Sometimes, you have to change the law to get what you want.
A group of Humboldt residents, dedicated to preserving downtown buildings, worked with legislators in 2013 to change a state law on restrictions imposed on places on the National Register of Historic Places. They wanted the historical designation for the citys bandstand in the downtown square, but local business owners were concerned about restrictions on properties within 500 feet of a historical property. City leaders also wondered how it would affect maintenance of the citys water tower on the square.
Thanks to efforts by a group of Humboldt residents and others including Sen. Caryn Tyson and then-state representative Ed Bide-au, who also was working on behalf of a proposed historic district in Chanute, legislators agreed to remove the 500-feet restrictions. The city added the bandstand to the national register Jan. 8, 2014.
Peg Griffith Smith, a member of the Humboldt Historic Preservation Alliance and former member of the Downtown Action Team, helped those efforts. Sites listed on the national register attract visitors and serve as educational tools for schools, communities and tourists, she said.
It also shows how our ancestors loved their heritage and why they worked so hard to keep their heritage alive, she said.
The bandstand remains vital to Humboldts story, Smith said. She recalled the Humboldt school districts efforts to bring back band in 1947, when she was in fifth grade. Band had been dropped during World War II, but the district hired a new band instructor who drilled us like an Army sergeant, she said. The band received several first places at marching events under his direction.
I have a lot of good memories playing in the band concerts, she said. The bandstand held many band concerts on Saturday nights during the summer. People would park around the square and sit in their cars and honk their horns after each selection was played. Children would run and play in the park and the grownups would visit. It was a fun time.
The bandstand was built in 1907 to celebrate Humboldts 50th anniversary. The one-and-a-half story octagonal bandstand features an asphalt roof with a center spire, a tongue-and-groove wood ceiling, wood floor, wrought iron railing, black cylindrical iron pillars to support the roof and four concrete sidewalks. Concrete pillars on eight corners with semi-elliptical arches support the concrete base and two concrete staircases, illustrating the historic importance of Humboldts cement factory over the decades.
The bandstands history dates back even further, though, to when the town was first platted in 1857 with a public square intended to serve as a community gathering space. A community band was formed in 1866 under Richard Red-field, a former military bandmaster. The bands performances, starting in 1867, used a pair of Fairbanks wagon scales at the southwest corner of the square, according to the historical nomination form.
In 1907, Charles M. Smith and John W. Nessel built the new bandstand, with the concrete for the base mixed by hand on a large platform with shovels.
Paul Finney, also a member of the Downtown Action Team and the Humboldt Historic Preservation Alliance, compared Smith and two other local women, Jan Coykendall and Ilene Robertson, to a three-legged stool that supported Humboldts historic preservation. The women, with help from numerous community volunteers, led efforts to restore the bandstand and have it listed with the national register.
The bandstand is an iconic symbol of Humboldt and is used in the citys promotional material, Cole Herder, city administrator, said.
Humboldt has a certain character and that bandstand reminds us of our character and our history, Herder said. Were proud to have it.
