Tour the Town – Burns Building

Tour the Town, Part 3 – The Northeast Side of Third Street Between Missouri and Cherokee Avenues, Claremore, Oklahoma. Read Part 1 or Part 2.

 3rd Street (now Will Rogers Boulevard) and Missouri Avenue looking east. Left: Wilson & Sons Hardware (Eaton Building), Bayless-Chambers- Forest Building next, Burns Building, Loomis building. Source: Private Collection, used with permission.

The Burns Building (lot 10)

“Callie” Burns, of Nowata, wife of Prof. J.A. Burns and the daughter of G.W. Eaton[i] developed the Burns Building property to the east of the Chambers buildings, which housed the Laderer-Davis Clothing Company. Mrs. Eaton – Burns’ land was the 32 feet lot “intervening between Mr. Loomis’ lots and the Forest building, and it is understood that she will join in the building, making two rooms, which are already leased.”[ii] Ground was broken February 1906. The Burns building would be two stories high and 100 feet deep.[iii] “G.B. Austin, of Bolivar, Mo., rented of Mrs. J.A. Burns, one of the new store buildings next to Laderer-Davis Clothing Store” to “open up a confectionary store therein.”[iv] Marsh & Co., of Bolivar, Missouri, “rented the east room of the new Burns building” for its grocery store. “This room adjoins the one rented by Mr. Austin.”[v]

The Loomis Building (lots 8 & 9)

To the east of these buildings was built the voluminous B.F. Loomis building, the last of the five buildings to line up along the north side of Third Street between Missouri and Cherokee Avenues, Claremore, Oklahoma, in 1906.[vi] But the process had begun many months before, in 1905.

July 1905, The Claremore Progress reported, “B.F. Loomis was over from Blackwell this week and while here decided to build on two of his lots next to the PROGRESS instead of one as first intended. The buildings will have a frontage of 50 feet on Third street and will be one hundred feet deep on the first floor, and fifty feet deep on the second floor. He will let the contract as soon as the plans and specifications can be drawn up. This leaves only 23 feet lots on this block to make it a solid brick block. Mr. Loomis was very much pleased with the way matters are progressing in the town. He may yet be prevailed on to come to our town to live, and he would be a welcome addition.”[vii]

Six months later, in January 1906, The Claremore Progress confirmed, “Mr. Loomis, of Blackwell, Okla., has been in the city most of the week perfecting plans for the erection of some good business buildings on his lots on Third street. He has decided to begin work as soon as the weather will permit, and will build two good brick business houses, 25×110 feet, two stories high.”[viii] “It will have all of the modern conveniences and an up-to-date front, and will be one of the best business houses in the town,” reported The Claremore Progress enthusiastically. The precarious Oklahoma weather held up the building progress,[ix] but finally, all was ready and the contract let for Loomis’ buildings.

Mr. B.F. Loomis “let the contract for two new storerooms to be built on the two lots owned by him east of the Forest building. They will be handsome buildings with buff pressed brick fronts, two stories high, and will cost $10,000 or more. H.M. Martin, of Tulsa, is the contractor, and we understand he will move here…  Everything points to a big building boom in Claremore during the approaching building season.”[x]

Ground was broken “for the four new business houses of Burns and Loomis on Third Street located between the Progress Office (a frame building on the east) and the Forest building” to the west, February 1906.[xi] Pictured just after a snowstorm, a little progress is apparent on these buildings on the north side of Third Street in the March 26, 1906, iconic Frank L. Stone panoramic photograph of downtown Claremore looking west, which is taken from the southeast side of town at about Third Street and Cherokee Avenue.

Business owners were ready and waiting to take up residence.

In July 1906, Mrs. Akridge “rented the second floor of the new Loomis building (lot 8 & 7), and her daughter, Mrs. Rosa Knorr, has rented the second floor of the adjoining Burns building (lot 9), and the entire floor will be used as a rooming house.”[xii] A month later, Mrs. Minnie B. Church leased the downstairs space to upgrade her high-end fashionable M.B. Church Ladies’ Specialty (clothing) Store.[xiii] H.M. Jones operated his “cotton, grain and stock exchange … in the rear of Mr. Loomis’ building on the ground floor.”[xiv]

As the second-floor hotel business of the Loomis and Burns buildings grew, the name of the Loomis building intermingled with the name Oxford building which intermingled with the name Burns building “occupied up-stairs by two rooming houses, called the Oxford Hotel. The one is conducted by Mrs. Knorr, who comes from Shawnee, Okla., while her mother, Mrs. G.M. Akridge, looks after the other part of the house. The rooms are in elegant shape, and the new hotel seems to be well patronized.”[xv] That summer and fall the new tenants settled in to build their businesses. The Hotel Oxford was entered from the main street sidewalk by a stairway in the center of the Burns Building. The rooms to the east (aka Royal Rooms) were entered from the main street sidewalk through a passageway midway in the Loomis Building.[xvi]

By Christa Rice, Claremore History Explorer

We invite you to continue reading “Tour the Town: The Loomis Building,  Part 4.”

Sources:

Unless otherwise noted, newspaper articles are sourced through The Gateway to Oklahoma History, gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.

[i]Claremore Progress. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 14, No. 49, Ed. 1 Saturday, December 29, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc182314/:accessed May 7, 2019).

[ii]Constant, J. A. The Claremore Messenger. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 12, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, February 16, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc178091/: accessed May 9, 2019).

[iii]Claremore Progress. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 14, No. 5, Ed. 1 Saturday, February 24, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc183280/:accessed May 9, 2019).

[iv]Claremore Progress. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 14, No. 14, Ed. 1 Saturday, April 28, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc183118/: accessed May 7, 2019).

[v]Williamson, F. E. The Claremore Messenger. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 11, No. 20, Ed. 2 Friday, May 19, 1905, Claremore, Indian Territory. (gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc178054/: accessed December 10, 2018).

[vi]Williamson, F. E. The Claremore Messenger. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 11, No. 20, Ed. 2 Friday, May 19, 1905, Claremore, Indian Territory. (gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc178054/: accessed December 10, 2018).

[vii]The Claremore Progress. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 13, No. 25, Ed. 1 Saturday, July 15, 1905, Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc182133/: accessed May 9, 2019).

[viii]Williamson, F. E. The Claremore Messenger. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 12, No. 2, Ed. 1 Friday, January 12, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc178086/: accessed May 9, 2019).

Claremore Progress. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 14, No. 5, Ed. 1 Saturday, February 24, 1906,  Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc183280/:accessed May 9, 2019).

[ix]Claremore Progress. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 14, No. 3, Ed. 1 Saturday, February 10, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc183466/:accessed May 9, 2019).

[x]Constant, J. A. The Claremore Messenger. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 12, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, February 16, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc178091/: accessed May 9, 2019).

[xi]Claremore Progress. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 14, No. 5, Ed. 1 Saturday, February 24, 1906,  Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc183280/:accessed May 9, 2019).

[xii]Constant, J. A. The Claremore Messenger. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 12, No. 27, Ed. 1 Friday, July 6, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc178110/: accessed February 23, 2019).

[xiii]Smith, Clark. The Claremore Messenger. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 12, No. 31, Ed. 1 Friday, August 3, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc178113/: accessed February 23, 2019).

[xiv]Smith, Clark. The Claremore Messenger. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 13, No. 2, Ed. 1 Friday, January 4, 1907, Claremore, Indian Territory. (gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc178136/: accessed February 23, 2019).

[xv]Smith, Clark. The Claremore Messenger. (Claremore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 12, No. 35, Ed. 1 Friday, August 31, 1906, Claremore, Indian Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc178117/: accessed May 6, 2019).

[xvi]1908 Photo Postcard D 3028 third Street View, Claremore, Okla. and Photo Postcard Street Scene, Claremore, Okla.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map. Claremore, Indian Territory, 1907. Sheet 4.