Elam's Herbarium Building

    During the summer of 2000 Dr. Joe Thomasson, curator of the Elam Bartholomew Herbarium, took these photographs of the original herbarium building that Elam Bartholomew and his family built in 1912 as a place to store and work with specimens from his collections of plants and fungi.  Assembled from concrete blocks that were individually poured by members of the family, the building not only remains standing, but clearly shows evidence of red paint applied more than 85 years ago.  Hopes are to eventually transport this historic building to the vicinity of the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas for preservation and restoration.

   

Views looking west towards the location of the original herbarium building in central Kansas. You
say you can't see it?  It is in the center of both photographs.  In the close-up (right) you can
see red paint on the building that is now surrounded and nearly hidden from view by trees.
 

   

The front of the herbarium (left) faces south, probably to avoid cold, northerly
winds during the winter months.  The north side (right) lacks windows.
 

   

Elam used a metal roof (left) and a metal ceiling (right) inside the building in
order to minimize the possibility of fire destroying his collections.

All photographs and text © 2001 Joseph R. Thomasson