|
 Eldridge Hotel - Lawrence, Kansas Posted by:  iconions
N 38° 58.265 W 095° 14.171
15S E 306275 N 4315945
This very historic and important site in Kansas Territorial and State History is located at 701 Massachusetts Street.
Waymark Code: WMYGVB
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 06/14/2018
Views: 0
The Eldridge House Hotel (ca. 1925-1928) is located on the southwest corner of Massachusetts and Seventh Streets in Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas (pop. 54,307). The five-story, flat roofed, concrete and red brick eclectic Second Renaissance Revival structure stands at the north end of Massachusetts Street, being one of the tallest buildings in Lawrence's commercial area. The ell-shaped building was constructed in two phases. The first unit, constructed in 1925-1926, is a rectangle with a five-bay, eastern facade elevation which measures forty-five feet south from the Massachusetts and Seventh Streets intersection along Massachusetts. The eleven-bay, northern elevation of the 1925-1926 unit measures one hundred and seventeen feet west from the Massachusetts and Seventh Streets intersection along Seventh. The second construction phase occurred in 1926-1928, extending the hotel south from the eastern facade elevation by fifty-five feet and making the unit forty-seven feet deep from east to west. A one-story brick and stucco rectangle sits inside the ell. This unit measures approximately fifty feet from north to south and seventy feet from east to west. It appears that this unit dates from the 1866 Eldridge House Hotel, the bulk of which was demolished to allow for the 1925-1928 construction.
- National Register Application
The Eldridge House Hotel (often referred to simply as the Eldridge Hotel) is a historic building located on Massachusetts Street, in the downtown area of Lawrence, Kansas. The building is named after Shalor Eldridge, a prominent anti-slavery individual who erected the building in the mid-1800s. The building, as its contemporary name suggests, is currently used as a hotel.
The Eldridge House Hotel can trace its origin back to the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which was a transportation company in Boston, Massachusetts, created to transport anti-slavery immigrants to the Kansas Territory. The company erected a temporary way station in Lawrence for these settlers, named the Free State Hotel. On May 21, 1856, Douglas County sheriff Samuel J. Jones and a large group of pro-slavery arrived in Lawrence and burned the Free State Hotel—an event that came to be known as the Sack of Lawrence. After this disaster, Shalor Eldridge purchased the land and erected a new hotel, which he named the Eldridge House. This structure stood until August 21, 1863, when William Quantrill and his raiders burned it the city to the ground.
Soon after, Eldridge began to build another replacement hotel; this project was finished by George W. Deitzler in 1866. This iteration stood until 1925, when it was run-down, necessitating a massive refurbishment. This new version lasted until the mid-to-late 1960s, when cheaper motels began to cut drastically into its profits. Soon thereafter, the Eldridge Hotel was converted into apartment buildings on July 1, 1970. In the 1980s, there was a strong desire in the city to see the Eldridge re-open as a hotel again, and so a group of investors raised $1 million, and the city of Lawrence also contributed $2 million in industrial revenue bonds to make this dream a reality. In the later part of that decade, the entire structure was retrofitted once again into a hotel.
- The Eldridge Hotel Wikipedia Entry Visit Instructions:
To post a visit log to this waymark you need to visit and write about the actual physical location. Any pictures you take at the location would be great, as well.
Recent Visits/Logs:
| There are no logs for this waymark yet. |
|
|
|
|