American Bungalow Magazine

FEATURED ARTICLE

The Bungalow Era
Alton Smith, a 26-year-old Ohio residential-development entrepreneur looking for opportunities in the growing cities of the western states, arrived in Wichita in the mid-1890s. After marrying a daughter of the city’s co-founder, he moved on to the West Coast before returning to Wichita in 1908 to establish the California Bungalow Company. It isn’t known whether Smith was the first builder-developer to introduce the bungalow to Wichita, but his name was certainly one of those most prominently associated with the development of the city’s upscale bungalow neighborhoods.
      During his early years, Smith concentrated his efforts in the Riverside neighborhood, leading the development of that rich enclave of bungalows before and after the first World War. He also was building in the College Hill neighborhood east of downtown, which remains a prime upscale community to this day.
      As it did all over the nation, the postwar real-estate boom of the 1920s spurred the growth of single-family housing in Wichita during the era in which the bungalow became the de facto “American home.” Street after street in all of Wichita’s new neighborhoods filled up with pattern-book Craftsman-style houses averaging five or six rooms. The clapboard-sided and brick-veneered houses varied in their interpretation of piers and porch trim, but their developers maintained similar setback, height, size and spatial relationships, establishing a continuity that came to be associated with comfortable, family-friendly environments.
      Although the Great Depression of the 1930s ended the boom, Alton Smith remained a real-estate developer of consequence in Wichita until his death in 1940, and the Craftsman-style bungalow became an established and enduring residential feature of the city.

Enduring Value of Place
Today, bungalows in a variety of styles still fill most of Wichita’s early-20th-century neighborhoods, thanks largely to the endurance of their appeal to home-owning families looking for livable, affordable homes in pleasant neighborhoods near public transportation. The teardown phenomenon that has disfigured older residential areas in many American cities and towns has not come to Wichita. Even in the past two years, when home prices and sales plummeted elsewhere in the nation, the value of existing Wichita homes held steady, and the inventory of homes for sale remained low.
      It is significant that these neighborhoods have remained not only viable but desirable on their innate merits, without needing official preservation declarations or other protection. In large part, that may be ascribed to the spirit of Wichita as a place, which may also account for its appearance on several lists of “most livable” U.S. cities in recent years.
      Still, a vibrant and long-standing spirit of preservation has also contributed to the enduring appeal of Wichita’s residential neighborhoods. The city’s first documented preservation effort was directed at the Darius Munger House, built in 1869 and considered by most scholars to be the city’s first residence. (See  photo, page 32.) In 1943, when it was threatened with demolition, the Eunice Sterling Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution purchased it with the intent to restore it.
      In 1950, Historic Wichita, Inc., was chartered for the sole purpose of restoring and preserving early city landmarks. The group was able to get a 99-year lease on 25 acres of land, and after the Munger House was deeded to the group by the DAR, it was one of five buildings moved to the site, dubbed “Cowtown,” in 1952. Over the years, additional structures were saved from demolition and relocated to what is now the Old Cowtown Museum.
      Historic Wichita changed over the years as its members realized that not just individual landmarks but portions of many neighborhoods needed protection. After much research by board members and with assistance from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Historic Wichita drafted a preservation ordinance that was approved in April 1975.
      In 1978, three historic bungalow-rich districts were established in the Riverside and Midtown neighborhoods. Since then, the city has established eight National Register Historic Districts with more than 450 buildings, including 90 individually listed in the Kansas and National Registers and 23 listed locally. In addition, some 10,000 residential and commercial structures have been surveyed.
      Over the past three years, the Wichita Office of Historic Preservation has compiled data on hundreds of bungalows and amassed a wealth of information on the contractors, architects and developers who, more than 80 years ago, were going about the business of providing homes for the families of Wichita—homes that continue to shape our daily existence because they are the places where we live.

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