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Katarina KnoffJOUR 302: Infomania3/30/18Historical Building BriefThe Wheel Recent Era (1980-Current) Section 1: Topic Summary According to The Wagon Wheel official business Facebook page, the business is located at 507 W 14th St in Lawrence, Kansas. The business hours are 11am-2am Monday through Friday and closed on Sundays and business phone number is (785) 749-4335. There are over 200 reviews and many people consider the Wheel to be a very popular Lawrence institution. According to an article published in the New York Times titled Tough Times for a Kansas Hangout (When Is Basketball Season Again?) published on October 17th 2012 a man names Robert Farha purchased the Wheel in 1997. The Wheel has 15 televisions mounted above walls of sports memorabilia, and is an extremely popular place for members of the Lawrence community to hangout during and after Jayhawks basketball games. These are the most popular times for the business as Farha claimed that “his best year was 2008. Kansas won the men’s basketball title that spring, and the football team was coming off a 12-1 season”.According to the Articles Of Organization document that I uncovered after conducting a business entity search I found that the initial members Robert Farha, Richard Brown and Jeffrey Hatfield signed the Articles Of Organization document in May of 1999 which declared the purpose of their business opening and mutual agreements. According to the most recent annual report available filed in December 2016 Robert Farha is still the owner of the business. According to a property search I conducted on the business the current total appraised value of the wheel as of 2018 is $343,400 and that property is billed $11,739.72 for property taxes yearly. It also stated that the legal description for the property is “SOUTH LAWRENCE DESCRIPTIONS BEG AT INTERSEC S LINE ADAMS ST & W LINE OHIO ST S 47.5 FT W 120 FT N 47.5 FT E 120 FT”.In an article titled “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About The Wagon Wheel Cafe” published in the University Of Kansas UDK in February of 2012, author Brittney Haynes was supplied with a list of interesting facts by owner Robert Farha himself. According to this list the three murals of the conferences that KU was originally in were replaced in 1987 by the current ones and are now on the ceiling, due to the amount of room available. The article also states that many celebrities and public figures have been customers at The Wheel including the ESPN Gameday crew and Jason Sudeikis and either have a photo or a signature on the wall. In 1982, Pyramid Pizza moved into the bottom of the building until 1999, when The Wheel Pizza Company took its place when prior to this, The Wheel business was just in the top part of the building. Section 2: Search Strategies and Results HYPERLINK "" Google Search: “Douglass County Property Search”To conduct a property search I googled “Douglass County Property Search” and clicked on the first webpage. I was prompted to accept the disclaimer and then clicked on “Property Search”. From here I typed in the address 540 W 14th Street and was brought to information about the Wheel building. The page also displayed that the current total appraised value of the wheel is $343,400 and that property is billed $11,739.72 for property taxes yearly. On the property results page, I also found that the legal description for the property is “SOUTH LAWRENCE DESCRIPTIONS BEG AT INTERSEC S LINE ADAMS ST & W LINE OHIO ST S 47.5 FT W 120 FT N 47.5 FT E 120 FT”. I decided google “Douglass County Property Search” because I thought that it might help me find some valuable and credible information about that Wheel’s history and current owner. I took away the knowledge and confirmation about the current owner and a few details about the buildings current financial property value and tax information which is useful in understanding how the business is currently running.Google Search: “Business Entity Search”To conduct a business entity search I first googled “Business Entity Search”. I then clicked on the business entity search by business name and typed in “The Wheel” which led me to finding “The Wheel Pizza” and I clicked on the view record button. I was brought to a page to view the report where I found that the address matched, confirming that I had found the correct property. I also found that the resident agent is Robert J. Farha. I then clicked on the “view history and documents button” where I was prompted to an agreement page that I checked. This brought me to list of reports dating back to the opening in 1999. This is where I took away lots of information and documents about past and current owners including the articles of organization and 17 annual reports. I decided to do a business entity search in hopes of finding legal documents that would reveal history about that business and its owners.Emailed Lawrence Public Library for any records on “The Wheel”My partner and I researching the recent era of “The Wheel” and I composed and email to the Lawrence public library to ask if we could schedule an appointment to come in and review any documents that they might have available to their email eref@lawrence.lib.ks.us. Unfortunately, the response we received in an email states “…Our collection has a lot more history from around the time of the civil war and less from more recent times”. There were multiple articles that were attached to the email but only two of them had information that was relevant to the recent era (1980-current) that is the focus of my research. However, two articles did give interesting and relevant information making the search worth it. I conducted this search via email because I hoped that the library would have multiple sources about the era I am researching. I took away that on occasion your searches may not yield as many relevant sources as you expect but if you are lucky enough to find even one useful source than the search was necessary.Emailed Watkins Museum of History for any records on “The Wheel”My partner and I researching the recent era of “The Wheel” composed and email to the Watkins Museum of History to ask if we could schedule an appointment to come in and review any documents that they might have available to their email esearch@ . To my disappointment the email that we received in response explained that they did not have very much information on the building at all. They attached only on document which was a newspaper article that was irrelevant to the time period that I needed for my research. I conducted this search because I assumed that the Watkins Museum may have information or records on a local establishment like The Wheel. I took away that sometimes a search with potential may not yield any useful sources and that it is important to be able to omit irrelevant information to create a stronger research brief.Lawrence Journal World Online Archive SearchesIn order to research the Lawrence World Journal archives I went to the website and searched “The Wheel” in the archive search bar. Unfortunately the articles other sources that my search yielded were about various topics like “The Wheel Of Fortune” and other things that did not actually pertain to my research. I attempted a few alternate searches using “Wagon Wheel” and “Wheel” but nothing that I could use came up. I wanted to check the Lawrence Journal World because it is a local news source that generally has an emphasis on information in Lawrence. I took away that it is important to look at what sources a search yields and to analyze their relevance. “The Wheel” Official Facebook Page Google SearchMany operating businesses that don’t have official webpages do have business Facebook profiles in order to inform customers of important information. In order to find The Wheel’s page I just googled “The Wheel” and the top result was a link to the official Facebook page. Here I found basic information like the address, hours and contact information. I also found verification that Robert Farha is the owner and could access 219 reviews. I decided to conduct this search because I thought that finding information that was not only recent but also posted by the business itself could be useful in researching the recent era of The Wheel. I took away verification on the owner’s name and also a general understanding of what the business offers which is useful in writing about its recent and current standing in the Lawrence community.I believe that most of my searches were effective in researching and summarizing the recent era of The Wheel from 1990-current. I found that the Property and Entity searches were very helpful in uncovering factual information about the time period that I was searching with actual numbers and documents that made my brief much stronger. The articles of incorporation and annual reports were legal documents that solidified details of ownership and the overall goals of the business. I found that when the same facts showed up in a variety of sources it strengthened my view on their credibility. I also thought that the articles that I used from the Lawrence Public Library via email were extremely useful in describing and capturing the essence of what The Wheel’s atmosphere is like along with using data and facts that were useful in gathering the businesses information for my brief. The search from the Watkins Museum along with the Lawrence Journal World searches were less effective in yielding useful information. They both gave me sources that were either unrelated or not for the time period that my research was focused on. However, it did help me realize that it is important to do a variety of searches and to be able to judge whether a source is credible and relevant enough to strengthen a research brief. Section 3: SourcesPrimary Sources:-Ten Things You Didn’t Know About The Wagon Wheel CafeI received a link to this article via email from the Lawrence Public Library staff. I believe that this source is fairly credible because it was published on the The University Daily Kansan which is a student newspaper at the University of Kansas. I also looked up the mission statement on the website which stated “The mission of The University Daily Kansan is to serve as a primary, credible news source for a diverse University community.” and they also included that they encourage reader feedback. I think that the credibility of articles published from a university’s newspaper would reflect on the University itself so articles published here must adhere to high standards. However it is a newspaper run by students some of whom may be new to the journalistic world so I think it would still be important to fact check their articles before using the information in journalistic writing.- The Wagon Wheel Facebook PageTo find this source I googled “The Wheel” and the top result was a link to the official Facebook page. I believe that this is a very credible source because it is run by the business itself in order to communicate basic information to customers or potential customers. For this reason I would think that it would be in the businesses best interest to keep the contact and other business information up to date as this is their main communication to the community online. However I do take into account that errors can be made and the information may change over time and not always be up to date. I do feel that overall, a businesses official Facebook page is generally a credible source of information as it is a direct communication. Secondary Sources:- Tough Times for a Kansas Hangout (When Is Basketball Season Again?I received a link to this article from the Lawrence Public Library staff via email. I think that this article is a credible source because it was published in the New York Times which is a well known and prestigious publication. The author also referenced many facts and statistics indicating that he was well educated on The Wheel and had done his research. He also included parts of an interview he conducted with the owner of The Wheel which is an extremely credible source on this topic.-Articles Of Organization & Annual Reports To find these documents I first googled “Business Entity Search” and clicked on the business entity search by business name. I typed in “The Wheel” which led me to finding “The Wheel Pizza” and I clicked on the view record button. I was brought to a page to view the report. The Articles Of Organization and annual reports were extremely credible sources as they were legal documents uploaded as PDF’s for anyone to be able to lookup and reference. Another indication of the credibility of these documents is that they come from a .org website which are generally more reliable than .com websites.. There are also copies of the signatures of the original key players of the businesses operations along with dates on the Articles Of Organization document which strengthens the credibility of the document as there is proof that they were an important step in the business operations of The Wheel.-Property Search ResultsTo find this information I googled “Douglass County Property Search”. I then clicked on the first webpage and was prompted to accept the disclaimer and then clicked on “Property Search”. I then typed in the address 540 W 14th Street and was brought to information about the Wheel building. I believe this is a credible source because it was on the Douglass County official page where public information is posted. It was here that I discovered specific costs of running the business as well as the official owners name. I used both of the primary sources I discussed and all three of the secondary sources that I discussed in my “sources” section. I believe that these specific sources each strengthened the credibility of my brief as they were all from reliable websites. I did question whether or not to include the Facebook Page search as there is a small chance that the information could change faster than the page is updates but decided that because it is run by the business that it would be fairly credible. I think that in the articles where the owner is referenced or quoted create a strong basis for a brief as the information has been communicated in a way that feels direct to readers with less room for error. I had so many sources that I had to choose from that over the period of research I ended up narrowing them down which is why all 5 of these were included in my brief. Section 4: Self-evaluation When I started researching for this brief I was not very confident that I would be able to find a lot of information that would be credible for the recent era that I was assigned. I assumed most of the articles written on a college bar might be more like blogs with no real sources backing them up. I was pleasantly surprised to find that with certain search strategies I was able to find copies of actual documents and articles with strong research behind them. I was also interested to learn how much of Lawrence local history has gone in to a place that I pass all the time but knew little about even as a student in Lawrence. Before this assignment I really didn’t value searching through databases and assumed any and everything that I might need would be easily accessible through google. I found that after finding and eventually using the documents I found through conducting business entity and property searches that these databases are very valuable. The documents are the most credible information that I could find and the databases make it easy to find specific information instead of just searching through google hoping to find the facts that you might be looking for. For example, in order to find the property owner I now know that this information is easily accessible in a credible place through conducting a property search.Group Timeline: ................
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