Time Machine: Cedar Rapids once had a ‘creepy’ old City Hall

Cedar Rapids City Hall would move six times — with the City Council always looking for an inexpensive place for city offices — before it moved into the new Veterans Memorial Building on May’s Island in 1928.

In 1883, the city clerk, city council room and the mayor’s office were housed on the second floor of a building on Second Street SE between Second and Third avenues. The volunteer fire department was on the first floor.

By 1894, the City Council deemed the building was dangerous and in dire need of repair. Alderman Charles Weare said there was no economy in repairing a building that should be razed.

So, in June 1895, city offices moved to the upper floors of a building at the southwest corner of Second Avenue and Third Street SE.

Empire House

In 1899, the City Council decided to buy and renovate the old Empire House hotel and use it as a temporary City Hall until a new building could be built. Not everyone thought that was a good plan.

“The old hulk of a building stands without shade or screen, a fit resort for ghosts and specters,” a Gazette story said.

“The removal of tenants from the Empire House,” the article continued, “indicates the beginning of the end of an old landmark, which has been an eyesore in more ways than one. No one will ever attempt to write the history of the old hulk, which is more closely allied with the history of the police station than that of any other institution in the city.”

The Empire House, built by C.C. “Charley” Cook in 1854, stood at the corner of Washington Street (which would become Second Street SE in 1882) and Park Avenue (which would become Third Avenue SE). It was three stories tall with a veranda that wrapped around one end of the building

A later Gazette story said, “Nine tailors may make a man, but it will take more than one architect to make much of a ‘city hall’ out of the old Empire House. … Health Officer (J.H.) Gerber will be armed with the formaldehyde and sent to wage war against the parasites, some of which are big enough to carry off the shackles that Marshal (Joseph) Kozlovsky lost this week.”

In explaining the decision to remodel the Empire hotel, Mayor John Redmond said, “It isn’t going to make a very handsome building, but we have it rent free, with an income of $50 per month from the livery barn on the rear of the premises. This will be about sufficient to pay the rent of the public library in the Granby block.”

Renovation

Architect W.A. Fulkerson was chosen to renovate the Empire House into City Hall, even though he worried the remodeling might cause the building to collapse.

It didn’t. The first floor of the main 24-by-65-foot building held the offices for the treasurer, auditor, engineer and mayor, with and a meeting room.

The marshal’s office was in the 25-by-30-foot east building, with the matron’s apartment upstairs. The superior courtroom and the clerk and recorder offices were on the second floor. The third floor had two jury rooms. A new trussed roof was planned as well.

One alderman volunteered to design new posts for the building’s expanded veranda. Another one said, “I do not like the idea of going into that old shell. … It makes my flesh creep to think of it.”

Nevertheless, Loomis Bros. was hired for the remodeling at a cost of $1,690. The city offices opened in December 1899.

May’s Island

In 1908, the city opted to change to a commission form of government and move out of the Empire House City Hall.

It sold the land where City Hall sat for $66,500 to contractor Mike Ford. The building itself sold for $47 at auction. The money went into a fund to buy land on May’s Island for the relocated City Hall. A year later, city offices began moving into the old Smulekoff furniture store on May’s Island.

In 1928, City Hall moved into the new Veterans Memorial Building on May’s Island, where it would remain until the flood of 2008 when city offices had to relocate throughout the community. City Hall reopened in 2011 in the former federal courthouse on First Street SE between First and Second avenues.

Killian’s

Meanwhile, back at the old City Hall/Empire House site, a new five-story office building was being built.

“It will be one of the most important building projects of the year and will be a big improvement to that portion of the city, the old city hall property having been something of an eyesore for a quarter of a century or more,” The Gazette reported in 1912.

The Killian Co. department store signed a lease that year to open in the new Fidelity building, which was completed in February 1913.

C.P. Hubbard, the 70-year-old retired president of the local ice company, walked past the new department store in 1916. He remembered the old Empire House, where 50 years before he had eaten his first meal in Cedar Rapids. He also recalled its turn as City Hall.

Killian’s, which closed in 1982, often used an illustration of the Empire House in its ads.

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