There are two historical and unique houses currently for sale in my hometown, Burr Oak. These two houses have changed hands through the years but thankfully the owners respected the origins of the house and chose to keep most of the house the way it looked when it was built about 115 years ago. Being historical, and with me being interested in history, I grew up admiring these houses. When I chose to write a history book about my hometown, Burr Oak The Roots Run Deep, I hoped to bring the history of the many large houses, along with the history of the businesses, early settlers, clubs and churches to life.
Someone asked me once why the locals term the names of the houses using the builder’s names, and I replied it was the way it is in our town as well as in most all towns, and the farms are the same way. These two houses that are available today to welcome new owners were built at the height of Burr Oak’s growth. The town was rocking and growing with a population of around 900. Businesses were opening up and down both sides of it’s main street and beyond. The town had two banks, a newly built schoolhouse, a medical doctor, a drug store, two cafés, a dress shop, newspaper, opera house, a men’s clothing store, a hotel, mercantile store and three grocery stores. New churches were being constructed, and sidewalks had just been constructed. A train came into town, turned around and headed back southward. Prosperous residents decided to build larger more modern houses. During the early 1900s, what was termed as a house building competition began in town. They residents wanted their new built homes to be the best!
The two houses now up for sale, were two of the largest and termed “the best” by many. One is stationed on the south side of town and the other a little north of town but still within the town’s city limits. The house on the south edge of town is known as the Wellman House and was constructed in 1908-09 by G.R. Wellman, a farmer who had homesteaded southeast of Burr Oak in 1871, coming from back east at the age of 21. The Wellman House is a three story house. It has stained glass windows, a large open staircase, wooden fretwork, original woodwork and floors, bedrooms upstairs, a pantry off the kitchen, and a ballroom on the third story. It’s unique with it’s seven gables. It is a 3,200 square foot house with a large wrap around porch. After G.R. and his wife Elizabeth’s deaths, their son continued to live in the house until his death. Since the Wellman’s, there has only been three other owners.
The house on the north side of Burr Oak is well known as it is stationed on the east side of Highway 128 that comes through town. It has always been called the Francis House, named after the builder O.W. Francis, also a farmer. This house was not only thought to be the winner of the finest house in the Burr Oak competition but was also termed by many as being the best early built house in Jewell County. It was built in 1909 in a Queen Anne style, with a turret, gables, a large wrap around porch with columns and has three stories. Inside is a fireplace of the period. It has original woodwork and floors, an open stairway and a back screened-in porch. It is surrounded by its original iron fence. One of the more recent owners chose to paint the house yellow and it is a stand out to many that pass by on the highway.
If you come to Burr Oak, be sure to make a drive around town and you’ll see some of the other houses built in the town’s early day competition including the Judy House, the Burke House, the Davis House, the Harris House and the Ives House (later known as the Dillon House). I was honored to own and live in the Burke House for a few years and loved it with its two open staircases, its sunroom, and original woodwork and floor. The Burke House was constructed by the gentleman that owned the town’s lumber yard.
It would be nice if two families decided to make these two historical houses their homes and continue to take care of them as they have been for many years.
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