Many '50's storefronts remain

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Bob Rosenberg - LHS Class of 1953

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert A. Rosenberg and his wife, Marge, traveled from the Washington, D.C., area to Leavenworth for his 65th Leavenworth High School class reunion last weekend. He stopped by the Carroll Mansion Museum. Rosenberg recently received a lifetime achievement award from the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. His great-grandfather, Samuel Rosenberg, was a furniture merchant in Leavenworth in the 1860s-1880s. 
The Leavenworth County Historical Society offers assistance to those researching their local family history by maintaining files of information collected and donated over the past 60 years at the museum.

The Big House

IMAC High School

End of an era - Immaculata High to close after more than 100 years

After struggling with enrollment numbers in recent years, Immaculata High School is closing its doors.

The Board of Trustees of the Leavenworth Regional Catholic School System announced Wednesday morning that it will recommend to Archbishop Joseph Naumann to close the high school, which has students in seventh through 12th grade.

The closure will be effective June 2 at the end of the spring semester.

Xavier Catholic School, which has students in preschool through sixth grade, will remain open. Seventh- and eighth-grade students currently attending classes at the high school will be moved to Xavier next year.

“Catholic education is not going away in Leavenworth,” said Rick Geraci, principal at Immaculata High School and president of the LRCSS.

Nichole Ackles, a spokeswoman for the LRCSS, said the recommendation to close the high school is based on the inability to maintain financial stability.

“This is tied directly to the need for increasing enrollment, which we have been unable to accomplish,” Rolly Dessert wrote in a press release.

Dessert is the chairman of LRCSS Board of Trustees.

“We continue to applaud the outstanding performance of teachers and students, and the sacrifices made by parents to provide a Catholic secondary education option for families in Leavenworth County since 1909,” he said in the press release.

Dessert wrote a letter to the parents of IMAC students and school stakeholders dated Jan. 4.

“We are at a crossroads with problems growing beyond our ability to solve,” Dessert wrote in the letter. “Despite the best efforts of our current dedicated leaders, the demand for Catholic education in our region continues to decline as evidenced by a lack of growth in enrollment, particularly at Immaculata.”

Dessert wrote that the LRCSS can no longer sustain school operations at the high school. He indicated that cost per student exceeds revenue per student by more than $5,000.

Ackles said enrollment at the high school has stabilized in recent years, but has not increased.

“While our school and students are thriving and happy, we have simply run out of money and time to continue operations and meet our high expectations,” Dessert wrote.

Kathy O’Hara, superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, said the current enrollment at Immaculata is 66 students in ninth through 12th grade.

Ackles said the school system has 120 students in preschool, 124 students in kindergarten through sixth grade and 40 students in seventh and eighth grade.

O’Hara said Archbishop Naumann is expected to authorize the recommendation of the LRCSS to close the school.

“It’s not a happy day when a school has to close,” O’Hara said. “But if there is a silver lining in this, there are other Catholic high school options reasonably close (to Leavenworth).”

O’Hara said Maur Hill Mount Academy in Atchison, St. James Academy in Lenexa, Bishop Ward High School in Kansas City, Bishop Miege High School in Roeland Park and St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Overland Park are all within 30 minutes of Leavenworth.

Ackles said the No. 1 concern for the LRCSS now is to help students, teachers and staff with their future plans, whether those plans include continuing in Catholic secondary education or going to the public schools.

Geraci said he has directed staff and faculty at the high school to create transition plans for each Immaculata student for the 2017-18 school year.

The annual Greenway Auction, a fundraiser for LRCSS, is still scheduled for Feb. 25 at McGilley Field House on the University of Saint Mary campus.

Ackles said what becomes of the school building, banners, class photos, desks, equipment, computers, etc., remains undecided.

The LRCSS Board of Trustees will hold an information meeting at 7 p.m. Jan. 12 in the Immaculata auditorium. Parents are invited and welcome to ask questions.

“We are grateful to the Leavenworth community for its support of Immaculata High School over many years,” Dessert said in the press release. “We are particularly indebted to our wonderful donors, Catholic parishes and community partners, the University of Saint Mary and the Sisters of Charity, for their tremendous support. As much as we appreciate our partners for their support, we are unable to sustain Immaculata and its aging school building. We will continue these partnerships as we move forward with enthusiasm to sustain and enhance Catholic education at Xavier Catholic School.”

By MARK ROUNTREE / mrountree@leavenworthtimes.com

End off an era

Ron Booth said he likes the Norman Rockwell way of life. The owner of The Corner Pharmacy said his business captures the spirit of Rockwell's paintings. Employees know customers by name, and the owner can be found working behind the pharmacy counter. 
"I enjoy serving people," he said. 
But Booth said he works long hours and "vacation" is a foreign word to him. And after operating The Corner Pharmacy for 34 years, he is retiring. The downtown Leavenworth business, including its soda fountain and lunch counter, will close at 6 p.m. Tuesday. "It's time for me to slow down a little bit," said Booth, who has worked in the pharmacy field for more than 40 years. Two other longtime pharmacists, Bob Blanke and Tom Clark, also will be retiring as The Corner Pharmacy closes. The pharmacy's prescription files have been sold to the CVS Pharmacy in Leavenworth. 
The Corner Pharmacy is located at Fifth and Delaware streets. Booth said there has been a pharmacy at that corner for more than 140 years.He said it's the oldest pharmacy in Kansas to have operated at one location. "It's been a part of the Leavenworth community for a long time," he said. Booth purchased the business in 1981. "It was a struggling pharmacy," he said. He changed the name to The Corner Pharmacy. In 1985, he purchased the AXA building where the pharmacy is located. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places. "I restored the building," he said. In 1988, he purchased a neighboring building where he expanded the pharmacy's soda fountain and lunch counter. When Booth purchased the business, he could document that a pharmacy had been operating at that location since 1871. But he later was given a copy of a newspaper article indicating there had been a pharmacy at that corner since 1869. Even though there has been a pharmacy at the corner for more than 140 years, the AXA building did not open until 1905. 
Booth said The Corner Pharmacy is not being forced out of business.  He acknowledged that it is challenging to operate an independent pharmacy, but he said The Corner Pharmacy has remained a strong business. "We're going out at the top," he said. Even though Booth said he is ready to slow down, he will miss operating the pharmacy. He said The Corner Pharmacy has been his passion. "Outside my family, it's everything to me," he said. 
Booth will continue to own the building where The Corner Pharmacy is located. "I'll still be a part of downtown," he said. He hopes the soda fountain and lunch counter will re-open under the operation of a new owner. And he hopes to rent out the remaining pharmacy space for another retail business.
By JOHN RICHMEIER  jrichmeier@leavenworthtimes.com

The Old Man remembers the Mehl & Schott Drug Store at that location.  It had been there since 1888 and was the first place he was every employed.  This was in 1950s when he earned his 50 cents an hour manning the tobacco and candy counter while waiting to be sent out on a bicycle to deliver prescriptions and other items to the homes of customers of the store.  

Stepping back in time to ‘The Big Store’

“Like bees to a hive,” the Leavenworth Times reported in April, l893, “curious crowds milled inside and out the store from 7:30 to l0:00 to behold the store windows and enjoy a promenade through five floors of the immense new Ettenson, Woolfe & Co. building.  A band played and the Leavenworth chief of police with six officers were on hand to control the throng.”
Early newspaper advertisements told of “an arc light of 100 candle power directing the way to the basement devoted to crockery. 40 gas jets and 28 arc lights illuminated each floor. Counters offered dry goods, clothing from lace to jeans, furniture and carpets.”
The expansion, including 70,000 square feet of floor space, at a cost of $50,000, resulted from a devastating fire a year earlier. Numerous advertisements from that time picture the business as The Big Store.
Imagine the excitement that prevailed in Leavenworth back then with the opening of such a grand department store.
Henry Ettenson had emigrated to America at the age of 16, in 1866, to avoid compulsory military duty required of all Russian citizens. For two years he was a peddler in New York, selling matches, and described himself as a wholesale lumber merchant.  He learned the English language through interaction with his customers.
Ettenson arrived in Leavenworth in l868 and worked as a peddler with a wagon for two years, before opening a store at 214-216 So. 5th. By 1880, along with sons, Charles, Moe, and Benjamin, the Ettenson tradition was firmly grounded in the essential virtues of success, thrift and honesty.  The thriving business was known as the GREAT DAYLIGHT STORE. The store was relocated to 5th and
Cherokee, remodeled in 1881, and included four floors, a mansard roof, elevator, and steam heating.
When B.B.Woolfe became his partner in 1888, the business became known as Ettenson, Woolfe, & Co.
Tragedy struck in 1938 when a cyclone toppled a portion of the uppermost
floor into the street resulting in the death of a man seated in a parked
car. At this point the entire top floor was removed.
By the late l940s, the business was sold and became known as the B.R. Phillips Furniture Store and remained in business for more than 10 years.
During WWII, a parachute factory operated in the upper floor. In 1953,
Leland Winetroub operated a business known as Lee’s Furniture, on the
southwest corner of 5th and Cherokee, and expanded in 1963, to the former Ettenson-Phillips location.
While the words “The Big Store,” painted on the west wall of the building, have always been legible over the years, evidence of bygone days has recently emerged, when John Peterson, the current owner, began the process of removing siding from the rest of the building to reveal the original character of the building itself, which had been covered over years ago during the modernization of many downtown buildings.
In his lifetime,Henry Ettenson had also owned a store in Hill City, Kan., and the old Elms Hotel, the bottling works, and nearby springs, in Excelsior Springs,Mo. Upon his death in 1909, his estate was estimated at three-quarters of a million dollars.
Leavenworth businessmen agreed, “he knew the worth of advertising using daily ads to attract customers.”  One ad quoted, “Time is Money.”
In 1911, “through the munificence of Henry Ettenson, Al Rothenberg, B.Haas, B.B.Woolfe, and Abe Rosen, a chapel, walls, gates, and stone tablets were built at Mt. Zion Cemetery.”
Mary Ann Brown | Leavenworth County Historical Society
Information provided by Joan Cooper LCHS, July 10, 2013
Sources: 140th edition Leavenworth Times,1888 and October, 1909;
Ettenson album, and Jewishvilkaviskis.org.

Click HERE to see more on The Big Store.

This was brand new in 1959...

It replaced this beauty...

Jews in Leavenworth

On this site the first Jewish place of worship in the state of Kansas was built. After a large Jewish community established residence in Leavenworth City, Kansas Territory. Temple B'Nai Jeshurun was constructed in 1866.  Initially, the first group of Jewish worshipers assembled in the home of Jonas Wollman, prominent Leavenworth businessman, in 1852.  The congregation was formally organized with about 45 families living here in Leavenworth, in May 1859. The original frame building was razed in 1916 and replaced by the present structure. It served as a place of worship for the Jewish congregation of Leavenworth until the 1970's. Its presence affirms the American principles of freedom of religion and assembly.

Read more >> The Topeka Capital-Journal...

The Big Store

In June 2012 Leavenworth will be 157 years old. One of the oldest and more historic buildings is located at the northwest corner of Fifth and Cherokee. The now vacant building was opened and described as “the most princely stock of all varieties of goods ever shown under one roof in the state of Kansas.”
Ettenson’s gigantic retail store opened to the public in April 1893, a year after the former store on that site was destroyed by fire, on April 12, 1892.
Henry Ettenson came to Leavenworth in 1868. In a classic “rags to riches” scenario he worked two years as a notions peddler. “He prospered to such an extent that he purchased a wagon and for two years more dispensed goods through Leavenworth and the adjoining country.”
Early in 1872 he opened a small store in Leavenworth and the following year moved to Fifth and Cherokee streets, making improvements and additions to the business including a $20,000 expansion. In 1888 Etttenson and B.B. Woolfe became partners.
Ettenson’s sons, Charles, Moe and Benjamin, followed their father as owner-operators of the company. The store was five floors, 100 by 150 feet
Items offered for sale included men’s and children’s ready-made clothing, hosiery and gloves; ladies’, gents’ and children’s underwear; corsets, ribbons and fancy goods; laces, embroideries and handkerchiefs; prints ginghams, lawns and children’s ready-made suits; muslin underwear, caps, wrappers, dress making, furniture and carpets, crockery and home furnishing goods.” In an advertisement it was called: “The cheapest store in Kansas.”
Tragedy struck the building a second time in 1938 when a cyclone toppled a portion of the uppermost floor into the street, claiming the life of a man seated in an automobile parked at the curb on Fifth Street.
In the late 1940s the business was sold to B. R. Phillips and operated as the B.R. Phillips Furniture Company for more than 10 years.
In 1953 Leavenworth native Leland S. “Lee” Winetroub and his wife Leona, opened Lee’s Furniture Store at the south west corner of Fifth and Cherokee. Winetroub, a World War II Army veteran and recipient of the Silver Star for valor, continued at that location until March of 1961 when the Winetroubs expanded Lee’s Furniture across Cherokee to the former Phillips Furniture Co. location. Lee died in March 1988 and his son Dale assumed management of Lee’s Furniture. Dale said the store played a special role in America’s war effort during the 1940s when parachutes were assembled on one of the upper floors. The name “The Big Store” was painted on the west wall of the building where it is still visible today.
Tragedy struck again when a water sprinkler system broke and flooded the lower level. The business failed and the building is unused today. It is hoped that somehow, someone will come along and revive the proud tradition and give new life to this historic building.
 
The author, Annie Walker Johnston (LHS Class of 1954), is a Leavenworth resident and wife of the late J.H. Johnston III, former Leavenworth Times publisher.
Copyright 2012 Leavenworth Times. Some rights reserved.

Update July 1, 2013 
Mike Lansing with Young Sign Co. removes siding Monday from the former Lee's Furniture building at Fifth and Cherokee Streets. The siding is being removed following the building's purchase by local businessman John Peterson. Peterson said the siding covered up mostly glass windows. The brick building dates back to 1892.
The building, which at one time housed Ettenson's Dry Goods store, originally stood four stories in height. The fourth story was removed after a storm damaged the top of the building in 1938, according to information provided by Peterson. 
Peterson has not yet announced his plans for the three-story building. The possibility of a boutique hotel was explored, but this is no longer being pursued.

Update September, 2016
Work continues...

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The Myth

The myth: Carry Nation declined to smash the bar in the National Hotel where the painting ‘Invading Cupid’s Realm’ was hanging. The Truth: Carry Nation did not see the bar room or the painting while she was in Leavenworth. In fact, she was under a peace bond during her visit and did not intend any ‘smashing”. She did not have her hatchet with her.
In his book, “Leavenworth Beginning to Bicentennial,” J.H. Johnston III wrote about Mrs. Nation: Many of Leavenworth’s social and political activities had their setting in the National Hotel, downtown Leavenworth at the turn of the century.
After its completion the National was leased to Joseph Giacomini and Fedinando “Jesus” Mella.
When Carry Nation visited Leavenworth in March of 1901 there was speculation as to just how busy she might be, confronted with a plethora of saloons. Arriving from Topeka Carry stated “she did not have her hatchet with her and did not intend to chop on any Leavenworth bars.” It was reported she was under a $2,000 bond to keep the peace and would be of mild manner until after a court appearance. After visiting the Soldiers Home (the VA), according to the account in The Leavenworth Times, Carry was taken upstairs at the National Hotel. The bar room was closed until she was safely out of the area. When she was out of sight of the saloon the doors were opened and the bar did a grand business. The National’s liquor revenues for the day were estimated at $500 and the newspaper observed that all it had cost Mella was Carry’s hotel bill.
Mrs. Marianna Mella Donaldson of Bedford, Texas, recalls: “The account of Carry Nation’s visit which had been handed down in our family is that my grandfather, “Jesus” Mella, heard she was enroute to wreck all the bars in the vicinity, so instead of opposing her, he met her train and presented her with roses, lodged her in his hotel and was so gracious to her, she didn’t have the heart to destroy his saloon. How much truth there is in the account, I don’t know.”
At any rate, a semi-nude painting from the National’s saloon survived along with the bar. Today “the painting Carry Nation missed” formerly hung in the Centennial room of the Cody Motor Inn. Today the painting hangs in the Carnegie Arts Center 601 South 5th Street Leavenworth. The Carnegie building once housed Leavenworth’s Public Library. The painting is on Permanent Loan from the Leavenworth County Historical Society. A plaque states: ’Invading Cupid’s Realm (reproduction) by Samuel Johnson c1860. Samuel Johnson’s reproduction of Adolphe William Bourguereau’s “Invading Cupid’s Realm” was originally housed in the local National Hotel. In 1901 the painting became known as “The painting Carry Nation missed” after Miss Nation visited Leavenworth on her speaking tour.”
After the National Hotel was sold, the painting was stored in the former owner’s garage until 1961. The painting has since been cleaned, repaired, and restored. The central figure is a female nude above the waist. Her hands are raised above her head and cupids surround her. A wing of one of the cherubs appears above her right hand and at first glance could be mistaken for a tray. The cupids appear to adore the woman’s figure and one is seen at her feet. Another is unmistakably a boy.
Mrs. Nation’s last appearance was at Eureka Springs, Mo, on Jan. 13. 1911.
Returning by train to Leavenworth, Carry was borne to the Evergreen Sanitarium at the southwest corner of Limit and Shrine Park Road.
There the owner Dr. C.C. Goddard, admitted her. She died on June 9, 1911. Dr A.L. Suwalsky and a nurse were with her at the end.
A gravesite was selected in Belton, Mo., and Carry Nation was laid to rest alongside her mother.
As a side note: Carrie A. Nation’s name was changed by her to read Carry A Nation. She thought what she was doing was noble, but, in fact, prohibition was the launch for organized crime.

The author, Annie Walker Johnston (LHS Class of 1954) is a Leavenworth resident and wife of the late J.H. Johnston III, former Leavenworth Times publisher.
Copyright 2011 Leavenworth Times. Some rights reserved.

Johnston Jottings

With the recent passing of Frank W. Buckles, the last doughboy, I am reminded there is a monument to the soldiers who fought in WWI, The Great War.
Actually there are two monuments on the courthouse lawn in memory of those who fought in that war. On the west side, north of the sidewalk, is a second WW I statue made of concrete with stones imbedded.
This holds the bronze plaques with the names of those persons killed in the ‘Great War.’ The story of the World War I “doughboy” has an interesting history.
Myth: The monument now known as the “doughboy statue” was not wanted by Wyandotte County so it was moved to the Leavenworth Court House site where it now stands.
Truth: The movement to have an American war soldiers’ memorial in Leavenworth County was started in the year 1924. Several plans were considered and it finally was decided to have a soldiers’ monument.
The money to pay for it was procured from a special Leavenworth County tax levy of .6 of a mill in the fiscal year 1924. County tax receipts for that year show it was printed at the bottom of the county levies under the designation of “Soldiers’ Memorial.”
There was a long controversy over the location for the monument. Four locations were considered.
One was on the Fort Leavenworth reservation just inside the garrison entrance at Grant and Metropolitan Avenues. The second was in the Leavenworth County courthouse yard. Leavenworth City Hall was the third choice.
Following the recommendation of the local Byron H. Mehl Post number 23 of the American Legion, the fourth location known as Victory Junction, the triangle on the Leavenworth and Wyandotte County lines, was chosen.
The Victory Monument was dedicated the afternoon of Armistice Day, November 11, 1929 at Victory Junction. Many city, county, and state officials were present in the large crowd.
William D. Reilly presided at the dedication and unveilling. Principal addresses were by Lee Bond and General Wilder S. Metcalf, Lawrence.
When the highway was improved, the statue moved to the south side of the Leavenworth County Courthouse.
The Leavenworth Times reported on Aug.  24 1941 that the monument would be moved from the location on the county lines of Wyandotte and Leavenworth. County. Commissioners Lon Rush, Ed S. Brewster, and Sam Warden decided to place the monument in the center of the concrete sidewalk, on the south side of the building.
The statue rests on a base similar to the one in the Victory Junction triangle.
The resolution considered and adopted tentatively by the board of county commissioners for placing the Victory Monument in the courthouse yard follows:
Whereas, the board of county commissioners of Leavenworth County by a tax levy raised a memorial fund to commemorate the services of those citizens of Leavenworth County who paid the supreme sacrifice in the great World war of 1917-18; and
“Whereas, this memorial fund was used to purchase a suitable monument; and
“Whereas, with the consent of the board of county commissions of Wyandotte County said monument was erected on the Wyandotte County line at a point near U.S. highway 40 known as Victory Junction; and
“Whereas, it is proposed by the Kansas State Highway Commission to extend U. S. highway 73 south from Victory Junction one mile to the new U. S. highway 40; and
“Whereas, it has been suggested by Byron H. Mehl Post No.23 of the American Legion that the memorial be relocated upon the Leavenworth County courthouse premises, and this recommendation has been accepted and approved by the board of county commissioners of Leavenworth County; and
“Whereas the Kansas Highway Commission has agreed to pay all expenses in connection with the relocation of said memorial;
“Be it therefore resolved by the board of county commissioners of Leavenworth County that the World war memorial now located at Victory Junction be relocated and placed at or near the front or south steps of the Leavenworth County courthouse, and that the Kansas State Highway Commission be immediately notified of this action”.
The statue and plates are of the highest American standard bronze. It represents a WW I infantry soldier with rifle in hand on the run in a charge. There may be pieces missing – the original statue may have held a hand grenade, with barbed wire surrounding the base.
It should be noted that nowhere in these news accounts is the statue called “Doughboy.’ That reference came later.
The term “Doughboy”, according to John Reichley is: According to Dictionary of the First World War by Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, "Doughboy was a contemporary popular nickname for conscript infantrymen of the American Expeditionary Forces. The origin of the name has been subject of debate.
Some authorities trace it to the dough-like buttons of U.S. infantry in the Civil War, but it was more probably a slang derivative of the word 'dobies,' short for 'adobies', a derisory description of dust-caked infantry applied by U.S. cavalrymen stationed along the Rio Grande" (during the Punitive Mission into Mexico in 1916.
Another possible explanation is that the soldiers used a type of dough to clean their buttons. The Pipe Clay Theory: During the 19th Century American enlisted men used a fine whitish clay called pipe clay to give "polish" to their uniforms and belts.  It was a less than perfect appearance enhancer, however; in rainy weather the saturated clay came to look "doughie." Infantrymen would be more vulnerable to this effect as their comrades kicked up mud and dirty water from the many puddles they would march through.

The author, Annie Walker Johnston (LHS Class of 1954) is a Leavenworth resident and wife of the late J.H. Johnston III, former Leavenworth Times publisher.
Copyright 2011 Leavenworth Times. Some rights reserved

Johnston Jottings

Drive past the Carroll Museum and you will see a large dog statue in the front yard. Stop to visit the museum and the hostess might read to you the following: The Legend of the Black Dog.
In the year 1892, the Keller family left their small daughter in a buggy as they took groceries into the house. Suddenly spooked, the team of horses began pulling the buggy down the inclined roadway. The dog immediately threw himself in front of the team, stopping the runaway horses, and saved the child…at the cost of his own life.
The grateful Keller family honored the heroic dog by having a statue of himmade by an artisan in New York City: The statue now stands guard on the Carroll Mansion lawn.
The story perpetuates at K State where one of the aluminum statues stands in the Veterinary Medicine building. The plaque reads: “The Dog,” as he has been affectionately known to generations of Leavenworth, Kan.,  folks, came to town in the 1890s as a gift to the Keller girls from their father, Henry C. Keller, in memory of the family dog, which had saved the girls from a runaway team of horses.
The original dog was made of thin pot metal, and over the years, as the children road his back, he became cracked and broken. Carl F. Theel, of Leavenworth used the pieces to make a new mold and made the present dog of heavy cast aluminum. The original dog was cast in 1988 (sic) in Elmire, New York. Given to the College of Veterinary Medicine Kansas State University 1978 by William Laurie Jones, D.V.M. 1932 Sidney Robert Jones, D.V.M. 1961 and Ph.D
This story, being repeated so often, is believed to be true. I thought so too until I spoke with an area native and author Mary Ann Sachse Brown. Mary Ann revealed to me that it is a fictional story written by Donna List for a college assignment. A phone call to Mrs. List confirmed she wrote the story for an assignment in a children’s literature class at KCKCC. She is unclear how the story became accepted as truth because she never intended for it to be anything but fiction.
The truth is the dog statue stood on the corner of Marshall and Fifth Avenue. I walked past it on my way to Junior High School, which is now called Nettie Hartnett School, in the 1940s. In 1965, when Cushing Hospital expanded the building to the East, the home was torn down and the dog statue moved to the Carroll Museum directly to the South.
Over the years the statue’s tail was broken and in late January 1973 the statue was vandalized and the head broken off. Pieces of the statue were recovered and taken to the Carl Theel Manufacturing building on Spruce Street. After working for C.W Parker, Carl and Ruth Theel opened their own amusement ride manufacturing business and operated Kiddieland for approximately 40 years. The Theels sold amusement rides and cast various animals in aluminum. A dinosaur still stands at that location on Spruce Street.
Carl and his family produced a limited number of the aluminum dog statues and I have located six of them. Five of the statues are in Leavenworth at the following locations: 1200 3rd Street, 1800 Klemp Street (located west of Klemp), 16940 Dakota Drive, 2504 Grand Avenue (which stood in front of the Theel home at 915 Spruce for years), and in front of the Carroll Mansion. The sixth one is located in Manhattan Kan.
So how did the statue arrive in Leavenworth? We may never know for sure. Perhaps it was one of several made throughout the United States and the Keller family purchased it for their yard. Maybe the statue is simply ‘yard art’ but the story is much more fun when we believe Donna Lists’ version.

The author, Annie Walker Johnston (LHS Class of 1954) is a Leavenworth resident and wife of the late J.H. Johnston III, former Leavenworth Times publisher.
Copyright 2011 Leavenworth Times. Some rights reserved

More on "The Dog"

Why there is a Leavenworth

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Historic, or just old?

305-307 Cherokee Street

Davis Moulden (LHS Class of 1957) said he feels like Howard Carter, the man credited with the discovery of the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun.

Moulden said bricks recently were removed from the front of a building he owns at 305 Cherokee St., revealing cast iron and other features of what is believed to be the building’s original storefront.

“This is a hidden treasure,” he said.

He estimated the old storefront had been covered by the bricks for 50 to 60 years.

“We’re going to restore it,” he said.

Moulden, a local businessman who also serves as on the city commission, purchased the building as well as neighboring 307 Cherokee St. during the summer. The buildings had been placed on a city demolition list. But Moulden said work to restore the buildings began after the purchase.

Moulden said records indicate a water line was put in place for the building at 305 Cherokee St. in 1886, but the structure is probably older than that.

By John Richmeier - GateHouse News Service

Historic Leavenworth?

Here...

Historic, or just old?

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, George Washington's Mount Vernon, San Francisco's City Hall -- these are among the scores of magnificent old structures in the United States that are easy to love and preserve as monuments to our history. But what about three scruffy old buildings in Stockton -- the Mariposa Hotel, Emerald Restaurant and Rizal Social Club?

These three structures, located in a poor multiethnic neighborhood, are all that remains of Stockton's "Little Manila'' community, which was founded in the early 1900s and provided a gateway into America for thousands of Filipinos, many of whom worked in the fertile fields not far away. In what became the largest Filipino community outside the Philippines, the immigrants created a vibrant district of restaurants, dance halls and street life and named it after the most important city of their homeland.

Now, two people of Filipino heritage are fighting over the fate of Little Manila's last buildings. One, Dawn Mabalon, is a Stockton native and Stanford doctoral student in history who believes the structures should be restored as a museum, and as a way to help save a culture.

The other, Manuel Fernandez, is an architect and developer based in Oakland who wants to tear down the buildings and build a shopping mall with an Asian theme, a magnet that could help a troubled neighborhood.

What to save

Their disagreement puts a fine point on a debate in America about how best to remember days gone by. This debate has gained strength and volume over the last several decades as "Let's bulldoze this urban blight'' -- an idea epitomized in the 1940s, '50s and '60s by Robert Moses in New York City and M. Justin Herman in San Francisco -- has been countered by "Maybe it's worth saving.'' Not all agree with the trend toward preservation, however. Noted architect Philip Johnson believes that much of it is misguided. Norman Tyler, an architectural scholar at Eastern Michigan University, wrote in 1986: Johnson "is hard on those who cannot distinguish what is old and significant from what is simply old.''

Which elements of the past are just old and which are significant? The answer has evolved in the past 40 years in parallel with a sea change in the field of academic history.

Until the 1960s, the U.S. history profession centered on "political history'' -- the "top-down'' history of leaders, wars, diplomats, constitutions. Scholarly studies of ordinary people, called "social history,'' also had a place at the table, but it was secondary.

The shift was spurred by a number of developments, including the civil rights movement and publication in 1963 of an influential book about the English working class in the early 19th century.

Many of the new history scholars -- an increasing proportion of them non-white or female -- were inspired to devote their careers to researching history from the bottom up, bringing fresh life to peasants, women, immigrants, gays, the working class -- and ethnic groups.

This appreciation for previously overlooked pieces of the past percolated into society as a whole. Over the past couple of decades, in cities and towns around the country, buildings that might have been destroyed or neglected in another era have been saved and cherished.

Social history

In San Jose, some of the impetus behind preservation of the Kuwabara Hospital can be attributed to a climate emphasizing the value of social and ethnic history. The graceful structure in Japantown was built in 1910 as one of California's first Japanese medical centers. In 1991, with community support, the San Jose chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League took title to the building, now known as the Issei Memorial Building, with the understanding that it would honor the structure's history.

Preservation issues have been raised around the country at such historic ethnic sites as the Ybor City Historic District in Tampa, (Latin culture), the Panama Hotel in Seattle (Japanese-American), Philadelphia's Paul Robeson House (African-American), Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood (African-American), New Mexico's Zuni Salt Lake and Sanctuary Zone (American Indian) and in Chinatowns in San Francisco, Honolulu and Boston.

In Los Angeles, Little Tokyo is a major victory for preservationists, a lively commercial-tourist-residential district honoring the Japanese-American past.

But much is being lost, too. For example, redevelopment agencies in some cities have been creating controversy by razing rowhouses that once sheltered workers making their first shy steps into the American mainstream. "Even the people who once lived in them might wonder at the fuss,'' journalist Ray Suarez wrote in 2000. "But workers' housing is part of the American puzzle, along with aging mansions, factories, forts, archaeological sites, works of art and documents.''

The United States is full of examples of immigrant groups who occupied tightly knit urban enclaves with their own shops, restaurants, places of worship and night life. Some of these enclaves have stayed vibrant, but often an ethnic neighborhood declines, or at least changes, as the children and grandchildren of first-generation immigrants leave.

That moving on is a sign of success, a symbol of the American melting pot at full boil. But it is also the moment when we can lose important parts of the past.

By Bob Frost - San Jose Mercury News