Then and Now, April 1, 2026

In the 1930s and ’40s, the stately home at 174 Elm Street was known as “The Walton Homestead.” Run as a guesthouse, it was “presided over by the incomparable Minnie Walton, president of the local [Daughters of the American Revolution].” The furnishings in the historic home included a bed that the Marquis de Lafayette slept in. The house was built 1854 and purchased two years later by S.M. Walton, a local book-binder and publisher. The house was converted to medical offices in 1959, when the Board of Adjustment permitted the “Capital City’s first medical center” in what had been a neighborhood limited to residences.