Wellsville Bank Building - Wellsville, Kansas - Victorian Style Architecture on Waymarking.com

The Wellsville Bank Building (c. 1884-1885) is located at 418 Main Street in Wellsville, Franklin County, Kansas (pop. 1,612). The Wellsville Bank Building is a two-story, three bay, brick building. The building has an eastern facade orientation, measuring 22 feet from north to south and 96 feet from east to west. The original length of the building measures 60 feet, a 36 foot, one-story addition projects from the building's rear.

The Wellsville Bank Building maintains a moderately high degree of architectural integrity as an example of a two-part commercial block. It is a simple building whose main ornamentation is found in its applied, pressed metal, High Victorian Gothic entablature. The building retains is 2/2 double hung windows on the second story, its large, first level transomed windows, and its two first level entrances and doors. Any interior walls that may have defined the original floorplan for the bank and insurance company have been removed. Plasterboard covers the walls and ceiling on the first floor, original deteriorating plaster with some stencilling remains on the second floor. Original flooring is extant on both levels. Access to the second floor is provided by an exterior staircase and an interior freight elevator.

A one-story storage room was added on to the building's rear or western elevation in 1957. The two-part commercial blocks on either side of the Wellsville Bank Building have been demolished.

Tie rods connect the building's south and north walls at the second floor level and above, providing the support for the building that was lost when its companion buildings were torn down. A drainage problem along the roofline is responsible for some of the mortar and brick washout on the south wall.

In addition to the bank, 418 Main Street housed many other Wellsville businesses over the years. Wellsville City Directories indicate that in 1892 T. J. Gregory Insurance, Real Estate and Loans had an office above the bank and that in 1902 the firm of Fiehler and VanScoyce Insurance, Real Estate and Loans was located on the second floor. Doctors Charles Ewing, Karl Kyle, T.W. Reid, J.D. Reid, and Little had offices in the building from 1902 until 1933. The building also housed a clothing store, candy kitchen, and newspaper at various times during this period.

Between 1933 and 1986 the building was occupied by L. B. Mignot Produce (1933-1942), Roy Hughes Produce (1942-1947), M. L. Averill Produce (1947-1965), Mid Continent Grain Company and Reynolds Second Hand Store (1965), Averill's Purenia Feed Store (1966-1977), and the Wellsville Seed Company (1977-1986). In 1986 the building was purchased by its present owner, who used the facility as a pottery studio.