Feature 272: 419 West Maple Avenue (in 2011)

Classification: Contributing.
Historic Name: Sollars/Gentry House.
Architectural Style: Queen Anne/Colonial Revival.
Construction Date: ca. 1910.
Period 2 of Harry S Truman's Life: Establishing Community Roots, 1890-1919.
Tax Identification: 26-230-09-04.
Legal Description: Old Town, part of lot 41.
Description: Contributing one- and one-half story wood-frame dwelling; irregular in shape; gabled roof with gable dormers and a boxed cornice at bellcast ends, clad with composition shingles; clapboard siding; multi-paned and one-over-one double-hung sash windows, wood; full-width front porch under projecting gable roof supported by square brick columns on brick piers, decorative brick balustrade; cut stone-faced foundation with daylight basement. Slightly elevated lot with lawn with retaining walls on north and west side; shade trees extend along the west property line; a large paved parking lot is located to the west.
• Alterations: The rear porch has been altered.
History/Significance: Charles Sollars, a stock raiser, very likely had this house built around 1910. He, along with Effie M., Eugene K., and Nellie P. Sollars, lived here from around 1911 to about 1916, when they moved to a house at 318 North Delaware Street [Feature 054]. David Herrington, an attorney, and his wife, Mattie J. Herrington, lived in the house in the mid-1910s before Reverend James E. Wolfe occupied the house in 1920. Overton H. and Emma R. Gentry moved into the house in the early 1920s. Emma R. Gentry, active in social and cultural organizations in Independence (the Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of 1912, United Daughters of the Confederacy, National Society of the American Colonists, and the First Christian Church), died at 1925 at age thirty-four, leaving a son, Alonzo H., and a daughter, Leslie L. Shaw, and her husband. The Gentry family remained in the house into the 1930s. By 1940, Robert D. LeBow and the LeBow Beauty Shop were located at 419 West Maple Street. Early L. Hagan lived in the house in the late 1940s and the 1950s.