the buildings could be completed for $35,000 each, however the bids came in at over $45,000.

At a mass meeting of the community it was determined that  "unanimous sentiment" favored contracting for "first class" elementary buildings and holding another special election to approve an additional $30,000 in construction bonds.

While it wasn't an amount that would close the gap between the approved bond issue and the needed funds; the scrape iron pulled from the ruins of the High School was sold for $430. It was said that it would make "good shrapnel for shells fired at the Germans."

A site was purchased for the new East Ward, or Willard, School. In the spirit of reuse exhibited by the sale a scrape iron from the high school, a house on the newly purchased site was sold and moved.

By July 1 work was proceeding on the three elementary schools. Despite the fact that no regular high school space existed, these buildings were going up first because the younger children were determined to be less able to cope with the disruptions caused by the fire. It would soon be seen that a delayed start on the new high school allowed time to rethink the plans for that school.

In April of 1917 the City Council had acceded to a request by the School Board to vacate 8th Street between Grant and Nebraska Avenues. The Board planned to buy land north of 8th Street to enlarge the school yard. On September 10th men with teams of horses had begun excavation of the foundation and basement of the new High School at the existing downtown site.

Even though dirt work had begun an offer to donate land on the edge of the city to be used as the site of the new High School lay on the table. William A. Greene had offered to donate land on East Avenue near 13th Street for the purpose of building a new High School.

On September 4th the Board of Education had decided not to submit the question of moving the site of the school to the voters. None the less there were those who felt the site on East Avenue was preferable.

On September 7th the York Daily News-Times reported that public opinion was rapidly changing. Growing sentiment for the move was based on the small size of the existing campus, traffic in the downtown area, growth of the city towards the east and north and a preference for the hilltop site on East Avenue.

Former Mayor William Colton had lost reelection on a platform that promised "better fire protection from the water company." Though he was out of office he waded into the issue anyway. In a letter to the editor he wrote; "Mr. Greene seems to be very anxious to do something for the benefit of York, so I suggest that he donate a block of land for park purposes." Colton was on the wrong side of this issue also.

The school board reversed their previous position on the land donation and put the issue to a vote of the people. On Tuesday, September 17 the voters returned to the polls and voted by a percentage margin of 55 to 45 to accept the East Hill site referred to as the Greene Eighty. Ultimately the building was actually built on what was called the Carpenter property, placing "the building on a fine eminence."

When schools opened on September 8, 1919 the new High School building was complete. Along with the three elementary buildings which open the previous fall, it marked what the New Teller called "a new era in the history of the school system of York."

The new era would soon face a setback. In February of 1930 the landowners in four sections of land within the York School District posted notice of their intention to withdraw from the district and form their own. Farm prices had been falling since the end of WWI and with the beginning of the Great Depression farmers faced a hardscrabble existence.

The high taxes needed to pay off the bond issue made selling farm land problematic and low prices made it hard to continue operating. The day of the fire at the high school wheat was selling at York for $1.55, corn for .85, and oats for .43. On the same day 13 years later wheat was selling at York for .99, corn for .64, and oats for .38.

Almost one hundred years later the York Schools have entered yet another new era. From this vantage point it is interesting to look back on a couple of issues raised soon after the night the school burned.

The next day a writer for the New Teller commented on another fire that had destroyed the First Methodist Church. He said the church had been replaced with "a structure of stone that still ranks as one of the handsomest houses of worship in the state." He asked, "Will the new [high school] be as much of an improvement as the present Methodist Church over its predecessor?" He added, "One guess." We can only speculate what was meant by "One guess." However, almost one hundred years later his question has been answered.

During the debated about moving the high school a businessman suggested building a YMCA on the downtown site. His comment was prophetic. After a serving for a while as a park the site became the home of the York Community Center.