Bill Hart, executive director of the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation and author, will be the keynote speaker for the “Celebration of Restoration” event to be held in Flander Hall in downtown Excelsior Springs on March 3.
The event spotlights the sole remaining mineral well office in the town built on the mineral water industry. The office, constructed in the early 1900s to serve the now iconic Superior Well No. 1, is in danger of being razed. But the dilapidated building next to the well held a secret. Inside, the office not only still existed, but was in relatively good shape for a 100-year-old.
It turns out that the residence built around the office sometime in the mid-1940s had saved the historic structure inside. However, while the city earmarked funds and completed some restoration of the iconic well structure next to it, the building that housed the office was deemed a project that was unlikely to occur with limited municipal resources.
A group of preservation-minded local citizens stepped in to generate public interest and to raise private money and support to save the building from being razed. If an initial target of $25,000 in donations can be met, the next step will be to continue raising money to complete the renovation and for an endowment to support upkeep and ongoing use of the building. Some of the ideas put forth would be to rent it for small meetings or weddings, or to use it as a standalone interpretive site focused on the town’s mineral water history.
To read more, see the print edition or e-edition of the Tuesday, Feb. 23, Standard.