Rennet Studio Photography Building - Fort Scott, Kansas - Victorian Style Architecture on Waymarking.com

Ca. 1889
Italianate style
Inventory: 011-1830-00044
Status: contributing.

Description: This is a rectangular two-story brick commercial building with a four-bay front and a flat roof and parapet. There is a side entrance to the second floor and an adjacent recessed entrance to the storefront with display windows to the north. Entrances and display windows have overhead transoms. The second floor entrance has a glazed wooden entrance door with an aluminum storm door. The Italianate-style facade is deteriorated, but relatively intact on the second floor. There are projecting sills and flat ornamental lintels. Windows are 111 double-hung sash. There is an elaborate pressed metal bracketed eave cornice.

The storefront has been altered with contemporary brick, display windows, and a metal entrance door. There is a shed-roofed awning with corrugated metal roofing and a fabric valence supported on posts.

History: This building housed grocers, a bookstore, and, from 1905 to 1938, a drugstore. D. H. Kurtz was the druggist from 1905 to 1930; in 1930 the drugstore became Shoemaker Drug Store #2. The Sheppard law firm occupied an office on the second floor from 1905 to ca. 1938 and the National Union of Railway Trackmen also had an office.

Integrity: The building retains sufficient architectural integrity to be listed as a contributing resource.