Fletcher Block Building - Artist's Drawing

The Fletcher Block Building (or Fletcher Building) was located on the northwest corner of Main & Second Street and was built for William Fletcher who also had is business office here. This building was built by William Henry Sternberg (1832 - 1906) c. 1887. The first year that the Fletcher block appeared in the City Directory was 1888. William Fletcher moved to Wichita from Illinois and is described as a "Capitalist" and a "Speculator". At the time this building was built Mr. Fletcher lived just a block south of Mr. Sternberg on the then very exclusive north Waco Avenue residential district. Mr. Sternberg's residence was at 1065 N. Waco Avenue. Mr. Fletcher's residence was at 933 N. Waco Avenue. At the time, Waco Avenue was an elite cul-de-sac, accessible only from the east. South of this area, the Arkansas river's path swung further to the east than it does today, cutting off Waco Avenue from going all the way through to downtown as it does today. No known photos of the Fletcher residence exist, but it's not unlikely that Sternberg designed and built Mr. Fletcher's personal residence in addition to building the Fletcher Building (which Sternberg is confirmed to have done). Sternberg is known to have designed & built Finlay Ross's residence at 821 N. Waco Avenue. Fletcher's home would have been in between the two. Early fire insurance maps for 933 N. Waco indicate there was a large home at this address, but other than identifying the perimeter of the structure those maps don't say anything else about it. Any additional information about the William Fletcher residence at 933 North Waco Avenue in Wichita, KS is welcome.

 

The Fletcher Block Building was a first-class office building equiped with steam heat, an electric elevator, stained glass windows and stained glass skylights and other upscale appointments. This building no longer exists. The term "block" is never used today, but was a common term in the late 1800s. It was somewhat of a generic term for any large commercial building that covered all or most of a block or even part of a block as long as it was fairly square or rectangular in shape. The Fletcher Block was a well-known building throughout Wichita. City directories sometimes omitted an address all together and simply referenced an office location as "Fletcher Block". It contained offices of professionals such as doctors and real estate brokers. Sternberg was the most prolific builder in the area and erected more of the commercial block-style buildings than any other builder in the late 1800s. Some of the other block-style buildings he erected include: the Eads Block Building, Smyth & Sons Block Building, the Union Block Building (corner of Douglas and Water), the Temple Block Building, the Bitting Block Building (also called simply, the Bitting Building at the corner of Market and Douglas), the Roys Block at the corner of Lawrence and Douglas, the Market Street Block (erected in August 1887), the Naftzger Building (a block-style building three stories high at the corner of St. Francis and Douglas), the Gettos Block Building, the Porter Building (a four-story brick at 211 – 213 E. Douglas), Ferrell’s Brick Block (opposite the old Post Office) and many others. Sternberg employed a crew that at times reached 40 men. As population in Wichita has grown about 10-fold since then, that translates into a construction firm with roughly 400 workers by today's standards. William Sternberg was a significant employer in Wichita, all at a time before electric tools and cars.

 

Bricks for buildings like these were made locally at any number of brick manufacturers.

In the 1800s, bricks were made by hand in a slow, laborious process. In 1879, the steam shovel was invented which speeded up the first step: just the getting the clay to begin with. Clay was often stored over the Winter because the freezing made working the clay easier in the Spring and the cold helped remove unwanted oxides. Clay was then ground into powder and screened to remove rocks. The dry clay was then mixed with water and then kneaded (“pugged” in a “pug mill” whereby a horse drawn cart worked the clay mixture by walking round-and-round the pug) to mix all the elements together in a uniform mixture. Wooden brick molds, usually made from beech wood (because beech wood didn’t stick to the clay mixture), were “sanded” (moistened and covered with sand) and filled with the clay mixture. These wood molds were then turned over and the “sand-struck bricks” slid out of the wooden brick molds and cured for a few days before being fired. Kilns were not massive ovens as they are today but usually dug-outs or pits in the ground and temperatures reached about 1800 degrees F, but the heat was not uniform throughout the firing pit. Bricks closer to the center (closer to the fire) ended up being "over-fired" and were called “clinkers” because they were noticeably cracked and/or warped. They broke easily and were mostly used for decorative purposes (garden borders, decorative walls and walkways, etc). Some bricks (those furthest from the fire) were typically under cooked (under-fired) and this resulted in a brick being more porous, having a lighter density and a significantly lighter color (more salmon colored than red). Other bricks toward the middle of the fire hole / pit received a more even temperature and became quite dense and hard with a good uniform shape. The sand from these middle-range of good quality bricks would fall off the bricks during the firing process and vaporize and would then float back up with the heat and coat the outside of the bricks creating a slight gloss or sheen on the outside of the brick. Because bricks were stacked there wasn’t always a glass sheen on all sides of the bricks. These better bricks (middle of the firing pit) were chosen for use on the exterior walls of a building or outside of a chimney column. Sand from the under-fired bricks (those further from the center fire) simply fell off into the pits and didn't vaporize resulting in bricks with a dull, rougher texture on the outside. These slightly under-fired porous bricks were often used for interior walls and chimney flues because the they contained more air within them and they insulated better.

 

Bricks were in extremely high demand in early Wichita (1870s – 1890s). By some accounts Wichita was growing faster in the 1880s than any other city in the country (according to the value of real estate transactions). In second and third place behind Wichita's growth were: (1) New York City and (2) Kansas City. Bricks were used not only for buildings but for street paving and construction of drains and sewers. Several brick factories (collectively producing well over a million bricks per day) sprung up in early Wichita and elsewhere in south central Kansas (notably Pittsburg and Coffeyville). Each brick factory imprinted their name and/or logo on their bricks and bricks from early south central Kansas ended up all over the world! Some of those bricks are now quite collectable. A popular and very collectable brick today is the "Don't Spit on Sidewalk" brick which originated in Topeka and which according to legend kicked off a health campaign that eventually swept the country to combat tuberculosis. The word “spit” was a fairly rough word at the time and more refined persons preferred the word, “expectorant” or “expectoration”, so “Don’t Spit on the Sidewalk” was a fairly “in-your-face” campaign that was intended to put a stop the practice of spitting once and for all! It was believed at the time that spitting on the floor in public places or on the sidewalk was a major source of the spread of tuberculosis (indeed direct contact with saliva can spread tuberculosis), however, it was later found that a more significant route of transmission was the practice of drinking water from water buckets at train stations or other community water bins. Trains (remember no air conditioning back then) stopped every several miles and thirsty travelers would go to the water bucket, pick up the drinking cup or dipper, dip it in the water bin, take a drink and lay the cup or dipper back down for the next drinker. The public then was not generally aware that disease could be spread in this way. Paper plates were invented in 1904 and paper cups soon followed in 1908. It should be noted that the first paper cups were not originally called "paper cups" but rather, “health cups” and the first company to manufacture these “health cups” was none other than the Dixie Cup Company. So the bricks were undoubtedly locally made. The limestone was probably quarried locally (Arkansas City) and brought to Wichita by train. Once in Wichita it was carried to the job site by mule.

 

Examples of all these various types of bricks (clinkers, porous, durable and durable with glass sheen) are available for public demonstration at the Historic Sternberg Mansion and can be seen and felt and weighed which helps visually clarify the process by which bricks in Wichita were made.

 

This photo is courtesy of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum (www.WichitaHistory.org).

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