Main Street --100 Block North and South - Tour Stop 3 - Ottawa, Ks.
Posted by: 
iconions
N 38° 37.022 W 095° 16.118
15S E 302489 N 4276720
This marker is in front of 103-105 S Main Street.
Waymark Code: WMFC4Y
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 09/26/2012
Views: 3
This is the third stop of the City of Ottawa Historical Tour. This Kiosk is located on the Southeast corner of 1st and Main and there is plenty of on street parking. Text of the marker:
Left side of the panel:
The photo above shows Indians racing their ponies on the dirt Main Street. The Baldwin Taylor & Co. business was the successor to the town's earliest store, that of John Tecumseh "Tauy" Jones, an adopted Ottawa Indian.
The two photos above highlight the speed of change on Main Street in Ottawa between the late 1860's and the early 1870's. The brick storefront building with the three second-story arched windows can be seen in both photos. It is still standing today.
Center section of panel:
Ottawa's Main Street evolved from tents to small wooden stores to brick and stone buildings which used elaborate zinc cornices as a cost-saving alternative to cut stone details.
Throughout the town's development, frequent floods interrupted its growth, demanding continuing community strength and resources to clean up and start again.
The Ottawa Herald occupied this building at 106-108 S. Main from the 1880's until 1963.
The Occidental Hotel building, originally owned by Ottawa pioneer John Whetstone, became the A & P grocery store by the 1940's. In the aftermath of the great flood of 1951, see in the photo, right, the soaked wooden floors buckled.
Peter Kaiser was a German immigrant and a Civil War veteran when he came to Ottawa in 1869. He opened a harness and saddlery shop, and also became involved in the German Turnverein, a program of mental and physical health, which also had political and social overtones. German-Americans founded Turnhalls in many towns. Ottawa's was located on Walnut Street. Kaiser died in 1940, the last surviving member of the George H. Thomas Post #18 of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Right side of the marker:
The Ottawa Mills building, seen on the corner of 1st and Main in this photo, circa 1920. Three large grist mills were located near the Marais des Cygnes River - one at the site of the current Ottawa Co-op on the north side of the river, one here, and one a block west. The smokestack in the photo marks the site of the Ottawa Foundry, a company that made, among other metal products, cast iron columns for storefronts.
Looking northwest from the southeast side of the intersection, a 1928 flood drowns main Street. The Ottawa Mills building, once located on the corner, is gone in this photo.
The dotted line on the map of Main Street indicates the path of the bouiler on a fatal december day in 1920. The Star Laundry on the west side of the 100 block started to heat its boiler for the day's washing, not knowing that the water pipes leading to it were frozen. By the time they thawed, the high heat of the empty boiler turned the water into steam and launched the huge boiler across the Main Street and into the Jeffries Seed store on the east side. One woman was killed and several injured in the terrible accident.
Marker Name: Main Street --100 Block North and South - Tour Stop 3
Marker Type: Other (Please identify in marker text)
Marker text:
See long description as the text is lengthy. The marker is on the Southeast corner of 1st and Main Streets and was placed by the Franklin County Convention Bureau and the Franklin County Historical Society.
Marker Location: Franklin
Official Marker Number: Tour Stop 3
Name of agency setting marker: Other (Please identify in marker text)
Year Marker Placed: Not listed
Marker Web Address: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
Must log an original UNPHOTOSHOPPED picture of you or your GPSr at the marker. Please tell some background of what you learned or how you found the marker.