The Kirby Building

[W. Gray]

Kansas Memory identifies this two-story building as the Kirby Building in Howard, Kansas. The photo was believed taken sometime between 1890 and 1920.

The building looks suspiciously like the Flint Hills Assembly of God church location on south Wabash. The reworked current day window details of the church do not match but the elevation of the school book store does match. The current day window detail of the building to the left matches the window detail in the photo.

If it is the same building--In the 40s through 70s, my grandparents on the Gray side lived in the upstairs area and a dime store owned by the McKee family was on street level. A Ben Franklin Dime Store replaced McKee's and he then re-located a couple doors north. Entry way to the grandparents living area was through a still existing narrow door way to the immediate left of the church. They also had an entrance from the alleyway in back.

[Bullwinkle]

       It looks to me that the building to the left is the one the church uses. The indent details between the windows and the corbel work at the top are still evident under the crappy stucco somebody smeared over it. That would mean the upper floor would have been taken off of the building in the middle.