You can read about some of the history of the Commercial Street Historic District here, at the website for the area. This is an old fire station. I think these buildings below could be spotted in the historic photograph at the top of this post. There seems to be more empty renovated storefronts on this…
Tag: Southwest Missouri
Commercial Street, South Side, Springfield
Heading north, we find the Commercial Street Historic District. I was confused as to why there seemed to be two distinct centers of gravity in Springfield, and I found my answer. Originally, Commercial Street was the main street of North Springfield, a separate town that was incorporated in 1871 after its location was chosen for…
Downtown Springfield
Downtown Springfield is dominated by a public square at the intersection of two major cross streets. While for much of its history during the Twentieth Century it was a morass of open pavement, in what looks to be the 1970s it was converted into a park and traffic was routed into a single lane that…
Former Museum of the Ozarks
“Uh, it doesn’t look like it’s open anymore,” I dryly remarked as we pulled up in front of the Bentley House, constructed in 1892. While there is a deteriorating asphalt parking lot around the side of the house that confirms that this property was once open to the public for some sort of use, it…
East Walnut Avenue, East of National Avenue, Springfield
East of National Avenue, the architecture of East Walnut Avenue progresses as one would expect in the course of the Twentieth Century, with revival styles predominating. It should be pointed out that the historic district encompasses side streets, and does not merely include Walnut Street. While there is still an occasional Queen Anne, there are…
East Walnut Avenue, West of National Avenue, Springfield
Comprising of 153 contributing structures, the East Walnut Street Historic District, like many cities, is one long thoroughfare that chronicles the passage of time and the development of American residential architecture. The first few blocks will look at shows the expression of the Queen Anne Style. These represent the 21 houses in the district built…
St. Agnes Roman Catholic Cathedral, Springfield
The Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau is a bit of a different Roman Catholic diocese in that it stretches clear across the southern third of the state of Missouri, and has two co-cathedrals, one in each city. Here we are looking at the Cathedral of St. Agnes, located to the southeast of downtown Springfield, which we’ll…
Bolivar, Polk County
We visited Bolivar in Polk County, both of which were indirectly named after two famous people. Bolivar was named after a city of the same name in Tennessee where many early settlers came from, which of course was named after the famous liberator of many South American countries, Simon Bolivar. Polk County was not named…
Sinclair Dinosaur Sighting, Fair Play, Polk County
Yes, there is a town called Fair Play in southwestern Missouri, and we spotted an original generation Sinclair dinosaur out in front of an eponymous gas station. I’ve spotted a new generation one recently, and of course there used to be one at Osceola and South Broadway until just a few years ago in St….
Stockton Lake, Cedar County
It’s been years since I featured a manmade lake, and recently we visited Stockton Lake, created in 1969 from the Sac River in Cedar County. Pop-up storms were brewing over the lake, so in some directions dark clouds loomed, while in other directions sunny skies prevailed. It seems like the great era of dam building…