I found some old photos I took back in 1998 of the John R. Kirk House, the home of a former president of Truman State University. I lived across the street from it for two years, and even back then, when I wasn’t actively doing historic photography, I still saw the value in capturing it.
By the time I lived there, the stately house had been cut up into six apartments, but there were still traces of its former glory when you looked closely.
Sadly, after my junior year in 1999, it was converted into an apartment building, destroying any hope that the house could one day serve as a vestige of Kirksville’s past.
Can you tell me if this house was actually demolished and the apartments were built on same foundations or did they remodel the house into apartments?
Rebecca, the apartments were built into the frame of the old house. I lived across from the house in college and watched them do it over the course of the summer of 1999.
Thank you for these pictures. This historic home was originally built by John H. Caskey (1834-1904), a native of Ohio, who married Jennie H. Link in 1869. He had a mercantile store in Kirksville, and they had 2 daughters. Mr. Caskey died on December 22 1904, and his funeral was conducted from this home on Christmas Day 1904. His wife, Jennie, continued to live in this home until about 1916 when she went to New York City to live with one of her daughters. Both Mr. and Mrs. Caskey are buried at Forest-Llewellyn Cemetery in Kirksville, MO, plot LF-31. – Blytha Ellis, President, Adair County Historical Society, Kirksville, MO.
How interesting! I always thought John Kirk built the house for himself.