Unfinished Business
Off-the-Beaten Path Road Trip!
Off-the- Beaten Path Road Trip!
They say you can't go home again. True, but that doesn't stop me from trying. It's what led me to Sioux City last week to the Preserve Iowa Summit. And I even was willing to spend time in jail while I was there!
Sioux City isn't my hometown, but I spent a lot of time there as a kid, visiting relatives, shopping, family reunions at the park, seeing an occasional movie or concert, or when the Shrine Circus came to town. I spent my undergraduate years in Sioux City, at Morningside.
The Preserve Iowa Summit offered a trip down Memory Lane, featuring tours of historic buildings and streetscapes. It was eye-opening to see these through an adult lens.
Sioux City offers a surprising array of historical and architectural gems. Its crown jewel is The Warrior Hotel. This landmark was designed by Kansas City architect Alonzo H. Gentry, (who also designed the Harry Truman Library). It opened on the heels of the "Crash of '29." Despite its inauspicious launch, it remained a leading hotel through the 1960s. (You may remember it in the 1950s as the Sheraton-Warrior.)
Its doors closed in 1976. Abandoned for 40 years, it was tagged for building violations in the late 1990s. Debi Durham, director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority is the former president of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce. She told Preserve Iowa conference-goers, "I'd get calls from people asking me, 'When are you going to tear down The Warrior?' " Her response? "We don't need another parking lot downtown."
Labor of Love
Owners and developers Amrit and Amy Gill (Restoration St. Louis) were on hand to discuss the renovation challenges. "We did a walk-through," Amy says. "It seemed an opportunity to change the trajectory of the city."
However, its elegant interior had been almost gutted in 2006 when it was slated to become low-income senior housing. The Gills researched photos in old Sioux City Journal newspapers to recreate its storied Art Deco design, terra cotta ornamentation, plaster ceilings, fresco, and other ornate architecture. "We had to go to India to find the red marble for the lobby floor to be historically accurate," she says.
The adjacent Davidson Building, the oldest office building in Sioux City (1913), was incorporated into the project, making The Warrior into a 148-room hotel, and 22 luxury apartments. It was designed by William L. Steele, who studied under Louis Sullivan in Chicago. The Davidson is capped with ornate cornices, and its exterior features terra cotta panels separated by vertical banks of Roman-style brick.
(One decade before I was born, my mom was a single, working woman at the Davidson Building. My sister and I have personal letters addressed to her 5th floor office.)
The 11-story Warrior was completely renovated over three years, at a cost of $73 million. It opened in 2020 -- just as Covid-19 shut down travel. A member of the Marriott Autograph Collection Hotels, its amenities include bathroom vanity mirror TVs, Italian linens, Toto Washlets, a Tesla charging station, and geothermal heating and cooling. Enjoy the Two Finches Spa, indoor pool and hot tub, the 6-lane War Eagle Lanes, or savor cocktails on the Crown Rooftop Bar with its wonderful view of downtown Sioux City, and the Missouri River. The Warrior was listed as an official landmark in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. https://www.thewarriorhotel.com
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"It was a labor of love," Amy said. But Amrit admitted, "Historic renovation takes a lot of passion and perseverance. Without state and federal tax credits, The Warrior never would have happened."
Restoring Former Glory
Just one block away is the Orpheum Theatre. Designed by the nationally known Chicago firm of Rapp & Rapp, the $1.75 million building was the largest vaudeville and moving picture house (2,690 seats) in Iowa when it opened its doors in 1927. It featured a 21 rank Wurlitzer pipe organ, half circle boxes, hand-carved detailing, gilded ornamentation, crystal chandeliers and a hand-painted ceiling. The Orpheum hosted such legendary talents as Fred Astaire, Tallulah Bankhead, Katherine Hepburn, Kirk Douglas, and John Barrymore.
But many of its iconic features were lost during a modernization in the 1970s and 1980s. The Orpheum closed in 1992. Durham recalled crawling on the edges of its interior scaffolding. "It had been boarded up for awhile," she said. Restoration began in 1999, and it re-opened in 2001, at a cost of $15 million. Today it's the home of the Sioux City Symphony, and the Broadway Series at the Orpheum as well as concerts (and shops on the ground floor). You still can see original chandeliers and wall sconces, terrazzo baseboard and mahogany handrails, plus the original Wurlitzer organ that was stored, and restored.
Hidden Treasure in Plain Sight
If you have time to unearth one more gem during your Sioux City road trip, see the Woodbury County Courthouse. This national treasure occupies a full city block.
Its design is New School of the Middle West, later known as Prairie School style. Chicago architect, William L. Steele, along with associate architects George Elmslie and William Purcell, all had worked with architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The square base of the Courthouse contains most of the offices used by the public. An eight-story tower rises from the center core, houses courtrooms and a law library at the top. Architectural hallmarks include soffitted ceilings, Clerestory windows (placed below the roofline to allow more natural light), pilasters, skylights, and terrazzo floors.
The Courthouse opened in March 1918 at a cost of $846,000. The Roman-style bricks were made by Sioux City Brick and Tile, and in a departure from the traditional architecture of its day, the exterior brickwork also accentuated its interior walls. Many regarded it as a radical architectural experiment. "The architects wanted something unique, something to stir the imagination," our tour guide told us.
Four eye-catching murals by John Warner Norton at the mezzanine level of the rotunda depict people helping people: a primitive court, rural farm life, urban life, and a tribute to the World War 1 soldiers. The building features geometric terra cotta, sculptured light fixtures, and a stained-glass dome that bathes the interior in a richly tinted light.
The exterior of the Courthouse showcases elaborate terra cotta trim. Above the entrance, sculptured figures symbolize the Society under the Law: the old and young, soldiers, laborers, the father, the mother, the irresponsible and those who have known grief. Above them are the words, "Justice and Peace have met together; Truth hath sprung out of the Earth." The west and north entrance sculptures are the work of Italian-born Alfonso Iannelli of Park Ridge, Illinois.
The Woodbury County Courthouse is the largest publicly owned Prairie School building in the world. Even its original furniture was designed in the Prairie School tradition. The Courthouse has undergone a $7 million restoration, and today its estimated worth is between $60 and $100 million. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1996.
Eastern Investors Make Architectural Impact
May I suggest a driving tour? As a kid, I was oblivious to the history of a large number of commercial buildings two blocks away. In the 1960s, it was known as Lower Fourth. My mom would drag us into the Thrift Shop, where she would buy blue jeans with broken zippers, and take them home to replace the zippers using her Singer sewing machine. Today it would be called an outlet store.
Financed by Eastern in investors between 1889 and 1915, Sioux City's Historic Fourth Street has the largest surviving collection of historic Richardsonian Romanesque-style buildings in the Midwest:
· 1005-13 4th Street; Boston Block. National Register of Historic Places.
· 1101-03 4th Street; Krummann Block.
· 1100-10 4th Street; Plymouth Block.
· 1126 4th Street; Evans Block. National Register of Historic Places.
The 12-story Badgerow Building at 622 Fourth Street is remarkable. Completed in 1933, it merges Art Deco, Sullivanesque, Moderne, and Chicago styles. Two facades feature terra cotta, and the other two are brick party. Its most striking exterior feature is the Native American head above the main entrance, and along the parapet. Lobby walls are adorned in Black Belgian marble and pink Tennessee marble, and the floors are patterned terrazzo. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The renovation of these Historic Fourth Street buildings is the anchor of a downtown cultural and commercial revitalization. "Today there are 40 open building permits in Sioux City," Amy Gill said. "Once you get something going, that's what happens."
(Now, as to my time in jail, it's nothing to brag about. But the Jail, a self-contained unit in the 3rd through 7th stories of the Woodbury County Courthouse, generally isn't part of the Courthouse tour. It was closed in the 1970s. A private elevator allows court officers to bypass public areas with prisoners.
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Off the Beaten Track, But Worth It
Successful restoration stories abound across Iowa, including Davenport's Hotel Black Hawk (a $46 million effort by Restoration St. Louis). It re-opened in 2010. "Someone painted the words on the door, 'No hope for it. Tear it down,' "Amy Gill said. "Public sentiment overcame it."
More can be done. Preservation Iowa, launched in 1991, has played a key role in what developers call place-making. Its focus is using private/public partnerships to preserve Iowa's deteriorating assets through State and Federal Historic Tax Credits, and property tax incentives for rehabilitation. I'll share some of the 2023 award-winners in future columns.
As a kid, my family often crossed the old Missouri River combination bridge to Nebraska, or headed west over the Big Sioux River into South Dakota. We sometimes listened to an Omaha TV station, and I took my ACT test in Brookings, South Dakota. In the late 1950s and 1960s, Des Moines, Iowa, seemed very remote. I never attended the Iowa State Fair until after college.
Yet Sioux City was named one of the inaugural Iowa Great Places in 2005, describing itself as "a cow town with an opera house". Today it's much more than its Corn Palace and Meat-Packing past. In some ways, it was the frontier town that time forgot. But the upside to being underestimated is that it retains much of its original architecture and character. But don't take my word for it--see for yourself! And while you're there, drive the Loess Hills Scenic Byway, or hike its trails and experience the Sioux City Tallgrass Prairie. (Stop at Palmer's Olde Tyme Candy Shoppe.)
"People want to go places where they feel connected to the past, especially something cherished," Amy Gill told Preserve Iowa Summit attendees. Amrit agreed. "These places are repositories of American dreams and history," he said. "If you tear them down, you lose it all."
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I visited Sioux City many times as a child, but I never appreciated the buildings you described. I have not returned for more than 30 years. I need to make another visit!