United Building
Built 1887
Completed in 1903, this building once was owned by T.E. Dewey and was known as the Brady Building. In 1904, following a disastrous flood, the building was sold to Cleyson L. Brown, Abilene entrepreneur whose many enterprises provided employment for one-fourth of the community's breadwinners.
The building was known as the Brown Building until 1911 when the Brown Telephone Company, which maintained its switching center at this location, absorbed its local competitor, the Missouri and Kansas Telephone Company, and became the United Telephone Company. Thereafter, the building was called the United Building until its sale in 1966 to the J.B. Ehrsam and Sons Manufacturing Company.
Meanwhile, the financial empire of C.L. Brown toppled with his death in 1935, and Southwestern Bell Telephone Company became the sole vendor of telephone services in Abilene. A part of Brown's confederation survived, however, and emerged from receivership in 1939 as United Utilities, Incorporated. Subsequently headquartered in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, the company grew to become the nation's third largest telephone system under a new name, United Telecommunications, Inc.
Marker is at the intersection of NW 3rd Street and Cedar Street, on the right when traveling west on NW 3rd Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
