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History of Downtown Leavenworth Driving Tour
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Built in 1857 by one of the city of Leavenworth's earlier residents, the Carroll Mansion started out as a simple four-room farmhouse owned by John Foster. When he and his family left town for Nebraska, the home eventually ended up in the hands of local wealthy businessman Lucien Scott. It was Scott who worked with carpenter George McKenna to renovate the home into the sixteen-room Queen Anne Victorian mansion that it is today. After this, it was sold to the family of Edward Carroll, whose child Ella donated it to the Leavenworth County Historical Society after living there for more than seventy years. Today, visitors can see this elaborate late nineteenth-century home and its elaborate woodwork, stained glass windows, and authentic decorations.


Carroll Mansion - Home of the Leavenworth County Historical Society and Museum

Plant, Property, Window, Porch

Carroll Mansion - Home of the Leavenworth County Historical Society and Museum

Sky, Plant, Window, Property

Interior of the Carroll Mansion

Brown, Picture frame, Furniture, Table

Interior of the Carroll Mansion

Furniture, Property, Picture frame, Chair

The future Carroll Mansion was built on land initially purchased by John McCullough Foster in the late 1850s, along with the surrounding farmland. At twenty-four years old, Foster, along with his wife Letitia, moved here just three years after Leavenworth was founded. As Foster was a carpenter by trade, he built his home himself, constructing a simple four-room frame house with a one-story rear kitchen wing. After ten years living here, which he spent working as a contractor, he carried out the home's first renovation, creating a brick Italianate. Soon after, thanks to the 1870s real estate panic, Foster and his family left Leavenworth for Nebraska City.

In 1876, the home was sold to Major David Taylor, a United States Army paymaster. Taylor died shortly after, causing the home to be sold again, this time in 1882 to Lucien Scott and his wife Julia. Scott was president of the First National Bank of Leavenworth, the president of the Leavenworth Coal Company, and the vice president of the Kansas Central Railroad, and was considered the richest man in Kansas at the time. It was Scott who hired local carpenter George McKenna, who, under Scott's direction, renovated the home into the mansion it is today. McKenna expanded the four-room home to sixteen rooms, decorated the interior with elaborately embellished woodwork, and modernized the home with plumbing and gas lighting. When renovations were finished, the impressive Queen Anne Victorian mansion became one of Leavenworth's popular places for social gatherings.

Finally, in 1887, the Scotts sold the property to Edward Carroll of the Leavenworth National Bank, who moved in with his wife, Mary Ellen Hunt Carroll, and their six children. The home was in their possession for 77 years; Ella Carroll was its final resident. She donated the home in the 1960s to the Leavenworth County Historical Society, who run a museum and special collections out of the property. Today visitors to the Carrol Mansion Museum can step back in time and learn what home life was like for those living here in the late nineteenth century, as the home has been largely unchanged since Scott's renovation, save for when the bathrooms were improved in the 1920s. The home continues to boast McKenna's hand-carved woodwork, as well as parquet floors, stained glass windows, other unique architectural aspects, and furniture, portraiture, and artifacts dating back to early Leavenworth.

Our History, Leavenworth County Historical Society. Accessed August 30th, 2023. https://www.leavenworthhistory.org/History.htm.

Conrad, Howard L. Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, A Compendium of History and Biography for Ready Reference. Volume II. The Southern History Company, 1901.

Fischer, William. The Carroll House Leavenworth Historical Museum, Historical Marker Database. April 27th, 2015. Accessed August 30th, 2023. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=82715.

Carroll Mansion Museum, Lewis and Clark Travel. Accessed August 30th, 2023. https://www.lewisandclark.travel/listing/carroll-mansion-museum/.

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