1266 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Construction began on the second 1266 East Adams Street in 1910 on the west 30 feet of Lot 122 in Grider & Dow's Subdivision of the Briswalter Tract; the initial permit for a six-room house issued by the Department of Buildings on January 31, 1910, refers to the owner as Agnes M. Livingston of Spartanburg, South Carolina, and the architect as Cora E. Henry of the Cora Building Company, with that firm cited as the contractor. A second permit issued on July 20, 1910, indicated that the owner was now Charles Toperzer, a carpenter, and that the builder was now real estate operator Adam P. Sippel. The second permit bears the notation "To complete building started by the Cora Building Co. Jan. 26th 1910"
  • This house numerically replaced an earlier 1266 East Adams that was built by real estate investor Maria S. Bowman in 1894 as her own home closer to the Hooper Avenue corner on Lot 122 as it was originally delineated, its Adams frontage measuring 99½ feet. This lot was subdivided by Mrs. Bowman, who had bought all 17 lots on the south side of Adams between Hooper and Naomi in January 1894. The resulting smaller Lot 122, site of our subject house, now had 30 feet of frontage, leaving the newly carved Lot 121½ with 69½ feet west from the corner. In 1908, after the death of Mrs. Bowman the year before, the corner lot was being given over to commercial use and was offered for sale as such in July of that year. Lot 122 was sold to the parties indicated above, who completed the new 1266 in 1910. The original 1266 was renumbered 1270, its Lot 121½ being sold again at auction as business property in May 1911; the house appears to have survived into the 1920s, with auto-repair and gas station buildings coming to dominate the lot until 1972. A four-unit apartment building was moved on to the corner from Carson in 1984
  • 1266 East Adams appears to have been rental property from the time it was built until it was acquired by railroad flagman William H. Green, who would retain ownership into the 1940s. During the '50s, Lillian Hunter and her twins Horace and Morace were in residence; by 1960, the house was occupied by John and Virginia Garner, whose family would remain into the 1990s



Illustration: Private Collection