Hartington City Hall and Auditorium
Encyclopedia
The Hartington City Hall and Auditorium, also known as the Hartington Municipal Building, is a city-owned, brick-clad, 2-story center in Hartington, Nebraska
. It was designed between 1921 and 1923 in the Prairie School
style by noted architect William L. Steele
(1875–1949).
Prairie School architecture is rare, and this rural Nebraska specimen is particularly unusual for being designed and built in the 1920s, following the Prairie Style’s rapid loss of popularity after 1914.
The building originally housed city offices, a fire house, an armory, and an auditorium. It is currently used for events, meetings, sports, recreation, and social functions.
was held for thousands of years by various Native American
tribes, most recently by the Omaha, with the Ponca
somewhat to the west and the Yankton Dakota
generally north of the Missouri River
. On March 16, 1854, the Omaha were forced to surrender Cedar County and most of the rest of their territory, and were restricted to what by 1882 would become their reservation
, now primarily within Thurston County, Nebraska
.
This paved the way for the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway
(later Chicago and North Western Railway) to build westward to Cedar County, which in turn led to the founding of Hartington in 1883. As the railroad reached Cedar County, it first founded Coleridge
as one of the locations needed every seven to ten miles (7 to 10 mi (11.3 to 16.1 km)) for trains to take on water and fuel. After laying down seven more miles of track, the railroad founded Hartington as its next stop, naming it after the English statesman Spencer Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington
. In a hotly contested election on January 20, 1885, just less than a year after incorporation, Hartington wrested the county seat
from St. Helena
, 16 miles (25.7 km) north on the banks of the Missouri River.
For over 35 years, Hartington had no large indoor venue. In 1919, after a series of prosperous years resulting from high grain prices during and immediately after World War I
, voters passed a bond issue
of $25,000 for the purpose of erecting a new city hall with multiple uses, including an auditorium. When that amount proved insufficient, a second bond issue of $25,000 was approved in 1920.
In 1921, the city council selected William L. Steele
to be the architect for the building. Trained at the University of Illinois (now University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign), Steele had worked as a draftsman in the offices of renowned progressive architect Louis Sullivan
from 1887–1900, and then in four more conservative offices, before settling in 1904 in Sioux City, Iowa, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Hartington. By the time Hartington chose him, he was the most prominent architect in the region.
Known to work in a number of styles, Steele had recently been concentrating on the Prairie School
style of architecture originally developed by Frank Lloyd Wright
and others inspired by Sullivan. Upon first arriving in the region, Steele had been unable to convince any of his clients to try his progressive designs. However, beginning with his Prairie-influenced Ben and Harriet Schulein House (Sioux City, 1913), he had begun tentatively moving in the Prairie School direction.
Steele’s skill with Prairie Style designs and his success in interesting clients had markedly increased as a result of his three-year collaboration with famous Minneapolis-based architect George Grant Elmslie
. With Elmslie as principal designer and with some assistance from Elmslie's partner William Gray Purcell
, Steele had erected the Prairie Style Woodbury County Courthouse (Sioux City, 1915-1918). About 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest in Lake Andes, South Dakota
, Steele had designed the Charles Mix County Courthouse (1916-1917), also in the Prairie Style. Steele’s success is particularly noteworthy since the Prairie School was in decline by this time, losing ground rapidly to a resurgence of more conservative styles after about 1914, and particularly after World War I.
The leaders of Hartington would have been familiar with these and other Steele-designed Prairie School style buildings; there would be no surprise in what they were getting. What is surprising is that they agreed to the progressive design. There was considerable public outcry against the Woodbury County Courthouse just five years earlier (including demands from one group for “a courthouse of ordinary and usual design”), but no record of dissent in Hartington. This design “as compared to other known civic buildings in the surrounding counties, stands as a progressive building in an otherwise conservative community.”
Steele drew up initial plans in 1921, then made revisions at the request of the city council. The council accepted the revised plans in January, 1922, including space for the auditorium, city offices, fire house, and the National Guard armory that doubled as a gymnasium.
Guarantee Construction Company of Sioux City obtained the contract and began work in the spring of 1922, with the cornerstone laid on June 7. Henry Mahlsted served as Guarantee’s superintendent of construction, hiring local labor to do most of the work. The building was completed in January at a cost of $65,000, and the city council officially accepted the building on January 16, 1923. This was followed on January 30 by the official dedication ceremonies, featuring speeches, displays of local talent, and a free dance. On February 1, the Hartington Herald gushed that it had been a “most important event…attended by thousands of people…. The new building is one of the finest of its kind in the state... and will be a credit and an ornament to this community for many years to come.”
Over the decades, the auditorium has hosted dances, athletic competitions, theatrical, musical, and other events. County-wide eighth grade graduation ceremonies were held there until the late 1940s.
The building is still owned by the City of Hartington, and has recently been renovated. Over the years, many of the windows have been filled in with white stucco, and a new entrance door leading to the basement has been cut into the south facade. The upper auditorium level is currently used primarily for basketball, volleyball, and other recreational activities, while the lower armory level now consists of a meeting room with adjacent kitchen, available for rent through the city. The National Guard armory, city offices, and volunteer fire department have relocated. The new fire house is next door to the east on Centre Street.
in back, but the bulk of it in the middle was simply open to the auditorium.
As situated at the intersection of Broadway and Centre Streets, the two principal facade
s are the front (west) facing Broadway and the south facade facing across Centre to the brick Romanesque Revival Cedar County Courthouse. The front facade is two stories above the raised basement. However, Centre Street slopes downward as it moves east away from Broadway, so that the basement level is fully above grade at the back, presenting a three-story east facade.
attributes, but also includes Romanesque Revival
elements such as semi-circular arches on many of the windows and doors. These Romanesque elements are not in harmony with the over-all Prairie thrust of the architecture. Architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson
ascribes Steele’s use of Romanesque elements to an “attempt to personalize the Prairie School idiom” that began with Steele’s First Congregational Church (Sioux City, 1916–1918), where he notes that the “two different geometries are not resolved.” Steele persisted with this approach, to the point that Wilson concludes that the “round headed opening became Steele's motif for public buildings.”
Prairie Style architecture was primarily originated by Frank Lloyd Wright
, inspired by the ideas of Louis Sullivan
, who served as mentor to Wright, Steele, and many other practitioners of the Prairie School. As developed by Wright, George Grant Elmslie
, William Gray Purcell
, Marion Mahony
, Walter Burley Griffin
, and others, the Prairie School of architecture rejected historical revival styles and was inspired by the flat terrain and horizon of the prairies of the Midwest. Prairie Style features crisp, rectilinear geometries with an emphasis on horizontal lines set off by occasional vertical counterpoints. Ornament should develop from the structure itself or express it rather than being added to it as an embellishment, and the architect should rely on construction materials honestly used as themselves, rather than imitating something else. A building’s internal structure should determine its exterior and be clearly expressed on the outside, in keeping with Sullivan’s famous motto of “form follows function”.
The central bay of the south facade of the Hartington City Hall and Auditorium is highly effective Prairie School architecture (the nearly hidden north facade is similar). The bulk of the wall surface is simple running bond brickwork, forming a uniform ground for the interplay of horizontal and vertical lines. The stone coping at the roofline forms the highest horizontal line. Not far below is a horizontal band of triple corbelling that surrounds the building. This effect is created by projecting three courses of brick out farther than the wall below (as in a corbel
), repeating it with three more courses of brick, and then repeating it again for the entire rest of the wall up to the copestone. Steele adds depth and interest to this band by varying the projection of each of the three brick courses by facade so that corners highlight one or another course (see photo below). This effective horizontal band is similar to but more sophisticated than what Steele used near the top of his noted First Congregational Church (Sioux City, 1916–1918). Additional horizontal lines derive from the original three bands of windows (particularly prior to more recent window alterations). These consistent horizontal lines are dramatically emphasized by the strong counterpoint of the six vertical piers. Yet even these vertical pilasters have horizontal elements in their capitals, consisting of three horizontal bands of projecting brick string courses (which echo the triple corbelling above) and the contrasting capitals of cast stone on top. Across the set of six vertical piers or pilaster
s along the auditorium, these elements create additional horizontal lines.
In contrast, although the front facade uses some similar features, it is less integrated, with horizontal, vertical, and circular elements that are attractive, but that do not complement each other and are out of keeping with Prairie Style. In observing similar mixtures of Prairie with other styles, S.J. Klingensmith observed the contrasting styles introduce "tensions that are not completely resolved and indicate that Steele was not committed solidly to the style".
In their evaluation, James D. Fagler and Joni Gilkerson not surprisingly note the many features in common between the Hartington City Hall and the Woodbury County Courthouse, on which Steele had earlier collaborated with George Grant Elmslie
. However, they also point to a series of similarities between the Hartington municipal building and Frank Lloyd Wright’s earlier Larkin Administration Building
(Buffalo, New York, 1904–1906), an innovative Prairie School office building designed for the Larkin Company, then a major national mail-order firm. Both buildings are primarily inward focused but bring light in, feature steel-frame construction covered with plain red brick surfaces, are trimmed with simple stone copings above, use sculptured piers as the primary ornamentation, and possess facades where the pilasters separating the windows are more pronounced than the windows in between. In both structures, prominent vertical lines are “abruptly terminated at the roof line by the stone course at the top of the heavy pylon-like projections at the corners, along the wings and central bays.”
The Hartington City Hall and Auditorium is a good example of Steele’s successful construction of Prairie Style buildings. It came at the mid-point of the 18 years during which he designed in that style, from his Ben and Harriet Schulein House (Sioux City, 1913) to his Williges Building (Sioux City, 1929–1930), “one of the last manifestations of the ...Prairie Style in the United States.” Steele’s ability to persist in selling clients on the Prairie Style at these late dates, especially in rural Nebraska and neighboring South Dakota and Iowa, is remarkable.
Hartington, Nebraska
Hartington is a city in Cedar County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 1,554 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Cedar County.-Geography:Hartington is located at ....
. It was designed between 1921 and 1923 in the Prairie School
Prairie School
Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...
style by noted architect William L. Steele
William L. Steele
William LaBarthe Steele was an important architect of the Prairie School during the early twentieth century. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Steele worked in the office of renowned architect Louis Sullivan in Chicago, Illinois 1897–1900...
(1875–1949).
Prairie School architecture is rare, and this rural Nebraska specimen is particularly unusual for being designed and built in the 1920s, following the Prairie Style’s rapid loss of popularity after 1914.
The building originally housed city offices, a fire house, an armory, and an auditorium. It is currently used for events, meetings, sports, recreation, and social functions.
History
The land which would become Cedar County, NebraskaCedar County, Nebraska
-History:Cedar County was formed in 1855. It was named for the great number of cedars that grow there.-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 9,615 people, 3,623 households, and 2,565 families residing in the county. The population density was 13 people per square mile . There were...
was held for thousands of years by various Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
tribes, most recently by the Omaha, with the Ponca
Ponca
The Ponca are a Native American people of the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan-language group. There are two federally recognized Ponca tribes: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma...
somewhat to the west and the Yankton Dakota
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
generally north of the Missouri River
Missouri River
The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...
. On March 16, 1854, the Omaha were forced to surrender Cedar County and most of the rest of their territory, and were restricted to what by 1882 would become their reservation
Omaha Reservation
The Omaha Reservation of the Omaha tribe is located mostly in Thurston County, Nebraska, with sections in neighboring Cuming County and Burt County, in addition to Monona County in Iowa. The tribal seat of government is in Macy, with the towns of Rosalie, Thurston, Pender and Walthill located in...
, now primarily within Thurston County, Nebraska
Thurston County, Nebraska
-History:Varying cultures of indigenous peoples lived along the rivers for thousands of years before European encounter.Thurston County was organized by European Americans in 1889 from land that had been divided between Dakota and Burt counties since the dissolution of Blackbird County in 1879. It...
.
This paved the way for the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway
Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway
The Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway or Omaha Road was a railroad in the U.S. states of Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota. It was incorporated in 1880 as a consolidation of the Chicago, St. Paul and Minneapolis Railway and the North Wisconsin Railway,. The...
(later Chicago and North Western Railway) to build westward to Cedar County, which in turn led to the founding of Hartington in 1883. As the railroad reached Cedar County, it first founded Coleridge
Coleridge, Nebraska
Coleridge is a village in Cedar County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 473 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Coleridge is located at ....
as one of the locations needed every seven to ten miles (7 to 10 mi (11.3 to 16.1 km)) for trains to take on water and fuel. After laying down seven more miles of track, the railroad founded Hartington as its next stop, naming it after the English statesman Spencer Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington
Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire
Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire KG, GCVO, PC, PC , styled Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1834 and 1858 and Marquess of Hartington between 1858 and 1891, was a British statesman...
. In a hotly contested election on January 20, 1885, just less than a year after incorporation, Hartington wrested the county seat
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....
from St. Helena
St. Helena, Nebraska
St. Helena is a village in Cedar County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 96 at the 2010 census.-Geography:St. Helena is located at ....
, 16 miles (25.7 km) north on the banks of the Missouri River.
For over 35 years, Hartington had no large indoor venue. In 1919, after a series of prosperous years resulting from high grain prices during and immediately after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, voters passed a bond issue
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...
of $25,000 for the purpose of erecting a new city hall with multiple uses, including an auditorium. When that amount proved insufficient, a second bond issue of $25,000 was approved in 1920.
In 1921, the city council selected William L. Steele
William L. Steele
William LaBarthe Steele was an important architect of the Prairie School during the early twentieth century. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Steele worked in the office of renowned architect Louis Sullivan in Chicago, Illinois 1897–1900...
to be the architect for the building. Trained at the University of Illinois (now University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign), Steele had worked as a draftsman in the offices of renowned progressive architect Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
from 1887–1900, and then in four more conservative offices, before settling in 1904 in Sioux City, Iowa, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Hartington. By the time Hartington chose him, he was the most prominent architect in the region.
Known to work in a number of styles, Steele had recently been concentrating on the Prairie School
Prairie School
Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...
style of architecture originally developed by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
and others inspired by Sullivan. Upon first arriving in the region, Steele had been unable to convince any of his clients to try his progressive designs. However, beginning with his Prairie-influenced Ben and Harriet Schulein House (Sioux City, 1913), he had begun tentatively moving in the Prairie School direction.
Steele’s skill with Prairie Style designs and his success in interesting clients had markedly increased as a result of his three-year collaboration with famous Minneapolis-based architect George Grant Elmslie
George Grant Elmslie
George Grant Elmslie was an American, though born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Prairie School architect whose work is mostly found in the Midwestern United States...
. With Elmslie as principal designer and with some assistance from Elmslie's partner William Gray Purcell
William Gray Purcell
William Gray Purcell was a Prairie School architect in the Midwestern United States. He partnered with George Grant Elmslie. The firm of Purcell and Elmslie produced designs for buildings in twenty two states, Australia, and China...
, Steele had erected the Prairie Style Woodbury County Courthouse (Sioux City, 1915-1918). About 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest in Lake Andes, South Dakota
Lake Andes, South Dakota
Lake Andes is a city in, and the county seat of, Charles Mix County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 879 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Lake Andes is located at ....
, Steele had designed the Charles Mix County Courthouse (1916-1917), also in the Prairie Style. Steele’s success is particularly noteworthy since the Prairie School was in decline by this time, losing ground rapidly to a resurgence of more conservative styles after about 1914, and particularly after World War I.
The leaders of Hartington would have been familiar with these and other Steele-designed Prairie School style buildings; there would be no surprise in what they were getting. What is surprising is that they agreed to the progressive design. There was considerable public outcry against the Woodbury County Courthouse just five years earlier (including demands from one group for “a courthouse of ordinary and usual design”), but no record of dissent in Hartington. This design “as compared to other known civic buildings in the surrounding counties, stands as a progressive building in an otherwise conservative community.”
Steele drew up initial plans in 1921, then made revisions at the request of the city council. The council accepted the revised plans in January, 1922, including space for the auditorium, city offices, fire house, and the National Guard armory that doubled as a gymnasium.
Guarantee Construction Company of Sioux City obtained the contract and began work in the spring of 1922, with the cornerstone laid on June 7. Henry Mahlsted served as Guarantee’s superintendent of construction, hiring local labor to do most of the work. The building was completed in January at a cost of $65,000, and the city council officially accepted the building on January 16, 1923. This was followed on January 30 by the official dedication ceremonies, featuring speeches, displays of local talent, and a free dance. On February 1, the Hartington Herald gushed that it had been a “most important event…attended by thousands of people…. The new building is one of the finest of its kind in the state... and will be a credit and an ornament to this community for many years to come.”
Over the decades, the auditorium has hosted dances, athletic competitions, theatrical, musical, and other events. County-wide eighth grade graduation ceremonies were held there until the late 1940s.
The building is still owned by the City of Hartington, and has recently been renovated. Over the years, many of the windows have been filled in with white stucco, and a new entrance door leading to the basement has been cut into the south facade. The upper auditorium level is currently used primarily for basketball, volleyball, and other recreational activities, while the lower armory level now consists of a meeting room with adjacent kitchen, available for rent through the city. The National Guard armory, city offices, and volunteer fire department have relocated. The new fire house is next door to the east on Centre Street.
Plan and principal facades
The Hartington City Hall and Auditorium includes three levels: raised basement partially below grade, main level, and upper level. The basement level and main level are basically rectangular in plan, 75 feet (23 meters) wide (north-south along Broadway) and 130 feet (40 meters) front to back (east-west along Centre). However, the upper level plan is in the shape of a cross, so that the four corners are one story lower and function as wings. The two front wings project forward toward Broadway as well as laterally (north and south). The two rear wings are flush with the back (east) of the building. The southeast wing projects south and contains the two fire house doors, but the northeast wing does not project north. The basement originally contained the armory including officers’ quarters, lockers, supply room, and sleeping facilities for fire fighters, with the firehouse in back under the auditorium stage. The main level accommodated the lobby and city offices in front, the auditorium’s hardwood floor taking up the large middle, and the stage in back above the fire house. The cross-shaped upper level included a small space in front above the lobby and the stage fly spaceFly system
A fly system, flying system or theatrical rigging system, is a system of lines , blocks , counterweights and related devices within a theatre that enable a stage crew to quickly, quietly and safely fly components such as curtains, lights, scenery, stage effects and, sometimes, people...
in back, but the bulk of it in the middle was simply open to the auditorium.
As situated at the intersection of Broadway and Centre Streets, the two principal facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
s are the front (west) facing Broadway and the south facade facing across Centre to the brick Romanesque Revival Cedar County Courthouse. The front facade is two stories above the raised basement. However, Centre Street slopes downward as it moves east away from Broadway, so that the basement level is fully above grade at the back, presenting a three-story east facade.
Prairie School design
As designed by William L. Steele, the building exhibits primarily Prairie SchoolPrairie School
Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...
attributes, but also includes Romanesque Revival
Romanesque Revival architecture
Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid 19th century inspired by the 11th and 12th century Romanesque architecture...
elements such as semi-circular arches on many of the windows and doors. These Romanesque elements are not in harmony with the over-all Prairie thrust of the architecture. Architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson
Richard Guy Wilson
Dr. Richard Guy Wilson is a noted architectural historian and Commonwealth Professor in Architectural History at the University of Virginia....
ascribes Steele’s use of Romanesque elements to an “attempt to personalize the Prairie School idiom” that began with Steele’s First Congregational Church (Sioux City, 1916–1918), where he notes that the “two different geometries are not resolved.” Steele persisted with this approach, to the point that Wilson concludes that the “round headed opening became Steele's motif for public buildings.”
Prairie Style architecture was primarily originated by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, inspired by the ideas of Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
, who served as mentor to Wright, Steele, and many other practitioners of the Prairie School. As developed by Wright, George Grant Elmslie
George Grant Elmslie
George Grant Elmslie was an American, though born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Prairie School architect whose work is mostly found in the Midwestern United States...
, William Gray Purcell
William Gray Purcell
William Gray Purcell was a Prairie School architect in the Midwestern United States. He partnered with George Grant Elmslie. The firm of Purcell and Elmslie produced designs for buildings in twenty two states, Australia, and China...
, Marion Mahony
Marion Mahony Griffin
Marion Griffin was an American architect and artist. She was one of the first licenced female architects in the world, and is considered an original member of the Prairie School.-Biography:...
, Walter Burley Griffin
Walter Burley Griffin
Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and landscape architect, who is best known for his role in designing Canberra, Australia's capital city...
, and others, the Prairie School of architecture rejected historical revival styles and was inspired by the flat terrain and horizon of the prairies of the Midwest. Prairie Style features crisp, rectilinear geometries with an emphasis on horizontal lines set off by occasional vertical counterpoints. Ornament should develop from the structure itself or express it rather than being added to it as an embellishment, and the architect should rely on construction materials honestly used as themselves, rather than imitating something else. A building’s internal structure should determine its exterior and be clearly expressed on the outside, in keeping with Sullivan’s famous motto of “form follows function”.
The central bay of the south facade of the Hartington City Hall and Auditorium is highly effective Prairie School architecture (the nearly hidden north facade is similar). The bulk of the wall surface is simple running bond brickwork, forming a uniform ground for the interplay of horizontal and vertical lines. The stone coping at the roofline forms the highest horizontal line. Not far below is a horizontal band of triple corbelling that surrounds the building. This effect is created by projecting three courses of brick out farther than the wall below (as in a corbel
Corbel
In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
), repeating it with three more courses of brick, and then repeating it again for the entire rest of the wall up to the copestone. Steele adds depth and interest to this band by varying the projection of each of the three brick courses by facade so that corners highlight one or another course (see photo below). This effective horizontal band is similar to but more sophisticated than what Steele used near the top of his noted First Congregational Church (Sioux City, 1916–1918). Additional horizontal lines derive from the original three bands of windows (particularly prior to more recent window alterations). These consistent horizontal lines are dramatically emphasized by the strong counterpoint of the six vertical piers. Yet even these vertical pilasters have horizontal elements in their capitals, consisting of three horizontal bands of projecting brick string courses (which echo the triple corbelling above) and the contrasting capitals of cast stone on top. Across the set of six vertical piers or pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s along the auditorium, these elements create additional horizontal lines.
In contrast, although the front facade uses some similar features, it is less integrated, with horizontal, vertical, and circular elements that are attractive, but that do not complement each other and are out of keeping with Prairie Style. In observing similar mixtures of Prairie with other styles, S.J. Klingensmith observed the contrasting styles introduce "tensions that are not completely resolved and indicate that Steele was not committed solidly to the style".
In their evaluation, James D. Fagler and Joni Gilkerson not surprisingly note the many features in common between the Hartington City Hall and the Woodbury County Courthouse, on which Steele had earlier collaborated with George Grant Elmslie
George Grant Elmslie
George Grant Elmslie was an American, though born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Prairie School architect whose work is mostly found in the Midwestern United States...
. However, they also point to a series of similarities between the Hartington municipal building and Frank Lloyd Wright’s earlier Larkin Administration Building
Larkin Administration Building
The Larkin Building was designed in 1904 by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1906 for the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, New York. The five story dark red brick building used pink tinted mortar and utilized steel frame construction. It was noted for many innovations, including air conditioning,...
(Buffalo, New York, 1904–1906), an innovative Prairie School office building designed for the Larkin Company, then a major national mail-order firm. Both buildings are primarily inward focused but bring light in, feature steel-frame construction covered with plain red brick surfaces, are trimmed with simple stone copings above, use sculptured piers as the primary ornamentation, and possess facades where the pilasters separating the windows are more pronounced than the windows in between. In both structures, prominent vertical lines are “abruptly terminated at the roof line by the stone course at the top of the heavy pylon-like projections at the corners, along the wings and central bays.”
Significance
The Hartington City Hall and Auditorium “is an outstanding representation of the Prairie Style in Nebraska”. It represents a rare civic Prairie School building, and its importance is heightened given that Steele was able to build such a progressive design at a time when conservative architecture was overwhelming the Prairie Style. After about 1914, interest in progressive architecture in general and the Prairie School in particular waned in the big Midwestern cities, such as Chicago and Minneapolis, that had earlier embraced it. By 1915, H. Allen Brooks states, Prairie School “architects were having difficulty obtaining commissions, despite the fact that the quality of their work remained steadfastly high, and the building industry continued active.”The Hartington City Hall and Auditorium is a good example of Steele’s successful construction of Prairie Style buildings. It came at the mid-point of the 18 years during which he designed in that style, from his Ben and Harriet Schulein House (Sioux City, 1913) to his Williges Building (Sioux City, 1929–1930), “one of the last manifestations of the ...Prairie Style in the United States.” Steele’s ability to persist in selling clients on the Prairie Style at these late dates, especially in rural Nebraska and neighboring South Dakota and Iowa, is remarkable.
See also
- William L. SteeleWilliam L. SteeleWilliam LaBarthe Steele was an important architect of the Prairie School during the early twentieth century. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Steele worked in the office of renowned architect Louis Sullivan in Chicago, Illinois 1897–1900...
- Woodbury County Courthouse
- Prairie SchoolPrairie SchoolPrairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...
External links
- Photo of Hartington City Hall and Auditorium, from the southwest prior to window alteration, from the Nebraska State Historical Society.
- Hartington City Hall and Auditorium, National Register of Historic Sites Nomination, from the Nebraska State Historical Society.
- Recreation: Hartington Auditorium, City of Hartington, Nebraska.
