801 North Second Avenue

Since Dodge City’s neon signs have all but vanished, I feel compelled to photograph them whenever I see them…even if the neon is long gone. I grabbed a few shots of the very cool sign at Wardrobe Cleaners a while back and didn’t give the building much thought. Then I was looking into another business and noticed an ad from 1922. I had no idea it had been around for so long!

The county website says this building was constructed in 1920 but that is impossible. In 1920, Dodge had only two laundries: Dodge City Steam Laundry on Chestnut Street and People’s Steam Laundry on Trail Street. The structure on this site in 1920 was the frame dwelling shown on this 1918 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.

Simon R. Sprecher and Frank Palmer started “The Wardrobe” at 605 Second Avenue in early 1921.

That would be the building on the left in the photo below.

In 1922, the post office was on Second Avenue where the Ensueno Boutique is currently located.

Talk about a dangerous line of work!

I’m not sure exactly when Palmer exited the business but by May of 1924, he was working as a car salesman.

Sprecher had the current Wardrobe Cleaners location built in 1928 and it included a fur storage vault in the basement. I think it’s awesome that the slogan “We Know How” survived and is still on the sign out front. You’ll also notice the same logo was still being used in the 1960s.

Clearly, the current sign is not the original.

The 1932 Sanborn shows storefronts along Second Avenue with the dry cleaner frontage on Vine Street.

Lawrence W Anderson (formerly of Skillington Tailoring Company) bought the business around 1937 and it became known as Anderson’s Wardrobe Cleaners. He also owned Anderson Cleaners at 306 West Chestnut Street. If I understand correctly, he was married to Leona Kliesen.

The photo below was taken during the parade for the world premiere of “Dodge City” on April 1, 1939. Unfortunately, the flag is blocking the view but you can still see a good portion of the sign.

This full-page ad celebrating the end of World War II is epic.

Leona’s siblings, Laurence E “Bud” Kliesen and Lucyle (Kliesen) Day, bought the business in the early 1950s and it was owned by various members of the Kliesen family for more than 30 years. Let’s see if I understand this all correctly! Bud died in 1960 and Kathryn (Kliesen) White bought his share. After Lucyle died in 1962, Katie and her husband, Norval, bought her share as well.

Katie famously cleaned law enforcement uniforms at no charge as well as the local nuns’ habits. Their son, Laurence “Buddy” White, worked at the shop for about 20 years.

Some of you may remember a model church being displayed in the window of the store.

This story is about W. P. Kliesen, the architect who designed the church, and I am including the full newspaper article referenced in the story below.

Katie sold the business to C. W. Edwards, who owned it for several years before selling to Henry Burge. Today, the business is Jamie’s Wardrobe Cleaners. It’s awesome to see a building still serving the same purpose with nearly the exact same name for almost 100 years.

Special thanks to Katie’s granddaughter and my classmate, Katie White-Majerus, and her family for filling in the blanks for this story. Any mistakes or misunderstandings of the relationships or timeline are 100 percent mine!

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200 N Second Avenue

I always assumed this building was car-related but had absolutely no idea about its history. Then I took a photo of a Smurf building and wondered how it got that way. It turns out there was a series of wood frame buildings at the southeast corner of Bridge/Second Avenue and Locust/Santa Fe Trail Streets going back to at least 1884.

The 1884 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows a second-hand store on this lot with frontage at 407 Locust Street. There was a lot of renumbering going on in Dodge City at that time and by 1887, the corner was home to a hardware and implement store with a new address of 301 Locust.

The 1892 Sanborn shows a grain warehouse at 301 Locust and by 1899 the lot was empty. It stayed that way until sometime between 1905 and 1911. The Ford County website says the current structure was built in 1910, which is impossible.

The 1911 Sanborn shows a frame shed at 219 Santa Fe Trail with the Second Ave side numbered 208. There was no other structure on the 200 block of Second Avenue. By 1918, the lot was once again empty and no address was listed.

In May of 1922, W. F. (not H. F.) Rhinehart of Howell, Rhinehart and Company began construction on a brick building taking up all of lots 19 and 20 in the 200 block of Second Avenue.

Homer Graves moved his car dealership to the Rhinehart Building in August of 1922. He had previously been associated with the City Garage at Central and Chestnut.

J. J. and Ray Weigel bought Graves Motor Company in April of 1923. Homer Graves was suffering from poor health and planned to retire in California.

Sutton Chevrolet moved into the spot at 206 Second Avenue in February of 1924.

White Eagle Oil Co. was supposed to open a service station on the corner but it appears John Carson had an auction house located there initially. The auction house moved to 419 West Chestnut in March of 1925.

It didn’t take long for W. F. Rhinehart to add on to the east end of the building. Sutton Chevrolet had outgrown its old showroom and moved into the new addition. If it isn’t clear, Santa Fe Street was actually Santa Fe Trail.

C. F. Bryan opened a grocery store at 204 Second Avenue in June of 1925.

McCarthy Auto Supply moved into the old Sutton space in September.

The addresses for this building are extremely confusing. In addition to the newspaper typos, someone seemed to have been inventing street numbers. You’ll see what I mean further down.

It didn’t take long for Sutton Chevrolet to move to Military Avenue. And this is where things get weird. In 1926, Dodge City Motor Company was in the old Sutton Chevrolet spot at 213 W Trail Street. What’s confusing about that? I’m glad you asked. I read a story published in 1954 that said Dodge City Motor Company opened at their (then current) location at 200 Second Avenue in 1944. But Dodge City Motor Company existed in 1910! Carl Fay went to work there as a mechanic that year! So unless it was a completely new entity with the same old name, that story completely missed the mark.

The 1926 Sanborn shows an L-shaped brick building with frontages at 206 Second Avenue and 217 Trail Street cuddled up against a mostly wood frame filling station on the corner. You can also see the new addition to the east, which filled in lots 17 and 18. The street numbers stopped at 208 Second Avenue and 219 Trail Street. Unfortunately, the maps shows filling stations on both sides of Second and businesses didn’t regularly list street addresses in their ads. I believe the station on the west side of Second was a Standard but I really have no idea about the east side during the ’20s.

The 1932 Sanborn shows the same configuration of the two adjoining structures. Just as a side note, see the rail siding in the middle of Maple? If you scroll down to the Google satellite view, you can still see where it was paved over.

Any. Whey. In 1937, Clinton Service Station was at 208 Second Avenue. Glenn Rexroad, who had moved to Dodge in 1923 to work in the Weigel Brothers garage, had a garage attached to the Williams Motor Sales Company at 200-202 Second and the spot at 204 Second was occupied by the Earl Smith Café.

By 1947, Dodge City Motor Company was listed at 200 Second and apparently took up the east building as well. Baird’s Café had taken over the spot at 204. And I *think* the filling station on our corner was a Clarence Fetter 66.

It’s so weird but this station was repeatedly listed at 210 Second, which was not a thing. The flour mill was at 300. It hurts my brain.

By 1953, Ensminger’s Air Conditioning & Heating Co. had moved into the spot at 213 West Trail Street.

Back to 1954, when Dodge City Motor Company was owned by Cecil and Eddie Doll (Liberal) and Ray Sellers (Dodge City). There were also dealerships in Meade, Minneola, Spearville, Protection, Cimarron, and Beaver, Oklahoma. Also, that section of Second Avenue had two lanes of brick with on-street parking!

By 1956 or ’57, Dodge City Motor Company had moved basically to the opposite street corner and morphed into Sellers Motors. Good grief, there were so many dealers in Dodge during this time I don’t know how anyone could keep them straight. Why so many *Plymouth* dealers? The parts of the Rhinehart building that had housed the dealership were vacant. 204 Second Avenue had become home to Orkin Exterminating Co, Inc.

The aerial photo below shows the filling station had been filled in and you can see the addition on the east end of the building.

And here’s a close-up that shows how tight the corner used to be. Second Avenue still had diagonal parking at that time.

By 1959, Crum Oil Co. had taken over 210 Second Avenue, which still didn’t exist. Besides Ensminger’s and Orkin, the rest of the big building was vacant. In 1960, only Ensminger’s was operational. Things were looking up a bit in 1961, however. Barnes Appliance Service had taken over the spot at 204 and Davis Motorcycle Sales & Service was in the old filling station.

There were a lot of changes over the next year, though, and the Harley shop was replaced by Cool-Temp Awning and Window Company.

Dodge City Automotive Supply, Inc. was formed on October 31, 1962 and set up shop in the space at 200-202 Second. That basically gets us into the configuration we remember. In the flood photo below, you can see the Westinghouse logo on the sign for the appliance store.

I believe there was a fire at Barnes Appliance Service in August of 1966 that caused extensive damage in that part of the building and after that it was all Dodge City Automotive Supply on Second. Brown Manufacturing Co. and Brown Tent and Awning had the Trail Street side. Dodge City Music Co. occupied the old filling station on the corner until the early 1970s when they moved to 213 West Trail.

But remember how tight that corner was? How many times did you back up at the light for semis trying to turn east on Trail while you were waiting to turn south on Second?! I remember being shocked when the old filling station disappeared and Trail was widened. The visibility was amazing all of a sudden.

Dodge City Automotive Parts, Inc. was formed on January 4, 1984. Somewhere along the line, Dodge City Automotive became a NAPA.

The NAPA people painted the brick Smurf blue. Most of the windows were removed. It wasn’t a great look. Then NAPA built a new store just to the south and the original Rhinehart Building was apparently used for storage.

You can see from the Ford County GIS map that the current parcel is pretty huge. I’m not sure if both buildings were always considered one parcel or if that was changed over time. It’s really easy to tell from this view how the intersection was improved with the widening project.

Click here to see the Google Street View. You may have noticed on the Sanborn maps that there were rail sidings on Maple Street and the alleyway to the south of Fairmount Creamery. The Google satellite layer below still shows where the sidings were paved over.

This is all that is left of the original structure. It’s really obvious where the storefront entrances had been. The building was never what one would consider ornate but it does have some cool details.

Clearly, I took that photo before it was painted purple and black. Paws and Claws now occupies the building and I’m glad it’s being used. This is what happens when you look at a building and begin to wonder…

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205 West Chestnut Street / Wyatt Earp Boulevard

I’ve seen a ton of ads for the Rath Theater while looking for other things but I never paid attention to its location. The other day, I glanced at the address and realized the history of this plain building was really something.

Most Dodge City locals are familiar with Jacob Collar’s furniture and undertaker supply business. He was succeeded by Charles Dickerson who was later bought out by McVeigh and Kirkpatrick.

The 1884 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows the back of a frame structure at what was then 328 West Chestnut Street. In those days, the store fronts were mainly located on the Front Street side and this lot had a furniture store with rooms for rent. The firms of F. A. Dunn and Co. merged with McVeigh and Kirkpatrick in October of 1884 and the new store was called Dunn and Kirkpatrick.

They also had a store in Garden City. The partnership was dissolved in July of 1885 with Dunn assuming responsibility for the Garden City store and Kirkpatrick taking the one in Dodge. It is unclear how this transpired but suddenly there was a firm called Kirkpatrick and Dunn, this time with G. A. Dunn as partner.

A catastrophic fire accelerated their construction plans in December of 1885. The map below isn’t to scale but at least it gives an idea of the layout. The fire started in a saloon right next door to the furniture store.

The furniture store moved to Henry Sturm’s new brick building and excavation at the old site began almost immediately. Kirkpatrick and Dunn teamed up with their neighbors to the west to expedite rebuilding of the block.

Just as the new building was nearing completion, the firm of Kirkpatrick and Dunn was dissolved. George Dunn retired but retained ownership of the structure. Ed Kirkpatrick continued the business as a sole proprietor as of late 1886.

The 1887 Sanborn Map shows the furniture store taking up the entire building with frontage on both Chestnut and Front Streets. The block had been renumbered and the new address was 325 West Chestnut Street.

There were some issues early on with brick work having to be shored up on the new buildings in this block. The bricklayer was later killed by an architect in Denver after being accused of using inferior materials. Coincidence? We’ll never know.

In May of 1895, Ed Kirkpatrick hired an undertaker by the name of Charles Hulpieu, who had recently moved from Garden City. When Ed Kirkpatrick moved his family to Arkansas City in early 1900, Charles Hulpieu and his brother-in-law, E. S. Adam, bought the store.

Carrie Bainbridge, who as most of you know was Robert Rath’s mother, had bought the building around this time.

E. S. Adam bought out Hulpieu’s interest in the business in August of 1901. He operated as a sole proprietor until August of 1902 when the business became E. S. Adam & Company. His partner in this new company was former mayor, Adolphus Gluck. That partnership was dissolved with Gluck’s retirement in August of 1903 and Adam was a sole proprietor once again.

Meanwhile, Thanksgiving dinners in the Hulpieu-Adam family must have been a gas!

Hulpieu had gone to work for the Russell Furniture Company and his brother-in-law was having none of it. But about a week later, the Russell Furniture Company bought out Adam’s store and installed Hulpieu as Manager. E. S. Adam then made arrangements to get outta Dodge…as one does.

The business was called Home Furnishing Company and it was around for ages. The 1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows a furniture store on the main floor with club rooms upstairs. The club rooms seemed to have been used by Woodmen of the World, the Eagle Club, the Moose, etc.

Home Furnishing Company moved to a new location across Chestnut in early 1909 and Pastime Billiard Hall moved to the old spot that March with J. F. O’Neal as proprietor. O’Neal also operated a barber shop on the main floor.

The 1911 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows the building’s new address of 205 West Chestnut Street. The building was destroyed in the Opera House fire on March 10, 1912.

In October of 1912, debris was still being cleared from the site in preparation for rebuilding. O’Neal thought he would be able to reopen his establishments but the Rath family had other ideas. Carrie Bainbridge terminated O’Neal’s lease based on the argument that the building was destroyed by a fire and this invalidated the lease. O’Neal sued and the courts initially sided with Bainbridge. O’Neal appealed and the case dragged on for quite a while.

In the meantime, the structure was rebuilt and Robert Rath planned to open the Rath Theater on December 7, 1912. Jack G. Abbott was hired as Manager.

Nothing ever goes exactly as planned and the 400-seat theater opened on December 30, 1912 to a packed house.

You are not going to believe this but “From the Manger to the Cross” can be viewed online here.

Jack Abbott left for California and began working at a company that manufactured motion picture film. He was replaced as Manager by F. A. Etrick.

Meanwhile, J. F. O’Neal’s suit against Carrie Bainbridge went all the way to the Kansas Supreme Court. He didn’t get his lease back but he was awarded compensation.

Dances were held on the second floor above the theater.

The upstairs rooms were also used for various courses in shorthand and commercial spelling. Some courses were taught by traveling instructors but J. E. Shinn also gave instruction.

In October of 1916, F. A. Etrick announced he would become Rath’s competitor at the end of his lease. J. E. Shinn became the new manager and the theater was remodeled.

Ray Peacock of Stafford leased the theater in early 1917 and it reopened March 1. He was having trouble finding housing in Dodge. Go figure! The theater was remodeled again with new seats and new projection equipment.

1918 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows the theater with frontage on both Chestnut and Front Streets. By 1920, the theater was operated by Frank E Drake. J. E. Dunbar operated a piano tuning business upstairs in the Moose Hall.

It was reported that Drake sold the theater to H. G. and Oscar Souder at the beginning of July 1921 but something may have prevented the sale from being finalized. W. H. Harpole purchased the theater later that month and it was redecorated again.

Harpole is the one who reopened the establishment as the Cozy Theatre, which many of you may remember. He was also a partner in the Crown Theatre and had a long-term lease at the Chalk Beeson Theater.

The Cozy was redecorated yet again in May of 1925. Its regular programming was shown at the Chalk Beeson during that time. This photo shows the Front Street entrance in 1925.

In this photo from March of 1930, you can see the Front Street entrance looks more like two exits and it’s very utilitarian.

In June of 1930, the Cozy was gutted by a fire that started in the basement.

Clearly, the Cozy was remodeled and reopened. By 1931, it was a Fox theater and it had its ups and downs opening and closing and reformatting. Although the Cozy found itself running second-rate shows in the 1930s, it was part of the premiere of “Dodge City” in April of 1939 due to the insane demand for tickets.

By 1947, the Cozy was still plugging along and the upper floor was used as a residence.

But by 1953, the entire building was vacant.

Around that time, Glenn Cooper bought the building and it was renamed the Loy Theatre. The upper floor was once again used as a residence. That renaissance was short lived, however, and by 1955 the building was home to Paul Warner Appliances with the Knickerbocker Club upstairs.

Disabled American Veterans and Automatic Door Controls Company used the upper floor for a brief time around 1960 but the appliance store remained on the main level until the bitter end.

You know what happened next. Progress.

The photo below shows the Wyatt Earp Boulevard entrance shortly before demolition.

Here is the Front Street entrance. You can see the building interiors were already being cleared.

Click here for the Google Street View of the block as it appears now.

As much as I hate to see historical buildings destroyed, they were allowed to deteriorate to the point where it was basically the only option. Funding was much more difficult to obtain in those days. Building owners have many more resources now to help with historic preservation before it’s too late.

UPDATE: A reader sent me a screenshot from a British Pathé newsreel that shows the exterior of the Cozy during the world premiere of “Dodge City.” Instead of taking my chances with their licensing requirements, I’m linking here to the short newsreel. Enjoy!

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504 N Second Avenue

Gwinner’s Cafe was a Dodge City institution for decades. You may notice the Gwinner Building on Second Avenue south of Fidelity State Bank displays the year 1951 on its parapet. That seems kind of odd given the ages of the surrounding structures. So what was the deal? Amazingly, the county website shows this building was constructed in 1920. I don’t mean to be a jerk but…and there’s always a but…how?

This particular lot was slow to be developed. The block consisted of frame dwellings in 1884 and by 1887, the lot was empty. And that’s how it sat for about two decades. The first commercial structure to appear at 504 Second Avenue on a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map was a confectionery in 1911.

It turns out John Felkel and Ira Beck started the Palace of Sweets in the “new” Hoover Building just north of the Bee Hive in the Fall of 1907. Felkel had worked at the City Bakery for several years prior to this.

The Hoover Building also had a north room at 506 Second Avenue, which housed a drug store started by R. C. Mershon of Stafford the same month. Because of the way the block appears now, it’s hard to visualize the two sharing more than a common wall. By August of 1909, the drug store had been purchased by George D Cochran.

Ira Beck exited the partnership by April of 1910 leaving John Felkel as the sole proprietor. It seems a little odd to advertise oysters with candies and ice cream but the US hadn’t completely recovered from its oyster obsession in 1910.

Although it wasn’t heavily advertised as a dining establishment, The Palace of Sweets served lunch “at all hours.”

Martin M Gwinner built a bakery on Fourth Avenue in the Summer of 1888 when he was 25 years old. The City Bakery was located just north of J. H. Crawford’s grocery store. He later moved the business to Chestnut Street. So remember, John Felkel got his start working for Mr. Gwinner at City Bakery. This copy is a hot mess but it explains how the business became Gwinner’s Palace of Sweets.

The article failed to explain that the bakery side of the operation was sold to the Sturgeon brothers and the confectionery portion was sold to Harry Grose.

It’s really difficult to find good depictions of the building as it appeared during that time but this ad helps. It’s absolutely bonkers to compare this image to the current view.

Anyway, Gwinner’s Palace of Sweets did steady business for a good long while.

Martin’s son, Donald, worked at the Palace of Sweets after college. Donald was a talented clarinetist, who played with the Dodge City Cowboy Band for a time. Around 1924, the shop began advertising as simply Gwinner’s with a new logo.

The 1926 Sanborn is kind of interesting because it added 504 1/2 Second Avenue. I believe the second floor of the south end housed the Unique barber shop and beauty parlor, which was purchased by Edward Craig and Jack Cahoon (both formerly of the Pioneer Barber Shop) in 1926. The previous owner was C. O. Grounds. So maybe a building permit was issued in 1920, which is what the county is going by. At any rate, the Perfect Bakery occupied the north end of the building at that time.

I really like this postcard because in addition to the Gwinner sign, it also includes the First National Bank Building before the appearance of their first painted sign where the Stan Herd mural is now.

This photo of the Cochran Building shows just a tiny bit of the original Gwinner Building to the left. It had a lot more detail than the current utilitarian structure.

Before restaurants started ordering everything premade from Sysco and US Foods, they actually cooked stuff!

Sweetbriar Shops, Inc. was founded in Colorado in 1931 by Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Barron and they began with three stores. The chain incorporated in each of the various states in which they operated and they formed The Sweetbriar Shops, Inc. in Kansas on February 6, 1935. The Dodge City store occupied the north end of the building at 506 N Second Avenue for several years.

This photo from 1939 shows the bank on the corner, Sweetbriar one door south, and Gwinner’s to the far right. I’m not sure when it happened but it’s clear that the building was split into separate parcels with different owners. I believe Martin Gwinner only bought the south end.

This photo from just a little later, shows the Gwinner sign out front as well as the first painted sign at First National Bank. You can also see the Hiram T Burr advertisement on the old Post Office, which has been covered up for several decades by a Texaco sign.

It’s unclear when Martin finally retired for real but the Gwinner-Aten Cafe, Inc. was formed on March 8, 1944. Donald’s sister, Grace, was married to Clarence Aten and I’m not sure which of them was Donald’s partner…maybe both.

Martin died in November of 1945 at the age of 82 and his widow, Carrie Blackburn Gwinner, retained ownership of the building. The cafe continued until disaster struck in 1950.

Anyone who knows anything about Dodge City knows full well that this was not, in fact, the worst outbreak of fires in the town’s history but it is probably the worst example of arson here. As of September 21, there was “no trace” of the arsonist. Sweetbriar was moved into a temporary space at Hutton Electric at 505 First Avenue while their store was rebuilt. There were no plans for the continuation of Gwinner’s Cafe in Dodge City.

Construction of the new building was underway by April of 1951. Meanwhile, the Sweetbriar chain was expanding in Kansas with the Great Bend store opening in 1953.

Carrie Gwinner died in September of 1953 at the age of 89 and is buried next to Martin at Maple Grove Cemetery in Dodge. Donald moved to Colorado but his sister and her husband stayed in Dodge.

The image below shows Fidelity State Bank on the corner with the new expansion in the former Sweetbriar spot. I was so excited to find this one because it hasn’t looked like this in my lifetime.

And here is how the new Sweetbriar store looked at that time.

In the mid-1970s, the Sweetbriar chain headquartered in Denver consisted of 65 stores in roughly 14 western states. I believe the Hutchinson store opened in February of 1970. They even had their own branded store charge card as early as 1972.

This photo shows the southward expansion of Fidelity and Sweetbriar’s new home in the old Palace of Sweets location. You will notice the windows had been removed from the new Fidelity building by the time it was taken.

I only have vague memories of Sweetbriar and that’s apparently because they went out of business in 1984 or 1985, with their last annual report being filed in Kansas for the year ending December 31, 1984. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but I believe Sweetbriar moved to Village Square Mall a few years before the store closed.

There have been many, many establishments in the old Gwinner Cafe since Sweetbriar moved. The Street View on Google Maps will take you back to 2007. The building currently looks much better than it did from 2007 to 2018!

It is currently occupied by my studio and their website has quite a few interior photos. The studio is located upstairs in the big room and the exposed brick is amazing.

I’m not sure if the arsonist was ever caught but now we know why there’s such a young building on that old block.

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