frisco and the history of architecture and landscape

I'm an architectural historian based in St. Louis, and I'm in the midst of a project on the architectural history of "the great southwest" between 1880 and 1930. The Frisco is a huge part of my study and I hope I can learn from the group members about all sorts of things.

Right now I'm working on George Kessler, who was the landscape architect in charge of planting and maintaining the depot gardens throughout the system in the early 1900s. Anyone with any information about him and his activities, or photographs of the gardens, please do let me know. He was also superitendant of a catalpa planation in Farlington KS meant to provide wood for railroad ties.

I'm also working on beer depots, especially those of Lemp, Anheuser-Busch, and Heim. Also icing stations.

I'm not a modeler, but with my architectural interests I'm very interested in the work of modelers.

I'm looking forward to reading and contributing,

Paula Lupkin

 

Paula, welcome to the group.

In my collection, I have a map drawn on linen, which has the Explanation

FRISCO LINES
Map Showing location of Tree Farms Near
Farlington
Crawford County Kansas
7-11-11

Unfortunately, it appears to be just as base map since no farms are plotted on the map.

I have another linen from the Kansas City Ft Scott & Gulf RR dated ca 1888 which shows the detail of the Catalpa Plantations. It's too big for my scanner. I'll have to run it by a repro shop for digitizing. Perhaps I'll have something in a week or so.

-keb-

 

Karl--Thanks for the catalpa map, and I look forward to seeing the larger one. This is a vital piece of evidence for me!

As for Kessler and the gardens, I've looked at the Frisco Man online, but not in enough detail. I'm pleased to hear that there may be garden images in there somewhere. I know for sure that he designed gardens in 1905 for Tupelo, Mississippi, Jonesboro, Arkansas, Springfield, Newburg, Tower Grove, Monett and Nichols in Missouri; Arcadia, Fort Scott, Pleasanton, La Cygne, Hillsdale, Olathe, Merriam, all in Kansas, and Paris and Sherman, Texas. In other years he did ones for Wichita, Enid, and Sapulpa, and probably a dozen more.

Thanks again for the help,

Paula

 

Ms. Lupkin,

You should also contact the special collections department of the library at Missouri State University in Springfield. They have a very extensive collection of archival materials from the SL-SF railroad, which may include company papers relating to Mr. Kessler and his responsibilities. Unfortunately, it is not completely processed, which makes finding materials a hit-or-miss proposition at the moment, but archivist Anne Baker may be able to assist you.

http://library.missouristate.edu/archives/index.htm

Did Mr. Kessler's landscaping activities continue into the WWI era? If so, it might be interesting to see if they are reflected in the data collected for the ICC valuation report on the SL&SF. This data (some of which is available at MSU) includes an inventory of structures at various stations.

More general suggestions, which you may already have pursued:

If you have access to a university or large public library with retrospective periodicals indexes that cover magazines and newspapers of the appropriate time period, see if they provide any citations for articles that profile Mr. Kessler or mention depot gardens or landscaping at relevant towns. For towns where depot gardens are known to have existed, it might be worthwhile to look up local history books and contact local historical societies which might have photograph collections. Also, if you haven't already tried searching WorldCat for the subject heading "Kessler, George Edward", check it out -- there are a few publications out there about him, although none I saw that specifically focused on depot gardens. (I assume this is probably your guy, since he seems to have been active in the Kansas City area in the appropriate time period.)

Good luck with the project!

 

Addendum: if you haven't already checked out the online Sanborn fire insurance maps from the University of Missouri library website, take a look. They will provide crude outlines of structures and some architectural information such as the primary construction material. I don't know if ornamental gardens would be consistently represented on these maps, but breweries and beer distribution warehouses are commonly depicted. The U of Missouri website includes maps published before the 1920s which are legally public domain.

http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/specialcollections/sanborn.htm

Locating Sanborn maps for other states will be more be difficult, unless other universities or libraries have undertaken similar projects or you have access to a library with an institutional electronic subscription to the commercial Sanborn maps database. But not impossible. Be aware that the microfilmed copies of the maps lose some architectural information because they are black & white instead of color.

 

For what it's worth, here's the Farlington Tree Farm Plan, KCFtS&G, post 1888. The image is 50% of the original, and has been decimated to facilitate posting here.