While we are on purchasing hiatus, we’re still busy renovating properties, mostly the ones Sue Ann and Lee own in Cameron. Yesterday was pretty exciting, because we finally started the renovation of the old Pope Residence on Gillis (formerly known as Second St., and before that Bridge St., as shown in the 1906 map).
Here is an overview of Cameron in 1906, the earliest Sanborn map that shows our two properties.
Here’s a covered-up arch
To say we are excited at what we found on “demo day” is an understatement. Cody, the general contractor, reported that all the interior walls on the first floor are brick. Now, we know that the house was the first brick home in Cameron, but we didn’t realize brick was inside, too! Everyone agrees that this feature is a keeper, and we will be using it as a decorative element, not covering it up, wherever possible. (And think of all the drywall savings!)
At upper left, the image shows the separate kitchen building (later demolished) and the boarding house on the bottom, with “family” on the second floor.
The workers also uncovered hints about what the house looked like when it was first built, too. There are many arched openings between the “parlors” downstairs that got replaced with wooden doors later. That does sound more accurate to the time when the house was built. However, the doors also make sense. During the Great Depression, I found ads in the newspaper for rental rooms in the house. Sure enough, a later Sanborn map (these are maps historically used for insurance purposes) of the house shows that the first floor was a boarding house. That makes the separate stairs make a lot more sense, doesn’t it?
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