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"The Kendricks are doing some tall figuring on getting
their house done by the coming of summer. ... It would serve you exactly right to have
to live in the barn for a short time, where we have lived so long, when you come to
see us."
Correspondence
John Kendrick to A. S. Burrows
1912
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 The Carriage
House
• Early Years
•
Civic Theatre Guild Era
When the Kendricks
first moved into Sheridan in 1908, they rented rooms at the Sheridan Inn and later rented
a small house. Since they expected construction of Trail End to take only a year or so,
this did not seem like such a hardship. In 1910, however, work was halted for nearly two
years when a drought caused such serious reversals in the cattle market that John Kendrick
had no extra cash to spend on construction. He even felt the need to cut back on living
expenses. Since it was already built and paid for, Eula got the idea to move into the
carriage house. As author Frances Parkinson Keyes noted in 1931,
The planning,
erection, and completion of this house took longer than had been foreseen -- not an
unusual experience in home building, but one which proved trying to a woman who disliked
procrastination in any form as much as Eula Kendrick. She decided to go and live in the
barn, which was nearly completed but which had not yet been put to its intended use, and
oversee the work.
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 The Early Years
While
construction on Trail End was taking place, the Kendricks and their cook all lived in the
carriage house, adapting it for use as a comfortable abode. The horse stalls, complete
with polished wood floors, concrete water troughs, cast iron hay chutes and elaborate
railings, served as bedrooms for Rosa-Maye and the cook. Another was put to use as a
temporary kitchen. The parents slept upstairs in the hay loft and Manville camped out in
the main carriage room.
Electricity was used to light the carriage house but not to heat it:
before the addition of modern methods, heat was provided by means of steam piped from the
basement of the main house to the carriage house through a concrete conduit running under
the gravel service drive.
Although the carriage house was built to house carriages and teams of
horses, it was never used for that purpose. By the time the family was ready to move out
of their makeshift home in 1913, they were in possession of two 1912 Cadillac automobiles.
The few horses actually residing on the grounds were kept for Rosa-Maye and Manville to
train and ride. While the Kendricks lived in the carriage house, their horses were housed
in a livery stable just below the hill near Kendrick Park.
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The Civic Theatre Guild Era
For
many years after the death of Senator Kendrick, the carriage house was used mainly for
storage. In 1979, the structure gained a new lease on life when the Sheridan Civic Theater
Guild was granted permission by the Sheridan County Historical Society –
then owners of Trail End –
to renovate the carriage house for use as a
community theater.
The
only major structural damage sustained by any of Trail End's facilities occurred in
February of 1985 when a fire of uncertain origin started in the Carriage House after the close of a production.
The fire destroyed the upper floor.
Today, the restored Carriage House Theatre contains
eighty-seven cushioned seats plus a stage, costume storage area, make-up room, office, and
"green room." For more information on the Carriage House and/or Civic Theatre Guild
productions, phone 307-672-9886.
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