The "The Incomparable Miss Potts" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Sitting in the waiting room of Lancaster Neuroscience & Spine Associates with my wife, waiting for a few shots of steroids in my back.  Saw an interesting magazine on the endless pile of glossy paper on the table in front of me and took a look at it.  As I leafed through the magazine called Fig Lancaster I found a page marked Lancaster Landmarks.  Story about a building at 43-47 West King Street in downtown Lancaster known as the Miss Jennie Potts' Building.  Jennie S. Potts was way ahead of her time for a female in the 1800s.  She owned extensive properties in Lancaster and acquired the property at 43-47 from the estate of her father in October of 1890.  

Jennie Potts' building at 43-47 W. King St.

There was a structure on the site which I assume was removed when she hired renowned architect C. Emlen Urban to design a commercial structure.  It was one of Urban's  earliest commercial structures to employ light-colored brick and stone using the French Renaissance style.  The structure was divided into two wide bays, the facade features paired second-floor windows topped by flat stone arches with high-relief carvings, and paired third-floor windows with rounded stone arches and anthemion keystones.  There are three round stone medallions below the elaborate stone cornice which includes scroll work across the fascia and small masks with human-lion faces along the rim.  The top two floors were rental living units with commercial property on the first floor.  

Closer view of the architecture on the upper floors.

She eventually sold the building in June of 1922, but the building still bears her name.  Miss Potts also owned a historic property along the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike which was located between Rising Sun and Mount Vernon as well as other properties in Lancaster city, Christiana, Gap, Salisbury and East Lampeter Township in Lancaster County.  She lived at 126 East Chestnut Street in Lancaster as well as had a home in Philadelphia.  She died in 1923, single and without heirs to her reported multi-million dollar estate.  The 43-47 West King Street property was sold once again to a local Lancaster executive.  On either side of it were parking lots and it was assumed he bought the property to raze it for more parking.  But, he kept it as retail and housing as it had been in the past.  The Jennie Potts building is still a beautiful building on the north side of West King Street in downtown Lancaster.  A few days after my shots and reading the magazine story, I made a visit to take a photo of Miss Potts' building.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.