North Broadway Historic District
North Broadway Historic District contains some of Leavenworth’s earliest mansions anchored by St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, the German parish built in an era when segregation was not limited to races but included nationalities. Immaculate Conception (to the north and east) served the Italians, to the south and central, St. Casmir served the Poles and Sacred Heart served the rest, and that was just the Catholic faiths. The District is in the City’s 1858 Western Addition with North Broadway Street serving as the main boulevard in the middle of the subdivision. Broadway Street is also in the center of the district. Developer Elijah Hughes intended for Broadway to be mansion-lined with smaller houses to be built on smaller lots on the cross streets (Miami, Osage and Ottawa). By 1865, when the majority of the grand homes were built here, Leavenworth had five local brickyards, the Phoenix Foundry, a cast iron manufacturer, granite and limestone quarries and lumber in abundance. These resources enabled Leavenworth to build considerable structures at a time in the state’s early history when many settlers lived in sod huts.
The church with its Gothic inspired details was designed and built by Cyril Knoll, a Carmelite Father, who then received the parish in 1864 (a common practice). High style Italianate, Queen Anne, Romanesque and Victorian styles are noted in the ensuing descriptions.
This seven acre, compact district is important because its 39 contributing structures retain their integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship and association with their era of construction.
201 N. Broadway
Fred C. Schulte House
c. 1930
This two-story frame Colonial Revival-style house has a rough stucco exterior on the first story, wood-shingle siding on the jettied second story, and a gable roof. The front entry has a 19th Century Greek Revival surround with sidelights, a transom, and pilasters with a checkered design on their faces (the surround may have been reused from another dwelling). Exterior chimneys of textured variegated brick rise on the south gable end and the end of a two-story ell.
217 N Broadway
Martin House
c. 1888
This story-and-a-half frame Late Victorian-style house of L-shaped form with a front port has vernacular classical colonnettes and square-section balusters. Other features include a bay window on the south side and a one-story rear wing. The house appears in its present form on the 1889 Sanborn map.
219, 221, 223 N. Broadway & 767, 769 Miami
Apartment Buildings
Late 1920s
These two-story frame Craftsman-style apartment buildings have weatherboard siding and a hip roof with exposed rafter ends and a gabled dormer. There are double two-tier front porches under hip roofs with modern posts and square-section balusters on the lower tiers and original square-section wood columns and square-section balusters on the upper tiers. The buildings were built as in-fill apartment buildings and have been used for this purpose ever since.
300 N Broadway
Garden
Late 19th c.
This garden, which occupies the corner of Miami and North Broadway and is bounded on the east by the St. Joseph priory and on the north by St. Joseph Catholic Church, has a sandstone flagstone walkway, flower beds, and ornamental shrubs. There is an ivy-covered grotto of rough sandstone construction that contains a Madonna and Child statue in a niche (1940 era) and a boulder to which is attached a Leavenworth County Historical Society plaque. The garden has historically been associated with the church and priory.
306 N Broadway
St. Joseph Catholic Church
1868, 1891
St. Joseph’s is a significant anchor near the south end of the district. This Gothic Revival-style nave-plan church is constructed of random-course American-bond brick with pink mortar joints and has a hip/gable roof with flared eaves. The dominant element is a center entry tower with a metal-sheathed octagonal spire with a cross finial above a belfry with clock. Below the belfry is a trefoil-arched niche with stone trim, a large lancet-arched stained-glass window in a splayed opening with a stone keystone and sill, and, at the base of the tower, a lancet-arched entry with a painted molded stone surround. The corner piers of the church and tower project above the roof eaves and have pyramidal caps. The church and tower have cornices with a band of machicolation-like blind lancet arches. At the east end of the nave is a polygonal apse and lower flanking hipped wings. The church is attached to St. Joseph’s school, added in 1891 with Gothic Revival features designed to match the main structure.
307 N Broadway
Thomas Helmers House
c. 1880; c. 1900; 1922
This two-story Romanesque Classical Revival-style house is constructed or faced with smooth stretcher-bond brick. An elaborate front dormer has an arched brick and stone parapet with scrolled trim, a heavy keystone, and a round-arched window that opens onto a balcony with a brick and wood balustrade. There are two other dormers, both hipped, with round-arched windows, a round-arched first-story window with projecting brick voussoir-like elements in the arch, and an inset one-story porch. The porch has rectangular-section brick pillars with classically inspired capitals incorporating consoles and cartouches, and there is a segmental pediment aligned with the front entry and decorated with torch and arabesque designs. The porch was extended (probably in 1922) by a porte cochere with paired Doric columns on stone pedestals. A one-story sunroom with round Doric pilasters, casement windows and paneling extends from the south end. The property includes one of several extant limestone mounting blocks dotted around Northeast Leavenworth, formerly used to mount passengers into carriages.
311 N Broadway
John & Mary Lamber House
c. 1863
This two-story frame Greek Revival-style house features a front entry with sidelights and a transom, and a one-story frame garage with matchboard doors dating to 1920. Rather than convert a carriage house, this garage was built for a horseless carriage.
319 N Broadway
Henry W. Gillett House
1867; 1895
This two-story Italianate is the oldest contributing structure in the district. The ornate bracketed cornice features paired brackets on foliated corbels, a dentil molding, a paneled frieze with lozenge motif, and a paneled soffit. The front entry has a paneled embrasure and double-leaf natural finish wood doors with round-arched glass panels and turned bosses. The windows have boldly projecting segmental-arched cast-iron lintels with console-type corbels; those on the front second story have fleur-de-lis crests. The concrete front walk has a brownstone border, near it stand two stone hitching posts with chamfered corners and iron rings. A brownstone sidewalk flagstone survives at the corner of North Broadway and Osage.
403 N Broadway
Harry Jenkins House
c. 1920
This one-story brick Craftsman-style bungalow has a shed dormer and a hipped extension that engages the front porch. The house is constructed of Flemish variant five-course American-bond brick. The porch has L-section brick pillars and a brick half-wall with stone coping. A partial enclosure has a segmental-arched entry with sidelights.
405 N Broadway
Hillel Samisch House
c. 1920
This two-story frame Tudor Revival/Craftsman-style house has a stretcher-bond veneer of textured and variegated brick up to the bottom of the second-story windows with rough stucco above. The hip roof has a hipped dormer and two front gables with diamond-shaped terra-cotta accents in the gables. The front entry opens onto a brick and concrete terrace and has a classical stoop with an arched roof on consoles above Doric columns.
406 N Broadway
Jacob & Christiana Gaiser House
1893
This two-story Queen Anne-style house of smooth stretcher-bond brick construction has a complex gable roof with elaborate gable ornament. The front gable ornament features a petaled element with an inner ring of turned spindles, a horizontal run of square-section spindles below, and rake boards with decorative appliques. The south gable has a gridwork of turned bosses, a run of turned spindles below, pendant millwork with a heart motif, a decorative window in the gable itself, and rake boards with decorative appliques. The property is bordered by brick sidewalks with pavers in herringbone and basketweave patterns.
407 N Broadway
James & Louise Davis House
c. 1924
This one-story frame house represents an unusual mix of Mission and Tudor Revival-style elements seen in the juxtaposition of a rockfaced stone front gable end (containing the entry in a round-arches recess) with a stone and dark brick chimney with weatherings, and in the small buttress-like element at the front south corner. Other features include a round-arched window with diamond panes, a hipped dormer, and a telescoping rear wing with a small modern bay window.
410 N Broadway
W. R VanTuyl House
Late 19th c.
This two-story Late Victorian-style house of painted seven-course American-bond brick construction has a hip roof with deck and two modern shed dormers on the north side. Other features include two front entries, a front gable with a pair of round-arched windows with decorative brick lintels, and an interior brick chimney.
411 N Broadway
Sol Cohen House
1928
This two-story Tudor Revival-style house has a jettied second story that is entirely false half-timbered and, below, an entry with a wood panel door under a shallow lancet arch. A one-story shed-roofed sunroom on the south end appears to have been an open porch originally. The south exterior chimney has decorative brickwork panels.
501 N Broadway
Daniel & Elizabeth Anthony House
c. 1903
This two-story, wood-shingle-sided frame house is basically Queen Anne-style in character with Shingle-style and early Craftsman-style influence. The dominant exterior features are the roof and porch. The roof has overhanging flared eaves, with elliptical arches over three one-light windows. The one-story wraparound porch stands on rough stone pillars above stone half-walls, and it has a shallow-pitched gable roof, heavy brackets with ball pendants, and a glassed-in south end. The lot is bordered by a stone retaining wall that was built about the same time as the house, and has two carriage houses. A two-story frame carriage house contained an apartment with a full day room for use by an employee. A one-story frame garage is referred to as an “auto ho.” on a 1905 Sanborn map. This may have been the first “auto haus” built in Leavenworth.
The home is an exact replica of an Atlantic Coast summerhouse where the Anthonys vacationed prior to moving west. Daniel R. Anthony, Jr., introduced the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution which gave women the right to vote when it was ratified in 1920.
519 N Broadway
Allen-Anthony House
c. 1868; c. 1930
This two-story Italianate/Classical Revival-style house is constructed of painted seven-course American-bond brick and has a hip roof with a deck with an ornate metal balustrade. The bracketed cornice has a paneled frieze that incorporates roundels and a paneled soffit. The corners of the house are defined by stone quoins, and the segmental-arched windows have boldly defined surrounds, those on the front with keystones. The front entry has a segmental-arched transom covered by a metal grille, and is contained within a surround with fluted Corinthian columns and pilasters. The entry opens onto a concrete terrace with vasiform stone balusters and paneled piers. On the south elevation is a two-story Classical Revival-style wing defined by monumental Doric columns.
On the north elevation are an oriel-like bay window with a bell roof, decorative windows, and a concrete base with panels ornamented with painted bas-relief figures of a lion, urn, swags, ribbons, and plumage. Next to this feature is a round-arched stained-glass window with a polychrome foliated lintel. A two-story wing on this elevation has a one-story bay window below a triple window with a pediment, round arches, chamfered surrounds, and foliated capitals.
Visitors to this home included Susan B. Anthony, President William Howard Taft and most recently, Melissa Etheridge. Daniel Reed Anthony founded The Leavenworth Daily Conservative in 1861, the year Kansas became a state. As a free stater, Anthony dueled (and killed) pro-slaver RC Slatterlee. Later that year he was commissioned a Lieutenant Colonel in the Union Army (7th KS Regiment). He was beaten, shot, and was always in the thick of Leavenworth's early days. His epitaph reads: "He helped to make Kansas a free state, he fought to save the Union. He was no hypocrite." In his time he was far more important on the local, regional and national platform than Buffalo Bill, George Custer or others who became more notable after they left town.
Area Homes:
Two significant structures near the North Broadway Historic District are worth noting. The Ado Hunnius House at 610 N. Broadway is under reconstruction (2004); Mr. Hunnius was a draftsman, artist and cartographer who created many of the “Birds’ Eye View” maps of area communities from 1863 through the 1880’s. The Gothic Revival house was built for Paul Rohe in 1864.
The William Small Memorial Home, 715 N. Broadway, was constructed after the Spanish American War for the specific philanthropic purpose of providing a boarding house for war widows (see North Esplanade Historic District). The home later served female boarders and eventually became dilapidated and vacant. Transients set fire in the main floor of the house in 1983. In 1985 the block was purchased by V.B. Greenamyre and was converted to 26 apartments for senior citizens. It was one of the country's premiere examples of the use of the 1984 Rental Rehabilitation Act program to support affordable housing for lower income households.
