1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
Historic districts in the United States
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Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size, some have hundreds of structures, the U. S. federal government designates historic districts through the United States Department of Interior under the auspices of the National Park Service. Federally designated historic districts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, state-level historic districts may follow similar criteria or may require adherence to certain historic rehabilitation standards. Local historic district designation offers, by far, the most legal protection for historic properties because most land use decisions are made at the local level, local districts are generally administered by the county or municipal government. The first U. S. historic district was established in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931, Charleston city government designated an Old and Historic District by local ordinance and created a board of architectural review to oversee it. New Orleans followed in 1937, establishing the Vieux Carré Commission, other localities picked up on the concept, with the city of Philadelphia enacting its historic preservation ordinance in 1955. The Supreme Court case validated the protection of resources as an entirely permissible governmental goal. In 1966 the federal government created the National Register of Historic Places, conference of Mayors had stated Americans suffered from rootlessness. By the 1980s there were thousands of federally designated historic districts, Historic districts are generally two types of properties, contributing and non-contributing. In general, contributing properties are integral parts of the historic context, in addition to the two types of classification within historic districts, properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are classified into five broad categories. They are, building, structure, site, district and object, all but the eponymous district category are also applied to historic districts listed on the National Register. A listing on the National Register of Historic Places is governmental acknowledgment of a historic district, however, the Register is an honorary status with some federal financial incentives. The National Register of Historic Places defines a historic district per U. S. federal law, a district may also comprise individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history. Districts established under U. S. federal guidelines generally begin the process of designation through a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, the National Register is the official recognition by the U. S. government of cultural resources worthy of preservation. While designation through the National Register does offer a district or property some protections, if the federal government is not involved, then the listing on the National Register provides the site, property or district no protections. If, however, company A was under federal contract the Smith House would be protected, a federal designation is little more than recognition by the government that the resource is worthy of preservation. Usually, the National Register does not list religious structures, moved structures, reconstructed structures, however, if a property falls into one of those categories and are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria then an exception allowing their listing will be made. Historic district listings, like all National Register nominations, can be rejected on the basis of owner disapproval, in the case of historic districts, a majority of owners must object in order to nullify a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places
3.
Mason City, Iowa
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Mason City is a city in and the county seat of Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, United States. The population was 28,079 in the 2010 census, a decline from 29,172 in the 2000 census, the Mason City Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Cerro Gordo and Worth counties. It is commonly referred to as the River City, as the city grew up centered on the Winnebago River, the region around what would later be first called Shibboleth was a summer home to the Sioux and Winnebago natives. The first settlement was made at Shibboleth in 1853 at the confluence of the Winnebago River, the town had several names, Shibboleth, Masonic Grove, and Masonville, until the name Mason City was adopted in 1855, in honor of a founders son, Mason Long. In 1854, John McMillin opened the first store, and Dr. Silas Card opened the first medical practice in the area, lizzie Thompson established the first schoolhouse in a log cabin in 1856. The United States Post Office Department started service to the town in 1857, Mason City was named as the county seat in 1858. Mason City, above all else, is known for its musical heritage. Mason Citys favorite son Meredith Willson grew up in Mason City, willsons crowning achievement was the famous musical The Music Man, which was first a successful Broadway musical, then a popular film. Many of the characters in it were taken from people Willson knew from his childhood in Mason City. The show first opened on Broadway in 1957 and became a hit, with a run at the Majestic Theatre. The Music Man garnered many awards, including 5 Tony Awards in 1958, the 1962 film version starred Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, and Buddy Hackett. It was both a critical and commercial success, being nominated for six Academy Awards and winning one, Mason Citys longitude and latitude coordinates in decimal form are 43.148747, −93.201916. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 28.10 square miles. As of the census of 2010, there were 28,079 people,12,366 households, the population density was 1,009.7 inhabitants per square mile. There were 13,352 housing units at a density of 480.1 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 93. 8% White,1. 8% African American,0. 3% Native American,0. 9% Asian,1. 3% from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 5. 1% of the population. 35. 0% of all households were made up of individuals and 13. 4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.20 and the average family size was 2.83. The median age in the city was 40.9 years
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
Prairie School
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Prairie School was a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States. Horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the prairie landscape. The Prairie School developed in sympathy with the ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement begun in the late 19th century in England by John Ruskin, William Morris, and others. Many talented and ambitious young architects had been attracted by building opportunities stemming from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 was supposed to be a heralding of the city of Chicagos rebirth. But many of the young Mid-western architects of what would become the Prairie School were offended by the Greek, in reaction, they sought to create new work in and around Chicago that would display a uniquely modern and authentically American style, which came to be called Prairie. The designation Prairie is due to the dominant horizontality of the majority of Prairie style buildings which echoes the wide, flat, treeless expanses of the mid-Western United States. The Prairie School is mostly associated with a generation of architects employed or influenced by Louis Sullivan or Frank Lloyd Wright, although the Prairie School originated in Chicago, some Prairie School architects moved away spreading the influence well beyond the Midwest. A partial list of Prairie School architects includes, The Prairie School houses were related to the American Arts and Crafts movement, an alternative to the then-dominant Classical Revival Style. Some firms, like Purcell & Elmslie, however, consciously rejected the term Arts and Crafts for their work, the Prairie School was also heavily influenced by the Idealistic Romantics and the Transcendentalist philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In turn, the Prairie School architects influenced subsequent architectural idioms, particularly the Minimalists and Bauhaus, architectural historians have debated the reasons why the Prairie School went out of favor by the mid-1920s. Perhaps a serious consideration of one of its own members would be worth their serious attention. Mahonys and Griffins work in Australia and India, notably the collection of homes at Castlecrag, isabel Roberts Veterans Memorial Library in St. Cloud, Florida, is another. The House at 8 Berkley Drive at Lockport, New York was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, the Oak Circle Historic District is a historic district in Wilmette, Illinois, United States. It primarily consists of fifteen single-family homes representative of the Prairie School, the Oak Circle Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 21,2001, it was the first historic district to be designated in Wilmette. Several not-for-profit organizations and on-line communities have formed to educate people about the Prairie School movement
6.
Frank Lloyd Wright
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Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer, and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures,532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment and this philosophy was best exemplified by Fallingwater, which has been called the best all-time work of American architecture. Wright was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture and developed the concept of the Usonian home and his creative period spanned more than 70 years. In addition to his houses, Wright designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums and he often designed interior elements for these buildings as well, including furniture and stained glass. Wright wrote 20 books and many articles and was a lecturer in the United States. His colorful personal life made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire. Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as the greatest American architect of all time, Frank Lloyd Wright was born Frank Lincoln Wright in the farming town of Richland Center, Wisconsin, United States, in 1867. His father, William Carey Wright, was an orator, music teacher, occasional lawyer, William Wright met and married Anna Lloyd Jones, a county school teacher, the previous year when he was employed as the superintendent of schools for Richland County. Originally from Massachusetts, William Wright had been a Baptist minister, Anna was a member of the large, prosperous and well-known Lloyd Jones family of Unitarians, who had emigrated from Wales to Spring Green, Wisconsin. One of Annas brothers was Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who would become an important figure in the spread of the Unitarian faith in the Western United States, both of Wrights parents were strong-willed individuals with idiosyncratic interests that they passed on to him. According to his biography, his mother declared when she was expecting that her first child would grow up to build beautiful buildings and she decorated his nursery with engravings of English cathedrals torn from a periodical to encourage the infants ambition. In 1870 the family moved to Weymouth, Massachusetts, where William ministered to a small congregation, in 1876, Anna visited the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia where she saw an exhibit of educational blocks created by Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel. The blocks, known as Froebel Gifts, were the foundation of his innovative kindergarten curriculum, Anna, a trained teacher, was excited by the program and bought a set with which young Wright spent much time playing. The blocks in the set were geometrically shaped and could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions, the Wright family struggled financially in Weymouth and returned to Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the supportive Lloyd Jones clan could help William find employment. They settled in Madison, where William taught music lessons and served as the secretary to the newly formed Unitarian society, although William was a distant parent, he shared his love of music, especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, with his children. Soon after Wright turned 14, his parents separated, Anna had been unhappy for some time with Williams inability to provide for his family and asked him to leave. The divorce was finalized in 1885 after William sued Anna for lack of physical affection, William left Wisconsin after the divorce and Wright claimed he never saw his father again. At this time he changed his name from Lincoln to Lloyd in honor of his mothers family
7.
Iowa
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Iowa is a U. S. state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River on the east and the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west. Surrounding states include Wisconsin and Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, Nebraska and South Dakota to the west, in colonial times, Iowa was a part of French Louisiana and Spanish Louisiana, its state flag is patterned after the flag of France. After the Louisiana Purchase, people laid the foundation for an economy in the heart of the Corn Belt. Iowa is the 26th most extensive in area and the 30th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city by population is Des Moines, Iowa has been listed as one of the safest states in which to live. Its nickname is the Hawkeye State, Iowa derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many Native American tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east, the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west, Iowa is the only state whose east and west borders are formed entirely by rivers. Iowa has 99 counties, but 100 county seats because Lee County has two, the state capital, Des Moines, is in Polk County. Iowas bedrock geology generally increases in age from west to east, in northwest Iowa, Cretaceous bedrock can be 74 million years old, in eastern Iowa Cambrian bedrock dates to c.500 million years ago. Iowa is generally not flat, most of the consists of rolling hills. Iowa can be divided into eight landforms based on glaciation, soils, topography, Loess hills lie along the western border of the state, some of which are several hundred feet thick. Northeast Iowa along the Mississippi River is part of the Driftless Zone, consisting of steep hills, several natural lakes exist, most notably Spirit Lake, West Okoboji Lake, and East Okoboji Lake in northwest Iowa. To the east lies Clear Lake, man-made lakes include Lake Odessa, Saylorville Lake, Lake Red Rock, Coralville Lake, Lake MacBride, and Rathbun Lake. The states northwest area has remnants of the once common wetlands. Iowas natural vegetation is tallgrass prairie and savanna in areas, with dense forest and wetlands in flood plains and protected river valleys. Most of Iowa is used for agriculture, crops cover 60% of the state, grasslands cover 30%, as of 2005 Iowa ranked 49th of U. S. states in public land holdings. Endangered or threatened plants include western prairie fringed orchid, eastern prairie fringed orchid, Meads milkweed, prairie bush clover, the explosion in the number of high-density livestock facilities in Iowa has led to increased rural water contamination and a decline in air quality. Iowa has a continental climate throughout the state
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Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
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Imperial Hotel, Tokyo
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The Imperial Hotel is a hotel in Tokyo that was created in the late 1880s at the request of the Japanese aristocracy to cater to the increasing number of Western visitors to Japan. The hotel site is located just south of the Imperial Palace grounds, the modern hotel overlooks the Palace, the 40-acre Western-style Hibiya Park, and the Ginza neighborhood. Three main buildings have stood on the site, each of which embodied the finest Western design of its era. The hotel faced roughly North, with parts of the Imperial Palace moats across streets on the North, the hotel was backed by key Japanese leaders, such as Foreign Minister Count Inoue Kaoru and Viscount Shibusawa Eiichi. There were initially 21 investors, with the largest being the Imperial Household Ministry, site preparation for the hotel started in July 1888, and construction began in the fall of that year. On 7 July 1890 the name was changed to Imperial Hotel Ltd, the hotel was opened in November 1890. Plans for the hotel were part of the effort to centralize government offices in the Hibiya area, a group of German architects visited Japan and made some preliminary drawings. The initial drawings for the hotel were created by Heinrich Mänz, in 1886, a group of 20 Japanese were sent to Germany for training. Eventually, Yuzuru Watanabe would be picked to design the 60-room hotel and he also added rooms under the eaves to accommodate more guests. Japans first Diet building, just finished on 24 November 1890 in time for the first Diet session, after a week of preparations, the House of Peers reconvened in the ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, where they would meet until March 1. Business was slow at first, and the hotel lost money and it was not until the start of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 that the hotel was regularly filled to capacity. The Metropole was torn down in 1910, as planning began for a new building to be completed by 1916, watanabes Imperial Hotel building was destroyed by fire on 16 April 1922, while Edward, Prince of Wales was visiting Japan. The fire broke out during the day, with a staff on hand. No lives were lost, but business at the hotel stopped until the South wing of the new hotel could be opened, the second Imperial Hotel was built from 1919–1923, and officially opened on 1 September 1923. This hotel was the best-known of Frank Lloyd Wrights buildings in Japan, in 1911, Frank Lloyd Wright was recommended to Aisaku Hayashi of the Imperial Hotel by Frederick W. Gookin, a fellow collector of Japanese art. By 1912, Wright was corresponding directly with Hayashi, but the death of Emperor Meiji put a hold on discussions, when discussions resumed, Wright traveled to Japan, leaving the United States on 11 January 1913. During his stay, Wright examined the site and drew some preliminary plans and he returned to the United States in May confident that he would get the commission. In early 1916, Hayashi, his wife, and Japanese architect Tori Yoshitake traveled to the United States, Hayashi and his companions were back in Japan by mid-April, and the board had approved the plans in time for Wright to sail for Japan on 28 December 1916
10.
Walter Burley Griffin
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Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and landscape architect. He is known for designing Canberra, Australias capital city and he has been credited with the development of the L-shaped floor plan, the carport and an innovative use of reinforced concrete. Influenced by the Chicago-based Prairie School, Griffin developed a modern style. He worked in partnership with his wife Marion Mahony Griffin, in 28 years they designed over 350 buildings, landscape and urban-design projects as well as designing construction materials, interiors, furniture and other household items. Griffin was born in 1876 in Maywood, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago and he was the eldest of the four children of George Walter Griffin, an insurance agent, and Estelle Burley Griffin. His family moved to Oak Park and later to Elmhurst, as a boy he had an interest in landscape design and gardening, and his parents allowed him to landscape the yard at their new home in Elmhurst. Griffin went to Oak Park High School and he considered studying landscape design but was advised by the landscape gardener O. C. Simonds to pursue a more lucrative profession. Griffin chose to study architecture, and, in 1899, completed his bachelors degree in architecture at the University of Illinois, the University of Illinois program was run by Nathan Clifford Ricker, a German-educated architect, who emphasized the technical aspects of architecture. During his studies, he took courses in horticulture and forestry. After his studies, Griffin moved to Chicago and was employed as a draftsman for two years in the offices of progressive architects Dwight H. Perkins, Robert C, spencer, Jr. and H. Webster Tomlinson in Steinway Hall. Griffins employers worked in the distinctive Prairie School style and this style is marked by horizontal lines, flat roofs with broad overhanging eaves, solid construction, craftsmanship, and strict discipline in the use of ornament. Other architects of that school include George Grant Elmslie, George Washington Maher, William Gray Purcell, William Drummond and most importantly, in July 1901 Griffin passed the new Illinois architects licensing examination and this permitted him to enter private practice as an architect. He began to work in Frank Lloyd Wrights famous Oak Park, Illinois, although he was never made a partner, Griffin oversaw the construction on many of Wrights noted houses including the Willits House in 1902 and the Larkin Administration Building built in 1904. From 1905 he also began to supply plans for Wrights buildings. Wright allowed Griffin and his staff to undertake small commissions of their own. The William Emery house, built in Elmhurst, Illinois, in 1903 was such a commission, while working for Wright, Griffin fell in love with Mr. Wrights sister, Maginel Wright. He proposed marriage to her, but his affections for her were not returned, in 1906 he resigned his position at Wrights studio and established his own practice at Steinway Hall. Griffin and Wright had fallen out over events following Mr. Wrights trip to Japan in 1905, while Wright was away for five months, Griffin ran the practice
11.
Park Inn Hotel
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Completed in 1910, the Park Inn Hotel is the last remaining Frank Lloyd Wright designed hotel in the world, of the six for which he was the architect of record. The City National Bank is one of two remaining Frank Lloyd Wright-designed banks in the world. It was the first Frank Lloyd Wright designed project in the state of Iowa, in 1999, the Park Inn Hotel was named on the Iowa Historic Preservation Alliances Most Endangered Properties List. The Park Inn Hotel was the third hotel designed by Wright and served as the prototype for Midway Gardens in Chicago and the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, in 1907, when law partners James E. Blythe and J. E. E. For them Wright would build a complex, multi-purpose building that would give them multiple income streams. Their law offices would be on the floor of the buildings narrower central waist. On the north would be a 42-room hotel, with basement shops beneath the Bank, Wright’s drawings of the bank and hotel are dated from as early as December 17,1908. Construction was begun on the first of April 1909, with supervision by Wright until his departure for Europe in late October of that year. At that time William Drummond from Wright’s Oak Park Studio in Oak Park, Illinois took over the supervision of its construction and designed a nearby Prairie style home during his visits. The law office of developer-owners Blythe and Markley was open for business on August 29,1910, Wright returned to the Midwest from his year in Europe in October 1910. Unfortunately for the Historic Park Inn Hotel, a new 250-room hotel with all the latest amenities was constructed in Mason City in 1922, in addition, the farm crisis led to the closing of the City National Bank when was merged into another local bank. By 1925, four of the five banks in Mason City had failed, in 1926, the City National Bank building was sold separately and underwent an unsympathetic remodeling into a new commercial use in that year. For the next decades, the Park Inn experienced a gradual decline that ended with its closure in 1972. The Park Inn Hotel received an interior and exterior renovation thanks to numerous grants. This included a restoration of the brick and terra-cotta façade, replacement of the art glass skylight windows. Wright on the Park, Inc. the organization overseeing the work, purchased the adjacent City Bank Building, the bank building was refitted with an elevator and provides six additional rooms for the hotel, the old bank lobby is now a hotel ballroom. The restoration was completed in September 2011, Wright on the Park, Inc. Wright in Iowa Reserve a room in The Historic Park Inn Hotel The Last Wright on Internet Movie Database
