The Cray Historical Home Museum is within a mansion built for W.W. Hetherington in 1879 to 1880. Alfred Meier was the home's architect. The two-and-a-half story brick structure with a three-story round tower was designed with ten rooms and a full basement. The mansion was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and in the Register of Historic Kansas Places in 1977 for its Romanesque Revival architecture and its association with W.W. Hetherington, a local bank president. His widow and then his son owned the house into the 1960s. The museum has exhibits in the mansion and the carriage house has been converted into a gift shop with a small theater.
The J.P. Brown house is a 2-1/2 story brick dwelling on the corner of 4th and Riley streets that was constructed from 1879 to 1880. John P. "Paddy" Brown was a native of Ireland who immigrated from Ireland in his teens and moved to Atchison in 1859. Brown learned the railroad construction business and became a wealthy railroad contractor. This home was built to replace another home he and his family occupied in town. The eclectic style home is irregular in plan and the architect is unknown. The historic property also contains a carriage house that has been turned into a garage. The J.P. Brown house was listed in the National Register in 1975 and in the Kansas Register in 1977.
The Muchnic Art Gallery occupies a historic home on N. 4th Street that was built in 1885 for George Howell, a local lumber dealer. The three story, red brick house sports a Queen Anne style and exquisite interior spaces. The Muchnic family purchased the home in 1922 from the second owner. the Newcombs. Harry E. Muchnic founded the Locomotive Finished Material Company. The house is now owned and maintained by the Muchnic Foundation and has served as exhibit space for the Atchison Art Association since 1970. The Muchnic House was listed on the National Register in 1974 as an excellent example of its architectural style and was listed in the Kansas Register in 1977.
The Glency-Pennell House dates back to 1872 when the original home was completed as a two-story structure. Extensive remodeling in the 1890s resulted in the Queen Anne style Victorian brick house of today. An 1880 lithograph (Bird's Eye View of Atchison, as in one of the images below) depicted the house as T-shaped in plan with a cross-gable roof. The entrance tower and the southeastern part of the house were part of the 1890s additions. By the 1980s, the owners operated the Drury Tea Room on the ground floor, using a commercial kitchen added onto the house's southwest side. The Glency-Pennell House - along with its brick carriage house to the southwest of the home - was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
This massive Richardsonian Romanesque stone building was constructed from 1896 to 1897 to replace the previous Atchison County Courthouse which had been constructed in 1859. The corners sport towers with the highest tower in the northeast corner at over six stories tall with a clock on four sides. Most of the building is three stories tall above a basement. George P. Washburn designed the building, with a main entrance on the east beneath an archway. The building still functions as the county courthouse; it shares its lot with law enforcement offices housed in a modern building. Just a few feet from the northeast corner of the courthouse is a boulder with a plaque to commemorate a speech made by Abraham Lincoln on this site on December 2nd, 1859.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This walking tour includes four historic houses and a courthouse in Atchison that each feature a Victorian era building with a tower. Check out a museum, art gallery, and some of the city's most interesting historic landmarks that hearken back to the city's boom era at the turn-of-the century..
