Title
Conduct a Public Hearing to Consider/Discuss/Act on the Request by Tiffany Bellino for Approval of a Historic Marker for the House Located at 215 North Waddill Street
Summary
COUNCIL GOAL: Enhance the Quality of Life in McKinney
MEETING DATE: December 3, 2020
DEPARTMENT: Development Services
CONTACT: Guy R. Giersch, Historic Preservation Officer
Mark Doty, Assistant Director of Planning
STAFF RECOMMENDATION: Staff is recommending approval of a historic marker for 215 North Waddill Street.
PRIORITY RATING: The property is listed as a high priority building according to the 2015 Update of the Historic Resource Survey. A high priority building contributes significantly to local history or broader historical patterns; is an outstanding or unique example of architecture, engineering or crafted design; retains a significant portion of its original character and contextual integrity; meets in some cases, criteria for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places and/or is eligible for a Texas Historical Marker.
ITEM SUMMARY: The purpose of the Historic Marker Program is to encourage owners of historic properties to become actively involved in the preservation of McKinney’s historic past through the recognition of historic events, people, and architecture. The applicant has submitted a written narrative relating the history of the various families that have owned the property or resided at 215 North Waddill Street and the role they played in McKinney’s history. On October 9, 2020 the applicant submitted the necessary documentation to apply for a historic marker for the house located at 215 North Waddill Street known as the Neathery House.
The Neathery House was built in 1915. Arthur Whitney Dowlen was the builder of this Colonial Revival style house. The house is a 2½ -story, wood-frame, rectangular building constructed on a pier-and-beam foundation clad in wood lap siding. The house is L-shaped with a cross-gable roof and three eastern-facing pedimented dormers. The windows in the dormers are six-over-six windows. The remaining windows in the house are six-over-one, single-hung windows. It is likely that these six-over-one windows were double-hung and later the upper sash was caulked shut.
The fenestration pattern for the east (front) elevation is A A B A A. The five-window motif implies a Georgian style. The front door is a six-panel wood door that is centered in the front elevation. The front porch door is emphasized by a Doric entablature supported by Tuscan columns. The door has engaged columns (pilasters) with sidelights on either side of the door. The same motifs, using sidelights is repeated on the second story. The south elevation has a screened sleeping porch which extends across the south elevation. The south elevation has six mulled 10 paned windows while the second story repeats the Classic Revival railing on the second story of the east, south, and north facades. A veranda extends approximately half the distance of the rear elevation connecting to a gabled extension of the rear elevation. This has become an enclosed sun room.
The house has experienced minimal alterations to the four elevations since it was built in 1915. The current owner has no plans to expand. She is committed to maintaining the Colonial Revival aesthetic of the house.
HISTORICAL FIGURES ASSOCIATED WITH THE NEATHERY HOUSE
SAM NEATHERY (1881- 1970):
Sam Neathery was born in Farmersville in 1881 to a physician Allen H. Neathery and wife Jemima Buie. Allen began his practice in Farmersville in 1856 and married in 1857. They had 12 children and Sam was the youngest.
Sam attended State University which is now the University of Texas. He finished his law degree in 1904. After receiving his law degree, he returned to Farmersville and within a few months moved to McKinney and opened a law practice.
After arriving in McKinney, it would not take Sam long to become a part of the City’s social and political circles. In 1906 Sam was elected to the office of Esteemed Loyal Knight in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Lodge No.828.
In late 1906 Sam was appointed personal secretary to Choice B. Randell who was the U.S. Representative serving the Texas 4th Congressional District.
Mr. Randell held the office from 1903 to 1913. Randell is known for authoring a bill preventing members of Congress from receiving gifts or fees from anyone with business before Congress. Randell then sought a seat as a senator but lost the seat to incumbent Morris Sheppard, a strict prohibitionist who helped author the Eighteenth amendment establishing a national prohibition on the manufacture and use of alcohol.
The seat that Randell vacated was won by Sam Rayburn who went on to serve 24 terms in the house and became the 43rd Speaker in 1940.
Sam Neathery worked for Mr Randell for three years in the Sherman area. Neathery would go on to meet his wife Willie Bounds, daughter of a cattle dealer, Edward H. Bounds and Bessie E. Grinstead.
Neathery and Bounds married in Sherman on Wednesday, November 4, 1908, the day after William Howard Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan.
Sam ended his work for Mr. Randell in 1909 and Sam and Willie moved back to McKinney to South Tennessee Street. Neathery opened a law office in the Foote Building. This was a three-story building that once occupied the northwest corner of the intersection of Kentucky and Virginia Street on the Square.
Neathery, by 1911, began working as the Assistant County Attorney under the newly elected Luther J. Truett, County Attorney. Sam held this position until 1914 when Truett decided not to run. That summer Sam announced that he would run for the position. He won in November and won the position twice for 4 years. Truett and Neathery would partner in a private practice. The office was in the Collin County National Bank Building located at the southwest corner of Louisiana and Tennessee.
Truett and Neathery were soon back working for the County. In 1921, Ezell Stepp was arrested in the death of fellow tenant Hardy Mills. The firm Truett and Neathery was hired by the Mills family to aid the County in its prosecution. The jury in the subsequent trial found Mr. Stepp guilty of murdering Hardy Mills. After all appeals were exhausted, Judge F.E. Wilcox sentenced Stepp to be hanged at the Collin County Prison on November 17, 1922. The hanging was the last legal hanging in Collin County and the third to last in the state of Texas.
Sam Neathery’s legal and political career remained a major role in his life. Sam was elected to the office of Collin County Chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee in July of 1922. He held the position for 2-year terms. It was the duty of the Chairman to ensure fair nominations and elections within the party were maintained.
The job was made difficult by the political rise of the KKK. The Klan attempted to establish greater control of the party by nominating its own slate of officers. Sam was in opposition to this group and he ended up resigning July of 1926 and accepted an appointment as a member of the Board of Regents of the State University by the State’s first female Governor Miriam “Ma” Ferguson. His term expired in 1930.
Sam was very active in civic life. President of the McKinney Rotary, a Mason, an Elk, A Woodmen of the World, Chamber of Commerce, member of First Methodist Church for 19 years.
Sam Neathery moved to Houston in 1929. He was appointed to the Board of Law Examiners. He would hold that position until he resigned in 1956 at the age of 75. In 1970 he died at the age of 88. His wife died in 1973.
WILLIAM AVERY DOWELL (1878-1948):
William Avery Dowell is the sixth child of James and Ida Dowell. William grew up in McKinney and proved to be an effective manager of the family store the J.P. Dowell Hardware. Avery was effective and leading civic organizations as well. He had leadership positions in the Elks, the Confederate Picnic, the Commercial club, the County fair, the Business Men’s Organization, chamber of Commerce, director of the interurban, elected President of the Central National Bank of McKinney and helped nominate Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936.
Cassie was active in the Episcopal Church, the Owl Club, and the Delphian Study Club. In 1913 Cassie was trapped when the Mississippi Store collapsed killing 8 and injuring a dozen or more.
In 1924, at the age of 46, Avery married 42-year old Cassie Seay. They purchased the Neathery house in 1933. They had no children. Avery died in 1949 and Cassie died in 1951.
ARTHUR WHITNEY DOWLEN (1865-1947):
Arthur Dowlen was a successful builder in McKinney during the first two decades of the 20th Century. Arthur constructed Sam Neatherly’s house. It is possible that it was the first Colonial Revival house constructed in McKinney.
Arthur taught and eventually became a builder. One of his first projects was to build a parsonage for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church located at the corner of Church and Davis.
From 1905-1915 Arthur was a prolific builder in McKinney. In 1915 he owned the McKinney Manufacturing Company which made building components such as doors, moldings, windows, desks, and cedar chests.
ASSESSMENT: Staff believes that the applicant has met all the requirements to obtain a Historic Marker under the Historic Neighborhood Improvement Zone Program (Ordinance 2015-12-105). Therefore, Staff is recommending approval of a Historic Marker for 215 North Waddill Street.
Under Ordinance 2015-12-105, if the HPAB approves the Marker, the applicant will be responsible for purchasing and displaying the Historic Marker.
Also, under Ordinance 2015-12-105, if the Historic Preservation Advisory Board approves the Marker, the applicant may make application for a Level 1 tax exemption (100% exemption of the City’s ad valorem taxes for a period of 7 years) providing the building has architectural integrity and has been properly rehabilitated/restored and maintained. The building must have a residential use in order to qualify for the tax exemption.