Feature 286: 604 West Maple Avenue (in 2011)

Classification: Contributing.
Historic Name: Kranson and Carson Building.
Architectural Style: Spanish Colonial Revival.
Construction Date: ca. 1931.
Period 3 of Harry S Truman’s Life: Developing Political Skills and Associations, 1920-1933.
Tax Identification: 26-340-01-08 and 26-340-01-09.
Legal Description: Moore's Addition, lot 12.
Description: Contributing two-story wood-frame office/dwelling; rectangular in shape; parapet conceals roof type and materials; stucco exterior; one-over-one double-hung sash wood windows; small concrete stoop with shed roof extension on west elevation with red tile; concrete foundation with daylight basement. Level lot with lawn; trimmed hedge along sidewalk; shade trees in rear yard; property adjoins rear of Frank and Natalie Wallace property on West Truman Road.
• Alterations: The side porch is probably altered.
History/Significance: This Spanish Colonial Revival building evolved from an original Queen Anne style house, damaged by fire and moved to the east side of the lot in the early 1930s. The present building is not depicted on the 1926 Sanborn Fire Insurance Company map of Independence, but the map does show a Queen Anne style house near this site. There is no building listed at 604 West Maple Avenue in the 1930 Independence city directory.
The present building was, no doubt, reconstructed and extensively remodeled in the early 1930s to accommodate two doctors' offices. Stucco siding was installed over the former clapboard siding during the remodeling (and is still visible in a Plexiglas panel on the second floor). In 1940, Seymour J. Kranson and Floyd C. Carson occupied the building. In the late 1940s and 1950s, Doctors Gard & Comboy, physicians, had offices in the building. The building is depicted in Virginia and Lee McAlester's A Field Guide to American Houses (1984 edition, p. 429).