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Brown Building
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(Quoted from the Kansas Preservation Newsletter , Kansas State Historical Society, Sept.-Oct. 2007: http://www.kshs.org/resource/ks_preservation/kpsepoct07.pdf)
The Brown Building, at the southwest corner of Douglas and Broadway in downtown Wichita, was constructed as an architectural bookend to the 14-story Union National Bank on the southeast corner of the same intersection. It is a Commercial-style building with Classical Revival ornamentation, a solid and appropriate design for a downtown Wichita office building. The architectural firm of Schmidt, Boucher & Overend designed the original six-story building, and the George Siedhoff Construction Company began construction in July 1926. The office tower was named for Charles S. Brown, father of George Brown who owned the lots on which it was built. Construction took just nine months and involved many local firms, including the Western Glass Company, Ben Sibbitt Iron, Gold Rule Plumbing, Southwestern Roofing, and Cuthbert Cut Stone. The Wichita Eagle praised Wichita’s newest tower as “a masterpiece of modern business building construction.” Located on one of the city’s busiest and most valuable corners, the $500,000 building was a modern wonder of reinforced concrete, red brick, and Carthage-Bedford white stone. Tenants on the ground floor included the Princess Lunch, Billy Cain’s barber shop, the LaSalle candy shop and Cox’s hosiery shop. The basement housed the Commodore Club, a billiard parlor with ten tables, a lunch counter, and a cigar counter. Two high speed elevators whisked passengers to the upper floors and the offices of attorneys, physicians, oil companies, and Brosius Investment Company, the owner of the building. Work began in May 1928 to add five additional floors to the building, increasing it in height to an impressive eleven stories. Again, the work was contracted to the Siedhoff Construction Company for $225,000. Construction was completed by November 1928. Today, a variety of commercial businesses occupy the Brown Building.