Northern Kansas – Kansas Preservation Alliance & Abandoned Atlas Foundation

Endangered:
Thacher Building

Year(s) Listed: • 2025 | City/Town: • Topeka

The Thacher Building is a three-story Richardson Romanesque commercial building in downtown Topeka. Built in 1888 at a cost of about $40,000, the stone structure is a two-part commercial block form. The stone balustrade capping the building contains a nameplate inscribed “THACHER.” The Thacher Building was constructed for Timothy Dwight Thacher, a local businessman, using …

Endangered:
Nick Chiles Buildings

Year(s) Listed: • 2024 | City/Town: • Topeka

These three Topeka buildings were owned by Nick Chiles, an African American entrepreneur, political and civil rights activist, and editor who moved to Topeka in 1886. Chiles founded, edited, and published the Topeka Plaindealer, which had the largest circulation of any Black newspaper west of the Mississippi River, from 1899 until he died at age 61 in …

Awards of Excellence:
Dyche Hall

Year(s) Listed: • 2024 | City/Town: • Lawrence

In 2017, the University of Kansas began extensive preservation work on Dyche Hall (also known as the Natural History Museum). Dyche Hall was designed by the architecture firm Siemen & Roots and completed in 1902. Upon commencement of the preservation work in 2017 on Dyche Hall, it was discovered that the eight unique grotesque statues …

Awards of Excellence:
Newmark’s Building

Year(s) Listed: • 2023 | City/Town: • Lawrence

The historic character of the Newmark Building was not only retained, and preserved but improved. Hernly Associates, Inc performed Architectural services associated with the project. The building currently houses retail on the first level and residential apartments on the second level. Prior to an electrical fire in October 2019, an axe-throwing business was in this …

Awards of Excellence:
Newell-Johnson-Searle Outbuilding

Year(s) Listed: • 2023 | City/Town: • Oskaloosa

In 1856, this limestone cabin, known as the Newell-Johnson-Searle Outbuilding, was built and occupied by Jesse Newell and his family in what is now known as Oskaloosa, Kansas. Newell and his brother-in-law Joseph Fitsimmons were co-founders of Oskaloosa. Newell was a free stater from Iowa who came to the territory in 1855 after the Kansas …

Endangered:
Tiny Jails

Year(s) Listed: • 2022 • 2023 | City/Town: • Central Kansas • Eastern Kansas • Northern Kansas • Southern Kansas • Western Kansas

It’s safe to say that Tiny Jails have become a niche at the Abandoned Atlas Foundation. Making it a journey to document tiny jails all over the state. Most built in the 1880-1920s era they were used as merely holding tanks in their later years. Some were able to survive into the 1960s but most …

Awards of Excellence:
Zimmerman Steel Building

Year(s) Listed: • 2022 | City/Town: • Lawrence

Zimmerman Steel was built as an industrial manufacturing business for fabrication and sales of structural steel and architectural metal components for the building construction industry. It is comprised of a steel fabrication shop (1959) with an attached one-story office addition on the north end (1963). The steel fabrication shop is an industrial and utilitarian style …

Endangered:
Docking State Office Building

Year(s) Listed: • 2014 • 2022 | City/Town: • Topeka

Kansas State Office Building, renamed Docking State Office Building in 1987, is one of the first examples of Modern Movement architecture effectively applied to a public building in Kansas. It was also one of the earliest buildings in the region to utilize an aluminum and glass curtain wall. The building clearly expresses the ideals and …

Endangered:
SBA/Menninger Tower Building

Year(s) Listed: • 2007 • 2008 • 2022 | City/Town: • Topeka

A landmark in the western Topeka skyline, the building was constructed in 1930 to house the Securities Benefit Association Hospital. The design of the building was inspired by Independence Hall in Philadelphia and represents collaboration between a Chicago firm, Schmidt, Garden and Martin and Topeka architect Walter E. Glover. In 1961, the Menninger Foundation purchased …

Awards of Excellence:
Douglas County Heritage

Year(s) Listed: • 2021 | City/Town: • Lawrence

In an effort to enhance natural and cultural heritage initiatives within Douglas County, the Douglas County Board of County Commissioners approved the creation of the Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council in 2011. One initiative of the Heritage Council was to conduct a county-wide historic resources survey. Because surveying the County in one year was extremely …

City: Northern Kansas