Grocery/Drugs/Dry Goods/Millinery Building - Downtown Wellington Historic District - Wellington, KS
Posted by: hamquilter
N 37° 15.896 W 097° 23.870
14S E 642063 N 4125465
This historic building is Item No. 43 on the Historic District.
Waymark Code: WM13PRC
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 01/25/2021
Views: 0
This is a two-story brick building located at 120 S. Washington Avenue. It is thought to have been constructed in 1880. Built of red brick in the Italianate style, it has four narrow hooded windows on the second floor, with an ornate metal cornice with brackets and a triangular parapet.
The ground floor has a deeply recessed storefront, probably constructed in the 1930's, however, at this time, it is covered over with wood and the building is vacant. The clerestory is made of three segments of multi-paned glass. According to records, the building was occupied in 1884 as a grocery, in 1886 as a drug store, and as a dry goods store through the 1950's.
An interesting story concerns a ghost sign painted on the stone south side of the building. In 1892, an advertising sign for Engle Dry Goods was painted there, but in 1910, a two-story Masonic building was constructed, covering up the sign. For 108 years, the sign was covered until an earthquake demolished the Masonic building, and exposed the old ghost sign. It has since been re-painted to as close as possible to its original.