History
In 1926, White Castle entered the Minneapolis area. The eighth restaurant in the Minneapolis area was built in 1927 at 616 Washington Avenue Southeast, originally with glazed brick. As the restaurant chain expanded, they developed standardized production methods and a standard look for their restaurants.
Porcelain Steel Buildings, a subsidiary of White Castle, manufactured movable, prefabricated structures that could be assembled at any White Castle restaurant site. This design was built on the Washington Avenue site in 1936, replacing its 1927 building. The 1936 building is modeled after the Chicago Water Tower, with octagonal buttresses, crenellated towers, and a parapet wall. The founders later claimed that this design was the first successful use of porcelain as a building material. The success of the White Castle building method also spurred other Wichita-area entrepreneurs to manufacture portable steel buildings as well.
By 1950, the landowner of the Washington Avenue property refused to renew the lease. The reluctance of landowners to extend leases on small parcels was the reason why White Castle manufactured movable buildings. The chain moved the restaurant to the corner of Central Avenue and Fourth Street Southeast. However, by this time the company had failed to notice the population shift from central cities to suburbs, and it spent more time trying to survive in urban neighborhoods instead of building larger buildings in the suburbs. The company eventually recognized the business potential of building larger restaurants in the suburbs. Unfortunately, this meant that the smaller, older castle buildings became obsolete. In 1983, the company built a new restaurant in northeast Minneapolis. Fortunately, historic preservation efforts succeeded, and the building was moved to its present location in 1984.
Usually, properties on the National Register may lose their designation if they are moved or significantly altered. The federal program recognized, however, that early White Castle restaurants were specifically made to be movable.
Read more about this topic: White Castle Building No. 8
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