Sherwood Manufacturing Company Building (Arnold Hall)

Built in 1946 by Sherwood Manufacturing, a producer of materials for the plumbing industry, this historic Lee's Summit building is a symbol of an important transition in manufacturing where factories built after World War II could be located away from railroad tracks owing to improved road networks and the growth of the trucking industry. The building replaced a structure that was the headquarters of a civic organization and later home to the American Legion. Future President Harry S. Truman held his first political campaign in that building when he rand for a Jackson County judgeship in the early 1920s. That building was destroyed by a fire in 1941, and with little civilian construction during the war, this space was available for the creation of Sherwood Manufacturing. The company only used this building for a few years before Joseph Arnold purchased it and donated it to the city for the purpose of creating a community center. The city named the building Arnold Hall following the donation, but the community center was never completed. The building was utilized for city meetings in the 1990s and is now home to Lee's Summit's third Street Social restaurant. In recognition of the building's history and this space's connection to Lee's Summit's early history and Harry Truman's career, the structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The one-story brick Sherwood Manufacturing Company Building (or Arnold Hall) illustrates the commercial evolution of Lee's Summit as the importance of the railroad diminished by the mid-twentieth century; truck transportation and road networks emerged. Located on Third Street, a central transportation corridor in downtown Lee's Summit, the Sherwood Manufacturing Company Building possesses the distinct characteristics of a small manufacturing facility. It is a rare example in Lee's Summit of a building constructed for the sole purpose of manufacturing. The design includes neither a formal storefront nor a retail space. During the 1950s, Joseph Arnold purchased the building from Sherwood and donated it to the city to turn it into a community center, but that plan failed to materialize; it remained a commercial property until the 1990s.

Lee's Summit established itself as a railroad market center in the mid-nineteenth century after the Missouri Pacific Railroad arrived in Jackson County shortly after the Civil War. Indeed, long-time Jackson County resident William Howard took advantage of the proposed railroad plan coming through Missouri to plat seventy-five acres in October 1865, which evolved into Lee's Summit. The town lots straddled the railroad tracks that connected Lee's Summit to St. Louis and Kansas City. The railroad brought prosperity to Lee's Summit and its hinterlands; the surrounding agricultural community thrived with ready access to a broad distribution network. Typical of railroad market towns, the earliest industrial facilities in Lee's Summit consisted of a lumber yard, grain silo, and flour mill, all located adjacent to the railroad tracks.

As Lee's Summit's industries and railway traffic grew, its population grew, as did its downtown region. By the tum of the twentieth century, a large concentration of brick buildings along Main and Third Streets defined the downtown business district. At the same time, residential structures arose in the surrounding neighborhoods. However, as the twentieth century progressed, the increased popularity of the automobile inspired Harry S. Truman, then a Jackson County judge, to push for a more modernized Jackson County road system. The new road system shifted the city's commercial center away from the railroad tracks; commercial properties sprawled outward along the improved roads where trucks could easily access businesses. 

The creation of the Eisenhower Interstate System a few years later meant that commercial properties that were constructed in the years after this factory building was completed tended to be located closer to the new highway system. As a result of interstate highway construction, the Sherwood Building is one of the last commercial buildings built in downtown Lee's Summit.

The building occupies property that once supported the Betterment of Ourselves Club, an organization established by Lee's Summit businessmen around the start of the twentieth century. After World War I, the club donated the building to American Legion, who subsequently changed the name to Memorial Hall. Harry S. Truman launched his first political campaign at Memorial Hall when he ran for a Jackson County judgeship. A fire in 1941 destroyed Memorial Hall making this space available for new construction during the resumption of large-scale civilian construction at the end of World War II. 

Frank Sherwood moved to Lee's Summit from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1944 and established a welding shop on West Third Street. However, by 1945, he began making pipe nipples and then, in 1946, submitted plans to build the factory on the location of the former Memorial Hall site. The Sherwood Building served as the last manufacturing facility built within downtown Lee's Summit; it is one of few buildings in town constructed with a barrel-shaped roof. In the 1920s, the barrel-shaped truss system became a popular option for bridging the showroom & work area while minimizing — or eliminating — the number of columns interrupting the floor. Frank Sherwood, his wife Gladys, and their ten employees fabricated up to 11,000 pipe nipples per day. They distributed their products via trucks on the new road networks to plumbing supply houses throughout Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. 

Still, despite the success, Sherwood Manufacturing ceased production in Lee's Summit in 1949 (possibly due to damage created by a fire that scorched its exterior wall) and consequently sold the building to Joseph Arnold in 1950, who hoped to develop it into a community center. Arnold donated the Sherwood Manufacturing Company Building to the City of Lee's Summit on May 24, 1950. City officials recognized the gift by declaring Joe Arnold Day, but the plan never came to fruition as the outbreak of the Korean War led to inflation and a shortage of building supplies. So, instead of a community center, the city rented the old factory to commercial tenants. For thirty years, tenants such as Dwight Manufacturing, a producer of airplane parts as a subcontractor to the Boeing Aircraft Company during the Korean War. The building was also home to the Gas Service Company who stored meters in the building during the early 1960s. A Mexican restaurant also occupied the facility. After the city failed to use this building to create a community center, Arnold left his estate to other causes when he died in May 1955.

Though the building is downtown, it stands as a reminder of commercial properties moving away from the railroad tracks to the vastly improved road system; the truck supplanted the railway as the preferred means of shipping goods. By the 1950s and 1960s, the interstate highway network emerged (and continually expanded); thus, manufacturing businesses were drawn to locations increasingly nearer the highway and farther away from downtown. As a result, Sherwood Manufacturing was also the last industrial business built in downtown Lee's Summit. Although Arnold's vision of turning the building into a community center never materialized, the city of Lee's Summit renovated the building during the mid-1990s to serve as a public meeting space. It housed city council chambers until the construction of the new city hall finished in 2005. Today (2021), the building is the home of Third Street Social restaurant.

Rosin, Elizabeth and Rachel Nugent. "Registration Form: Sherwood Manufacturing Company Building." National Register of Historic Places. archives.gov. 2010. https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/media/63817615/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MO/10000204.pdf.

Schwenk, Sally F. "Lee's Summit Downtown Historic District." National Register of Historic Places. catalog.archives.com. 2005. https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/media/63817605/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MO/05000889.pdf (also: https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/Lee%27s%20Summit%20Downtown%20HD.pdf.)

--- --- ---. "Multiple Property Documentation Form: "Historic Resources of Lee's Summit, Missouri." National Register of Historic Places. nps.gov. 2005. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/538072d0-08db-4ed1-9247-a112a7e55037.