Train Depot and Grain Elevator
Date Unknown
The Santa Fe train depot and the grain elevator were located south of Kay Street.
Derby Historical Museum (1 - glued in a scrapbook)
Tony Gonzalez (2)
Railroad crew in Derby
circa 1920s
Tony Gonzalez (1)
Richard Hogan (donated photo to the museum) (2 & 3)
Inv. 96-010014
Derby Public School & Museum
Derby Historical Museum, 710 E. Market
(Historic Landmark #4)
In March 1924, this red brick building opened as the third school at this site. It had 10 classrooms, study hall, small office, two modern lavatories and a gymnasium/auditorium. From 1924 to 1953, this was the only public school in town; high school was on the second floor and grade school on the ground floor. <br /><br />During the rapid residential growth of the 1950s in Derby, multiple schools were built in Unified School District 260. Since 1953, this building has served in various capacities, including some middle school (junior high) functions until about 2000 and then became the community’s historical museum. In 2012, USD 260 gave the building to the Derby Historical Society to continue to operate the museum. In 2014, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of Interior. It remains the only building in Derby on the National Register. <br /><br />
<h2><strong>The Santa Fe & St. Mary Bell</strong></h2>
In 1899, this brass bell was mounted on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Steam Locomotive #419, which was manufactured in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The locomotive saw active service through the late 1930s along the railroad's main lines through Kansas.
<p>In 1958, the ATSF Railroad donated the bell to St. Mary Catholic Church in Derby. From 1958 to 1999, the clanging of the heavy brass bell atop St. Mary Catholic Church's bell tower at 433 North Derby Street summoned people across Derby to worship. The bell hung in the bell tower at the church until 2011 when the property was sold to the City for Madison Avenue Central Park.</p>
In 2015, the church donated the bell to the Derby Historical Museum.
City of Derby
El Paso Business District
Derby Police Department, 229 N. Baltimore
(Historic Landmark #2)
On July 11, 1871, J. Hout Minnich and John Hufbauer filed a town plat for El Paso in Sedgwick County, Kansas. It established streets from Madison to Kay and from Water Street to Georgie Avenue, and business boomed.
Around the turn of the century, most buildings in downtown El Paso were on Baltimore Avenue between Main and Washington streets, and many changed uses or owners as the city progressed. An example is T. D. Wardell Hardware, first located on the first floor of Odd Fellows Hall and then moved west across the street to its own building on the property where you are standing.
Note the evolution of the Farmers & Merchants Bank building’s facade. After the bank currently located at Market and Baltimore was built, the original bank building was sold to El Paso Water Company, then several years later to a realtor and then back to the bank. It was torn down to accommodate expansion and parking. The block between Market and Washington had barbers, dry goods, groceries and other services. The Sickler brothers were two of the proprietors.
South of Market Street were the Independent Oil Company and Gertie’s Café. Near the center of the block was H. Jones General Store, which later became Lock Edwards Grocery, and then in the 1930s Chet Smith Grocery and Locker. In 2019, this building now houses professional offices. Just south of Kay Street was the grain elevator and nearby railroad depot, which occupied three locations over the years.
On the east side were the Odd Fellows Hall and Davidson & Case Lumber Company. This site later became the Trading Post Lumber Yard for a number of years and in 2019 is occupied by the Baltimore Market Place. In the early days, the post office was a pigeon-hole cabinet in the front of someone’s store, and as the community grew, it expanded and moved locations several times.
A hotel on Washington Street was built in the late 1800s, and in 1904 the Weston family purchased it. In the very early days, a public horse watering trough was in the middle of Baltimore at Washington. The original Catholic mission church was south at Kay Street. Just to your north, the First Presbyterian Church remains at its original location, although the 1879 building was replaced in 1926 and again in 1990.
City of Derby