Martin Van Buren Parker House

Martin Van Buren Parker (1840-1922) was an Olathe attorney, real estate/ insurance broker, and farmer. Parker enlisted in the Union Army early in the Civil War. His wife, Emma E. (Woodward, born in 1846), bought four lots in 1869 where their house would be built, in Stephenson's First Addition, west of downtown Olathe. The couple met in their native Illinois, married in 1866 and moved to Olathe around 1868. He was an 1866 graduate of the University of Albany's law department and passed the bar in New York State. Parker established one of Olathe's first law firms in partnership with his brother-in-law, John P. St. John, a future Kansas Governor and husband of Susan Jane Parker. The law partnership ended in 1876. Parker's business ventures were in partnership with A.J. Smith by the early 1880s and later with his son-in-law, Samuel Brockway. At one point, Parker owned over 700 acres in the area.

Emma Parker was active in the community and was one of three women who founded the first women's club in Olathe in 1883. The Ladies Reading Circle co-founders included Emma's sister-in-law, Susan St. John, and Celestia Stevenson. The club set up the beginnings of a public library by borrowing fifty books from the State Library in 1889 for a six-month period. The town's Carnegie public library did not open until 1914 and contained 4.500 books to start.

The Parkers had five children - all girls: May, Effie, Luella, and twins Zula and Zella. Only Luella married (Samuel Maurice Brockway) and moved out of her parents' mansion. Martin died in 1922; Emma out-lived her husband by ten years. May, Effie, and Zella continued to live in the mansion until their deaths from 1934 to 1959. Zula sold the property in 1960. The house was in a deteriorated state when a new owner purchased it in 1980. Unlike most other homes of its age in Olathe, it was restored instead of being torn down to be replaced by a modern house.

The 1874 Johnson County Atlas includes a drawing of the Martin Van Buren House, so the home likely was built in the early 1870s. However, there are some differences in the sketch and the modern house exterior, so the 1874 house may be a different house, an idea for the incomplete house, or the original form of the house that later had a different style of roof added. The architect of the Martin Van Buren Parker House is not known, but the house is Eastern Stick style with some Eastlake influences. The sprawling Victorian mansion is about 100 feet long and 28 feet wide and irregular in plan. The house is covered in cedar lap siding and sits on a limestone foundation.

Hagedorn-Krass, Martha. NRHP Nomination of Martin Van Buren Parker House. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1988.

McIlrath, Sherri. 091-4040-00009, Parker, Martin V.B., House, 631 W Park St, Kansas Historic Resources Inventory. Accessed August 19th 2020. https://khri.kansasgis.org/index.cfm?in=091-4140-00009.

Olathe Public Library. Our Story: The History of the Olathe Public Library, About Us. December 1st 2019. Accessed August 20th 2020. https://www.olathelibrary.org/about-us/our-story.

Vandver, MYates. Martin Van Buren Parker, Memorial 49495568, Find A Grave. March 10th 2010. Accessed August 19th 2020. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/49495568/martin-van_buren-parker.