House painting about 80% done
Greetings All !
Against my better judgement, I decided to go along with my wife’s request for me to take some new photos of the house’s exterior paint job… while it is still in progress.
You will find the photos here, in the site’s Image Gallery: http://www.myoldhouse.com/gallery/categories.php?cat_id=15
Meanwhile, just last week, I finished turning in the paperwork to the City of Independence’s Historic Preservation Office, applying for their “Celebrating a Century” program. This is where you present evidence that your house is at least 100 years old… and then they award you a special plaque. Now, if we submit “early enough”, the plaque is going to be free. If not, then we have to pay for it. I have no idea whether or not my submission was “early enough”. In my mind, my application is just a prelude for applying for local historic designation for the house.
And after that, I may also apply for such designation at the State and National levels. I’m not sure, though. I feel like I may need some guidance on applying for those.
In any event, we have strong evidence showing that the house was built in the 1905-1910 range. (The state and federal taxes on the property went up 7 times in that 5 year range, plus the property owners took out several loans in 1905. The husband-owner (Rufus O. Kerby) was a carpenter, who also happened to build a historic house about two blocks south of our home.) The house’s architecture also is evidence supporting that time-range estimate.
There is other evidence suggesting that it is more-likely that the home was built in between 1905 and 1907… than in later years. However, I will be the first to say that some speculation is involved here. There is no “smoking gun” document with a build-date on it. And if it’s one thing I’ve learned from my research, having such a “smoking gun” is very much the exception, rather than the rule… at least in this part of the country.
I really do want to find more CONCLUSIVE evidence that the house was built between 1905-1907…and not in the time-range between 1907-1910. I feel like I NEED to find this before taking all these applications for historic status any further.
Oh well, research like this takes time…and is better done when the weather is bad, not when the weather is good, like it has been lately!
Thanks for stopping by the site!
-= Dave =-
LOOKING GOOD DAVID HOPE TO BE UP IN THE NEAR FURTURE TO CHECK IT OUT. TELL MY NEICE HELLO.
Comment by EARLENE SWEENEY — 5/14/2007 @ 12:17 pm
The city’s water department has records on when the water was brought to the property. You may want to call them. It helped us pinpoint the date our foursquare was built. Good luck, you’re doing fabulous work. I feel your pain with restoring the old home.
Comment by Lee W — 8/1/2007 @ 12:32 pm
Well, in response to your comment, Lee, I tried that well over a year ago. The water department’s records were obviously a bunch of baloney.
I’m at work as I type this, so I don’t have the papers in front of me, but I did save them. Their records showed that for water service and electric service… something like 1969 for one and 1980 for the other. (In fact, I may have those exact years posted in another post on this blog somewhere. Can’t remember.)
Well, I knew that those dates were completely laughable. Even with the old asbestos siding on, I felt the architecture argued strongly against this.
And we were told to go to the City Records department and ask them. Well, they had a date of 1889, which told us that the previous owners must have called them to get info regarding what to put on the MLS record for the realtor! Anyways, when I asked them where they got that date, they said they just put whatever the owner tells them.
Which reminds me, I need to call them or stop by there and tell them the correct year now.
Thanks!
-= Dave =-
Comment by Admin — 8/1/2007 @ 3:43 pm