It's part of a project known as Gorilla Rising, which includes Pittsburg State University's future Kelce College of Business at 216 N. Broadway just two blocks to the south. Once the site there is prepared, construction will begin and is scheduled to be complete by August 2026.
Initial work last summer prepared the Besse for renovation. Soon, crews will pick up where they left off at Fourth and Locust streets to transform it.
Loft apartments will be renovated for students and the ground floor will be renovated for the Center for Reading.
Currently in operation in Whitesitt Hall on campus, the center’s new modern space in the Besse will make it more visible and accessible to the public as it expands to help lead the statewide Blueprint for Literacy initiative.
There, the center will offer state-of-the-art evaluation, science-based intervention, and advocacy services to individuals with dyslexia and other reading difficulties, and a lab classroom for training teachers and pre-service teachers.
The first Besse project got underway in 1924 when Chamber of Commerce President J. A. Gibson appointed a hotel committee to find a building site. The committee included realtors, the Pittsburg Sun newspaper publisher, and coal operator Ira Clemens, who would manage the new hotel.
The Chamber purchased the site through donations from more than 100 of Pittsburg' s "bankers, business, and professional men and women.”
Historic records show the Chamber offered to donate the site to a hotel developer, stipulating that the new structure be at least seven stories, fire-proof, have at least 125 guest rooms, and contain headquarters for the Chamber of Commerce, dining room, public and private, a coffee shop, and assembly, banquet, and ball room.
After several funding deals collapsed, the hotel committee decided to finance the building entirely with local money. Many of the individuals who funded the purchase of the site also pledged to purchase stock.
When it appeared as if every person in Pittsburg of even moderate means had contributed, the committee remained $25,000 short of its goal. Financier Alexander Besse stepped in.
Besse already had contributed $5,000 to the purchase of the site. He bought the remaining $25,000 worth of stock to build the hotel, mortgaging all of his property to do so. In recognition, the hotel was named in his honor.
The Hotel Committee employed architects from Oklahoma City to design a modern structure of 12 stories that replicated some of the largest and most modern buildings in New York.
The architects included the latest in heating technology, elevator systems, and private baths in each room.
To build the Besse, the block would need to be cleared of seven existing two-story buildings that had been there for 30 to 40 years. They included the Ideal Furniture Company, the Pittsburg Auto Top & Mattress Factory, a rooming house, a pool hall, Farmer’s Restaurant, and a lunch counter.
Demolition of these buildings began on July 5, 1926, and was completed in just a week. Hotel Committee member T. J. McNally, president of the Pittsburg Boiler and Machine Company, loaned one of McNally Company’s large steam shovels for the excavation that followed.
Pittsburg builders Asa Messenger and George Dalton secured the contract to build the hotel with a bid of $290,086, although costs were expected to reach $300,000 by the time construction got underway.
It progressed steadily throughout the following year, and on June 14, 1927, the Besse Hotel opened with two evenings of dedications. The well-attended events consisted of dinner, speeches, and musical entertainment.
Reservations for each night's 275 tickets were made well in advance. Speakers included hotel manager Ira Clemens and F. C. Werner and W. A. Beasley, members of the original Hotel Committee.
The hotel committee had arranged for commercial storefronts on the ground level that could be entered from the hotel lobby as well as Locust and Fourth streets.
Inside the lobby, which was registered as 121 E. Fourth St., was the Besse Cigar Stand and Postal Telegraph Company.
A tailor shop and the Besse Coffee Shop operated at 117 E. Fourth St. and 119 E. Fourth St. respectively, and a barber shop occupied 123 E. Fourth St. The other storefronts housed V&C Radio company at 115 E. Fourth St., and Leo F. Costello Investments at 125 E. Fourth St.
Around the corner were the offices of the Chamber of Commerce at 401 N. Locust St.
The Wenzel Company, which operated eight Chicago hotels, agreed to lease the guest spaces and manage accommodations for $24,000 for the first five years and $27,000 for the next 15 years, and to furnish the rooms with “exquisite furnishings of the latest hotel type.”
The coffee shop, the cigar stand, and the Chamber of Commerce remained tenants of the hotel until it closed.
The Vanity Box Beauty Shop opened next door to the barber shop at 125 E. Fourth St. in the 1930s, moving to a storefront on Locust Street before 1960 and operating until the 1980s. By 1990, the French Quarter Beauty Shop had replaced the Vanity Box. State Beauty Supply Express occupied the storefront a decade later.
Various real estate, insurance, and investment offices opened and closed in the other storefronts.
The grand ballroom and the public and private dining rooms of the Besse Hotel became favored hangouts for soldiers posted at Camp Crowder in nearby Neosho, Missouri during World War II.
In 1951, radio station KSEK occupied 115 E. Fourth St. This may correspond to the installation of the radio antennae on the roof of the building. By 1960, the Royal Order of Jesters (Masonic) occupied that space.
By 1961, steady growth in the student population led to a continual campus housing shortage and several women students were housed at the Besse; they commuted to and from campus by bus.
Through the 1970s, many other civic groups were listed at 121 E. Fourth St., including the Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs.
The Bitner Realty Company purchased the building in 1969 and operated the hotel until 1979, although rooms on the third floor and above were occupied by permanent residents during the 1970s.
These residents were engaged in a broad spectrum of occupations. They included employees of the McNally Pittsburg Manufacturing Co. and Joe Smith Tobacco Co.; a broker at Wilbur Weeks Insurance; the chairman of the board of the National Bank of Pittsburg; a professor; and several retirees.
By 1980, the hotel was renamed the Besse Apartments and had rental units on every floor, including the first. Some of the occupants were professionals employed with local businesses, but most were retirees.
Through the 1990s and into 2000, residents included mostly retirees and students. By 2006, tenants occupied only the second floor of the building, and the vacant upper floors attracted vandals. During those years, the United Mine Workers of America District 14 occupied the original Besse Coffee Shop location.
The Wilkinson Jewelry Shop operated on the ground floor at the corner of Fourth and Locust streets for many years, and the Asian Place, a small ground-floor restaurant accessible from the public parking lot to the north, was a local favorite for many years.
After three arson fires, the Kansas State Fire Marshall's Office ordered the remaining tenants to vacate the building.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 16, 2008.
In 2010, a new group of leaders reopened the Besse Apartments as a 46-unit high-rise rental development made possible by a USDA Rural Development loan and state and historic tax credits.
That project folded and it has remained vacant ever since.
Alexander Besse was born in France in 1868. Arriving first in New Orleans at age 12, he worked as an apprentice machinist.
By age 14 he was living in Pittsburg, peddling lamp wicks and shoestrings. From those humble beginnings, Besse grew into a business and civic leader.
He was deeply involved in real estate locally and regionally. He owned a store that sold sewing machines, organs, and pianos. As a partner in the Besse-Cockerill Coal Company, he was a pioneer in the steam coal shovel stripping of land in this area and was one of the first to use the bigger shovels in stripping operations.
He owned the Oskaloosa Coal Company and was involved in the Pittsburg & Arkansas Zinc Company, as well as other lead and zinc concerns near Joplin and Crestline, Missouri.
He was president of the Metropolis Brick Company. As treasurer and general manager of the Pittsburg Amusement Company, he oversaw both the Midland and Colonial Theaters in Pittsburg.
He was a noted but uncelebrated philanthropist, creating a fund that provided milk to underprivileged schoolchildren.
But after mortgaging all of his holdings to finance construction of the Besse Hotel, Alexander Besse lost everything during the lean years of the Depression. He managed to rebuild his fortune before his death in 1944.
Read more about Gorilla Rising:
Work to begin soon on downtown College of Business, Besse Hotel