Old Real Estate
Over at www.okctalk.com, the question is posed as to what are the oldest buildings in Oklahoma City?
Let’s start with a glimpse at buildings still standing from 1907. Real Estate Editor Richard Mize wrote this story in 2007:
In Oklahoma City, the Panic of 1907 might better be remembered as more of a temporary feeling of vague anxiety.
Builders, businessmen and budding statesmen soon shook off the depression and marched forward. They plunged ahead in a building boom that lasted, except for a lull from 1911 to 1913.
In 2007, commercial buildings that were constructed in 1907 are few, however. The Oklahoma County Assessor’s Office lists just nine commercial buildings still standing from Oklahoma’s statehood year.
Statehood-era survivors
Records give clues as to statehood-era construction. Here is a little bit about some of Oklahoma City’s survivors from 1907:
CONEY ISLAND
Ronnie Turk and his father-in-law, Bill Mihas, serve hot dogs at Coney Island at 428 W Main. Originally, the Riley and Danford Building was home to Riley and Danford Cigar Manufacturers, one of three cigar makers in Oklahoma City in 1907. The three-story building, with almost 10,000 square feet, housed the Colonial Hotel on the upper two floors. Bill Mihas has operated the Coney Island since 1979 and has owned the building since 1994.
19 E CALIFORNIA
Dr. French Hickman owns the vacant three-story, 14,850-square-foot building in Bricktown at 19 E California. Hickman said a sign uncovered on the western interior wall — once the exterior wall of the building next door — advertises Avery Manufacturing Co.’s “threshers, wagons and implements.” Hickman said he wants to convert the upper floor to a loft apartment. He said he may move his blues bar, the Biting Sow, at 1 E California, into the bottom floor.
“ICE BEVO” BUILDING
Oklahoma County lists the 594-square-foot portion of the property at 2610 Classen Blvd., the home of Mr. Mower Lawnmower Sales & Service since 1976, as “industrial light manufacturing.” It originally was an ice house. “Ice” and “Bevo” are written on the facade, perhaps referring to a brand of “near beer” sold by Anheuser-Busch during Prohibition.
PIONEER TELEPHONE BUILDING
The seven-story, 49,500-square-foot limestone building at Dean A. McGee and Broadway avenues was the headquarters for Pioneer Telephone Co. until it merged in 1916 with what became the Bell System. “delicately styled structure was a masterpiece of aesthetic functionalism,” Blackburn, Henderson and Thurman wrote in “The Physical Legacy.” William A. Wells — whose mentor was Louis A. Sullivan, considered the father of the skyscraper — designed the building.
But are there older buildings still standing?
The best candidates that come to mind are the old India Temple Building at Broadway and Robert S. Kerr, which has a concrete facade that was added in the 1950s by Kerr McGee, the old Sherman Iron Works building in Bricktown, and the Wells Fargo building in Bricktown (1906), and the Harn Homestead (1904).
Are there any survivors from the 1800s? Glancing at the National Historic Register, the answer at first appearance may be be “no.” But more digging might turn up some interesting clues….
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