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ELIE GREENHOUSE

Elie Greenhouse

City/Town:
Location Class:
Built: 1929 | Abandoned: ~2010
Status: Abandoned
Photojournalist: Mike Mattal

ELIE GREENHOUSEDriving through Wichita when you happen upon this building at first one might assume its an intricately designed large house. They would only discover they were wrong when they approached and saw etched on the wall face was “Elie Greenhouse.”

Wichita’s “Most Beautiful Greenhouse” was started in 1919 by German immigrant Rosie Elie with her husband Charles. Her starting location was at 13th and St. Francis but then two years later moved to the current location you see today. There she ran the greenhouse and flower shop out of her house until a bigger space was needed.

She had this building built next door to her residence in 1929. Designed by Raymond Donoho, it is made of dark brick with a half-timbered architectural style. As a state-inspected nursery with plants like evergreens, shade and ornamental trees, roses, shrubs, vines, fruit trees and more its no wonder this was a popular place in the city to get all your plant needs.

elie greenhouse

From my research, I found a few interesting legal stories regarding the Elie Greenhouse and its/or its owners. I have attached some of those stories below;

The Wichita Beacon June 20, 1934 – Slashes at Wife in Courthouse/Peeved Husband Attacks Lawyer Infuriated by an adverse court decision regarding a property division with his divorced wife, Charles Elie, former greenhouse proprietor, is said by court attaches to have drawn a knife and to have attempted to assault his wife and her attorney, Dudley Eaton.

The attack was reported to have occurred in the third-floor corridor just outside the doors of Judge Ross McCormicks courtroom. Bailiffs Linnehan and Duckworth hearing the commotion rushed outside but Elie had disappeared. Eaton rushed to the county attorney’s office to call the sheriff but when deputies arrived the excitement had subsided and Elie was gone.

Neither Mrs. Elie nor Eaton was injured, Elie failing to get in a bl0w. Mrs. Elie demurred when it was suggested she obtain a warrant for his arrest. “I don’t want to put him in jail,” she said. The Elie’s were divorced some time ago and the court made a property settlement between them. Today, Charles appeared in court to claim the settlement was obtained through fraudulent representations made to the court.


The Wichita Beacon April 20, 1938 – Police today were hunting for a romantically-inclined bad check artist who presented a no-funds check in payment for flowers at the Eli Greenhouse. Employees at the greenhouse said that a man, seemingly under the influence of liquor, cashed a check for $13 drawn on an Oklahoma City Bank. The name of C.J. Fitzgerald was signed to it.

The man ordered $3 worth of flowers sent to a nurse in a local hospital and took $10 in change. A long-distance telephone call to the bank in OKC was made by the greenhouse employees and it was learned that C.J. Fitzgerald had no account there.


The Wichita Beacon April 21, 1939 – Burglars pried open a rear door and smashed a cash register to take $35.20 earlier today at the Elie Flower shop and greenhouse and missed what police reported as considerably more in cash. Mrs. Rosie Elie, owner of the greenhouse, discovered the burglary when she returned from downtown. The theft was committed while C. J. McBee who usually sleeps in the rear was away.

What puzzled police was the failure of a watch dog, “Brownie,” German Shephard to sound an alarm. The dog was in the greenhouse and has been trained against intruders. Another point studied by investigators was the smashing of the register. It was unlocked. Officers did not say where they money that was missed was hidden. Detective Don. J. Finney had the burglary to investigate as his first assignment on a transfer to burglaries of business places, which was effective this morning.

FOLLOWUP STORY The Wichita Beacon August 14, 1939 – Earl G. Roberts, 19, wanted on charges of the $35 burglary of the Elie Greenhouse here last spring was returned to Wichita last evening from Orlando Florida by Clyde Wilder marshall of the city court.

Roberts has been named by police as an accomplice of Wayne Beltz, 17, in the burglary of the greenhouse. Beltz, arrested about two weeks ago by Detective Ronald Van Welden and Paul Haggard, already has entered a plea of guilty to the burglary and was given a five to ten-year term at the Hutchinson reformatory. Roberts is charged with burglary and marked “hold for a state warrant.”


Owner Rosie Elie passed away in 1968, she was remembered as often being consulted for gardening and landscaping advice by many generations. She was allegedly the longest-working woman in the greenhouse profession in the state of Kansas.

Her daughter Elsie Elie McBee took over the Elie Greenhouse but she didn’t do it alone, she has watchdog Duke and mouser Susie with her. Seems her family was a German Shephard family. But all things come to an end and just four years after her mothers passing, the family sold the business in 1972.

C & C Floral

The Elie Greenhouse was sold to Dr. Othello Curry to become C and C Floral, the watchdog and mouser came with the property. Newspaper ads in the later half of the 1970s seemed to go quiet about the property as a floral business though. That was until 1980 when it was reported that Dr. Curry planned to use a $535,000 revenue bond for 25 apartments with five of them being low-income.

The rest of the documented records that I could find didn’t detail much history after that, if I had to guess I would say that it became abandoned sometime around the 2010s.




Bibliography

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/76058006/rosie-elie

https://www.newspapers.com/image/719100939/?terms=%22elie%20greenhouse%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/718202794/?terms=%22elie%20greenhouse%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/719441708/?terms=%22elie%20greenhouse%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/719794373/?terms=%22elie%20greenhouse%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/719363442/?terms=%22elie%20greenhouse%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/719222230/?terms=%22elie%20greenhouse%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/719891897/?match=1&clipping_id=143384362

https://www.newspapers.com/image/719261826/?terms=%22elie%20greenhouse%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/718154962/?terms=%22elie%20greenhouse%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/698216286/?terms=%22elie%20greenhouse%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/694054784/?terms=%222214%20e%2013th%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/694277413/?match=1&clipping_id=143386819

https://www.newspapers.com/image/694069435/?match=1&clipping_id=143387058

https://www.newspapers.com/image/695750978/?clipping_id=134892410&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjY5NTc1MDk3OCwiaWF0IjoxNzEwNDY5NjY5LCJleHAiOjE3MTA1NTYwNjl9.OLL8BEncvLSDlwDo7KqE5Pntl5jsPkWTjrzCxl1CFjo

https://www.newspapers.com/image/694393854/?terms=%222214%20e%2013th%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/696477347/?terms=%222214%20e%2013th%22&match=1

Elie Greenhouse Elie Greenhouse Elie Greenhouse Elie Greenhouse Elie Greenhouse Elie Greenhouse

Elie Greenhouse
Emily Cowan

Emily is a three-time published author of "Abandoned Oklahoma: Vanishing History of the Sooner State" - "Abandoned Topeka: Psychiatric Capital of the World" and "Abandoned Kansas: Healthcare in the Heartland. With over two hundred published articles on our websites. Exploring since 2018 every aspect of this has become a passion for her. From educating, fighting to preserve, writing, and learning about history there is nothing she would rather do.

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Emily Cowan

Emily is a three-time published author of "Abandoned Oklahoma: Vanishing History of the Sooner State" - "Abandoned Topeka: Psychiatric Capital of the World" and "Abandoned Kansas: Healthcare in the Heartland. With over two hundred published articles on our websites. Exploring since 2018 every aspect of this has become a passion for her. From educating, fighting to preserve, writing, and learning about history there is nothing she would rather do.

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