10
Wednesday, February 8, 1978
University Daily Kansan
Staff Photo by TIM ASHNER
Last stand
Resting a bill overlooking Clinton Reservoir, the 113-year Steele House is scheduled for dismantling. The house is a
historical site, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to save some of the house's materials.
Speeches end conference on aging
A two-day conference on aging will conclude this morning with two addresses on medication and protective services for the elderly in the Big Eight Room of the Kansas Union.
The conference, jointly sponsored by the KU Division of Continuing Education Instructional Programs and the Kansas Department of Health, is the 28th annual state conference on aging.
Bill Chestnut, conference coordinator,
said yesterday that about 75 professionals
at the company have volunteered.
with aging and its problems attended yesterday's meeting. Social workers, nursing home administrators, educators, clergy and others interested in programs and research about aging heard presentations ranging from the status of health systems agencies in Kansas to ethnic diversity in aging.
YESTERDAY'S activities were highlighted by a telephone conference with Robert Butler, director of the National Institute on Aging in Washington.
Butler told conference participants that the country should focus its awareness on three areas concerning aging—socioeconomic concerns, public attitudes on aging and research on the problems of growing old.
Butler said that most research on aging now concentrated on the physical effects of growing old and that more research into the psychological effects of old age was needed.
Corps to dismantle last landmark as sacrifice to Clinton Reservoir
RV CAROL HUNTER
Staff Writer
The fate of the 113-year-old Steele house appears sealed. the brick house, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, will be torn down by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but some materials will be saved.
The corps doesn't want to preserve the house because it is structurally unsound and restoration would cost too much. Roberta Kirkland, coordinator for the Corps, said yesterday.
But members of the Clinton Historical Society, which has fought to save the house, have said the damage and increased cost of restoration could be attributed to Corpel's involvement. The company bought the house, vandals ripped out the interior walnut woodwork and trim.
MARTHA PARKER, Route 2 Overbrook,
said, "We charge that the reason it is in such
bad condition was that they let it sit for five
years without doing anything to it. If it had
been boarded up at the first, it wouldn't be in
the condition it is in now."
But Comstock said it was doubtful that the house could have been saved even if vandalism had not occurred. Cracking of the foundation because of ground settling would have been difficult to correct, she said, and the outside bricks were badly deteriorated.
She said, however, that the vandalism had reduced the historical value of the house. The vandalism already had occurred when the house was entered on the National Register in August, 1974, she said, but the application did not mention the damage.
"It is my personal opinion that the nomination to the Register would not have
The Corps bought the house when it began to build Clinton Reservoir. The house sits atop a hill overlooking a broad valley on the east that the reservoir will cover. The house is the last remaining landmark of the town of Bloomington.
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been granted had they known the vandalism
had occurred." .Comstock said.
Community Building 115 W.11 Street
5:30-6:30 Slide/Film on Chinese History &
Saturday Feb. 11
Scenery
The Corps will forward the agreement this
committee to the historical societies for approval,
Comprehensive Plan.
6:30-8:00 Chinese New Year Dinner
SHE SAID the house was named to the Register because it is a good example of a Lawrence area, a community with a long century. The walnut woodwork and the outside bricks, which are thought to have been produced in a family long before the river, are of particular historic value she said.
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Members '2.00 Non-members '3.00
ADMISSION
Tickets available at the SUA ticket office outlet
AFTER NEGOTIATING with the historical societies, the Corps agreed to dismantle instead of bulldoze the building. They agreed to put salvaged materials in a resource center, to be built with Corps funds.
in the Kansas Union
One of the purposes of the Register is to protect historical buildings from federally-funded or licensed projects, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Elizabeth M. Watkins Community Museum.
Because the home is listed on the National Register, the Corps needs approval of the Kansas Historical Society and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to destroy
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A spokesman for the Corps said labor and materials for the resource center would cost about $200,000. The Corps had estimated housing the house would have cost $200,000.
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DITTOS
In addition to paying for the information center, the Corps must pay a consultant to supervise the dismantling and the salvaging of the site. The Corps also hired Iroquois Research Institute to study historical, architectural and archaeological data from the Clinton area, including the Steele house.
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Although the Corpus will pay for the new building, it could not have paid for restoring the house.
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"THE REGULATIONS of the Corps of Engineers prevent restoration or maintenance of a historical project without cost sharing of a local sponsor," she said. "There is no local group willing or available to provide the money."
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