National Register of Historic Places – Page 2

Depressed? History could be the cure

On Feb. 17, 2011, The Story of Blind Boone, will be presented at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Daniel Boone Regional Library. Mike Shaw will discuss ragtime musician John William “Blind” Boone, one of Columbia’s most famous residents and give an update on the restoration of his historic Columbia home. How could this be the cure…

Get a Peek at History, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010

From 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010, the Guitar Mansion, also known as Confederate Hill, will be available for viewing. Built in about 1862, the house at 2815 Oakland Gravel Road will be auctioned off on October 18, 2010. Today, the home is nestled among other housing areas, yet, the landscaping makes the house feel elegantly secluded. The house has…

Online Map of Historic Sites Coming November 2011

In case you missed the July 13, 2010 article in the Columbia Tribune, an online map is in the works which will allow anyone to go online and learn all about Columbia’s 121 Notable Properties and 33 properties and areas on the National Register of Historic Places. Deb Sheals, a historic preservation consultant, was chosen…

Money magazine’s Top 10

Do you ever wonder if those ratings, such as those in Money magazine, make any sense? I used to, but I’ve since decided the answer is, “Naw.” I could give you a lot of reasons for that, but here is one. This year’s Number 10 city, Rogers, Arkansas, gets kudos for 23 buildings on the…

Historic Walks and Government Documents

True confession: I love government documents, especially the National Register of Historic Places government documents. You can learn to love them too, because each National Register of Historic Places document contains a trove of information, including maps and photographs. The documents can even be used for fun — really! A while back a friend of…

IBM-like support in 1906 – Hamilton-Brown Shoe Factory, 1123 Wilkes Blvd.

Last week, a May 18, 2010, article in the Columbia Missourian outlined a list of what it called unprecedented incentives provided to IBM to get it to open a service center in Columbia. Those incentives, outlined by newspaper articles, include $28 million in tax credit incentives from the state as well as a city agreement to buy the building for…

Missouri Theatre – Tough Luck, Mary Todd Lincoln’s cousin

In 2008, the Missouri Theatre, now called the Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts, under went a $10 million renovation, again becoming the jewel of downtown Columbia. But with every gain, sometimes comes a loss — as in the case of the 1928 construction of the Missouri Theatre. Named in 1979 to the National Register of…

A hidden home at Stephens College

Senior Hall, home to thousands of students over the years, actually started out as just that — a home. Built in 1841, Senior Hall is actually built around an 1840s house, built for Oliver Parker, of New Hampshire. He moved to Columbia in 1821 and opened and operated a general merchandise store. He died the…

Keiser Avenue? Today it is Wilson Avenue

Historic homes can tell us more than just about buildings and architecture. Sometimes they can tell us about our culture and our past fears. Today, anti-immigration sentiment against Mexicans is making the news, but in the past, Germans bore the brunt of such negative feelings. The Walter and Helen Guthrie Miller home is at 1516 Wilson Avenue, built circa…