Here’s a chance to buy salvaged items from the Kansas Statehouse

Like a lot of Kansans, Dave Webb has fond memories of visiting the Kansas Capitol building in Topeka.

As a schoolboy he traipsed through the Statehouse on field trips, always afraid to climb those scary steps inside the building’s hallmark dome.

Then, as both a state representative and senator in the ’80s and ’90s, he liked to join tour groups that came to visit. But he was still afraid to climb up to the dome.

Now, the Stilwell resident is offering people what he calls a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to buy pieces of the historic building.

From May 2 to May 9, Webb’s auction house will run an online auction of thousands of salvaged items from the $325 million renovation of the Kansas Statehouse completed last year.

“If these walls could talk?” said Webb. “These really can.”

Bids will be taken on little things such as brass hinges, door knobs, and square nails and large things such as doors and windows. See the complete list here.

“They had a warehouse four blocks from the capitol where they would take stuff to fix it or repair it,” said Webb, owner of Webb & Associates. “This was everything that was leftover.”

Everything, that is, except a few items that went to the state historical society and another museum, he said.

As he does for most auctions like this, he marketed it nationally before advertising it locally. Antique Week, considered a collector’s “Bible,” reported on the sale a few days ago.

The sales list is lengthy. Thousands of feet of trim. Tongue-and-groove hardwood flooring. Transoms. Handrails. Archways. Door jams. Brass and wood spindles. Library ladders. Bookcases used by the Kansas Supreme Court.

The showstopper is the copper door that protected the staircase leading to the dome. “There’s only one of those ever made, so that is a true, rare item,” Webb said. “I don’t know what they replaced it with. I’m assuming it had to have better security because this just had an old lock on it.”

The building’s 13-year renovation included updating the building’s infrastructure and adding a visitor center and underground parking garage.

Elizabeth Watson, a Maryland-based consultant hired to assess Topeka’s historic preservation plan, told the Star the made-over building is a national treasure worthy of consideration for National Historic Landmark status, the country’s highest honor for a historic building.

The Statehouse is already listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A lot of the items up for auction will be scooped up by people, including DIYers, who will repurpose them, Webb said. Old doors might become tables; hinges and door knobs could live second lives as decorative tchotchkes.

“There will be builders throughout the state who will buy a group of doors and then when they build houses they might include a door or door jam from the state capitol building,” he said.

Buyers will need a lot of room to use a couple of the items, including a set of cast iron circular stairs that led from behind the capitol’s famous cage elevator down to the basement.

And curved desks used by Senate clerks, made by E. Horn Manufacturing of Topeka, are 20-foot wide and will “need a large area to display that,” said Webb.

History buffs are already salivating over the sale. As word started spreading over the weekend on the Facebook page of Topeka History Geeks, comments ranged from “a great opportunity to own a piece of history” to “I guess I didn’t realize there was so much they didn’t use in the rehab process ... wow! Like someone said, glad it hasn’t been tossed.”

The auction proceeds go to the state of Kansas. Webb hasn’t set a goal — other than “to have a lot of happy buyers” — for how much money he’d like to raise.

“I think I can safely assure you it will not balance the state budget,” he said.

This story was originally published April 11, 2016 at 1:18 PM with the headline "Here’s a chance to buy salvaged items from the Kansas Statehouse."