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November 22, 2007

Holiday display returns to Newman Building

By Debby Woodin

dwoodin@joplinglobe.com

A downtown window that a hundred years ago announced the latest fashions and furnishings has been brought to life once again with a seasonal display.

Thanks to contributions of local residents, and the work of the city clerk and the city’s building technician, a holiday scene of Victorian carolers in fashion of the early 1900s can be seen in a front window of the former department store that now is Joplin City Hall, 602 S. Main St.

“I’m so pleased to have been able to put a display in the window, where families can have a leisurely walk down the street while shopping downtown and visit our view,” said City Clerk Barbara Hogelin, who is responsible for the display.

The lobby of City Hall also is festooned with a new, 15-foot-tall Christmas tree decorated with Victorian-style ornaments provided by Hogelin’s work.

“This is all made possible by the citizens,” she said. “This is of no expense to the city.”

The money to buy the decorations came from the sales of reproductions of the City Hall building. After the city bought the former Newman’s Department Store at Sixth and Main streets, Hogelin wanted to find a way to have a bronze replica of the city’s seal installed in the floor of the lobby.

She said she learned that a relative of hers in Kansas was helping a church raise money by selling replicas of the church building. So, Hogelin made arrangements to have a company create replicas of City Hall.

“It took a year and 170 pictures” for a mold to be made to replicate the building. Hogelin had 350 copies of the lighted building made and has been selling them to the public for $50. The profits from the sale have been banked, and enough was brought in to pay for the seal work. The seal is now being made for future installation.

Money was left over from that project, so Hogelin decided to use it to decorate the building for the holidays.

“My ultimate goal is to have animation like used to be used in this building” for holiday displays, she said, but animated figures were much too expensive for the money she had available. She did find that the still figures, made by a company in Louisiana, were affordable. “These carolers are in keeping with the building’s Victorian theme,” she said, adding that they are hand-carved.

To add a lighted feature to the display, building technician Jeff Tennis used scrap metal to create a streetlamp illuminating the carolers. The lamp resembles the streetlights now lining the downtown area, which has been dubbed the Sunshine Lamp District. Hogelin said Tennis used a lamp globe like those on Main Street’s lamps that had been chipped and couldn’t be used for the regular outdoor fixtures.

The Victorian emphasis reflects the building’s construction in 1910, in the latter part of the Victorian era. Newman’s Department Store operated downtown until 1972, when it moved to the new Northpark Mall as one of its anchor stores. It was located in the center court, a space now occupied by the Macy’s men’s and home store.

Work is being done to establish the area around the building as a local historic district and to gain a place for some of the city’s old buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hogelin said she will continue to try to raise enough money to put animation in the window display in the future. She still has 100 of the City Hall replicas available for sale at $50 each in her office on the second floor of City Hall.

“They only made 350, though, so when they’re gone, they’re gone,” she said.





Holiday open house



The lobby of City Hall will be open Saturday, Dec. 1, during the Joplin Christmas parade so that residents may get a close-up look at City Hall’s decorated holiday look. The parade starts at 5:30 p.m. at 20th and Main streets, and moves north to First Street. No parking will be allowed along that stretch of Main Street during the parade.

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