Parker Block

219-221 South Summit Street

The Parker Block, located at 219 and 221 S. Summit St., was built by October 1893, when The Arkansas City Daily Traveler reported that the new tailoring firm of Bardwell & Grays had moved into the building.

William Penn Wolfe, the Ark City contractor who built the two-story building, also built the Knights of Pythias building at the northeast corner of Summit and Street Washington Avenue; the Zadie Block, located at 208 S. Summit St.; and others, according to the obituary of his wife, Harriet C. Wolfe, who died in 1925.

The Parker building originally consisted of three storefronts. In August 1904, a fire broke out in the back room of Allen & Moore’s grocery store, located in the middle storefront, and L.S. Morgan, who sold musical instruments in the 221 store next door to the south, sustained the largest loss, estimated at $1,600 worth of merchandise, mainly pianos and organs in his back room; the loss was covered by insurance.

The 1905 Sanborn fire maps show that the north store (219) was occupied by a meat market. These functions remained through at least 1912. In a major alteration, completed by 1920, the building’s front was refaced to create one store from what had been three.

The two-story commercial prairie-style building has a brick façade with cast stone detailing, all with a painted finish.

In December 1918, J.C. Penney held a grand opening in its new, expanded quarters in the Parker building.

Penney’s first opened a store in Ark City on April 7, 1917, in a tiny, one-room building in the 100 block of South Summit Street.

Within a year, the company had outgrown its original store and so the move south was made.

The Penney store stayed in business in Ark City for nearly 70 years. It closed in 1986 or 1987. In 1987, the building at 221 S. Summit St. was sold to Allen and Sherry Herman, according to the Cowley County Appraiser’s Office.

From then on, it operated as a furniture store, now owned by their son, Traver Herman.