Monday, July 30, 2007

Palace of the Plains

In it's early days, this building was sometimes referred to as "The Palace of the Plains". It was completed in 1892 at a cost of $71,000. It served as Wichita's City Hall and included space for; regular offices, a jail, police and fire departments, courtrooms, offices for the board of education, and a large city library. In 1975 a new City Hall building was built, and this building then became the home of Wichita's Sedgwick County Historical Museum.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting building! Do you by any chance know the architect? It's got several elements similar to the Old Capitol Building in Olympia, which was originally built as a courthouse (but is not quite as old as this). I gather the style is called "Richardson Romanesque". The Old Capitol has stone arches, turrets, and also had a clock tower, but that burned down. I took some pictures of it yesterday, and will try to post one sometime this week. When I do, if you don't mind I'll link back here so people can see what I'm rattling on about.

Zanabel
Olympia Daily Photo

R&R said...

Beautiful building. Makes me wonder what the surroundings would have looked like over 100 years ago!

NorthBayPhoto said...

Fantastic photo. What a great looking musuem!

dot said...

A beautiful building that really does look like a castle or palace. Older buildings are so interesting.

Anonymous said...

Lovely building, from a distance one could be excused for thinking you'd photographed it in Disneyland!

Today I have the Red Arrows.

South Shields Daily Photo

Annie said...

I suppose that it might have been surrounded by wheat fields when it was first built. It's quite an attraction, Wendy.

Kekiinani said...

What an interesting old building.. Great shot.. :) :)

Anonymous said...

I continued to be intrigued by this building and the similarity to the Old Capitol in Olympia, so I went down and took a photo of it. Here's my post on the subject.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

WOW! What a pretty building, looks like a castle! Neat!

Chica, Cienna, and Cali said...

very pretty a building