Tolands passionate about downtown

David and Beth Toland are doing their part to breathe new life into downtown Iola.
Their latest effort was to provide a large and highly visible venue for Kelly Sigg’s Audacious Boutique, in what for years was the main financial floor of Iola State Bank. The Tolands are elated for having been able to put an Iola landmark building back in the commercial mainstream.
They had similar outcomes when they purchased and renovated the old Embassy Shoe and Rocking-B buildings in the first block of West Jackson Avenue.
Each was an investment made with intention of turning a profit, but “we also appreciate buildings that are part of Iola’s history, especially the bank with our family having been involved,” he said.
Toland’s grandfather, Stanley Toland, joined the firm of R.F. Oyler and G.R. Gard, whose offices were on the second floor above the bank, after he graduated from KU Law in 1932. A few years later, after Oyler and Gard had died, Toland moved to the second floor’s front office. As part of his private practice, Toland served as counsel to the bank.

DAVID AND BETH got their start after they completed advanced degrees at KU — he in public administration and she from the school of education — and moved to Washington, D.C. in 2001.
David spent the next six years working as an aid to Washington mayor Anthony Williams, and a year as vice president of a real estate development firm.
“Soon after we arrived in Washington, we became urban pioneers,” said Toland, 35. “We moved into a rough neighborhood on Quincy Street. We wanted to live in an old Victorian home and that was the only place we could afford.”
The Tolands set about remodeling and upgrading the home. When a subway station opened nearby, they purchased two more homes in the same block and brought then up to snuff for rentals.
They still own one of the three.
Had it not been for an opportunity with Thrive Allen County, they might still be in Washington. Toland took Thrive’s reins as executive director in late 2007 and they were full-time Iolans early the next year. The move also put them near their families, his here and Beth’s in Pittsburg.
The couple say by then they were eager for an opportunity to live where they would be more comfortable raising a family, which today includes Caroline, 6, and William, 3.

THEIR INTEREST in revitalizing old structures continued with the move.
The Embassy Shoe building, 10 W. Jackson Ave., had been vacant long enough it was close to being condemned.
“There was nine feet of sewage in the basement,” Toland recalled.
The building was redone, stem to stern. The first floor was remodeled for a business, which Tri-Valley Developmental Services now occupies, and the second floor for an apartment.
Friend Nich Lohman, a pharmacist with Iola Pharmacy, liked what he saw and joined the Tolands to purchase the Rocking-B, 12 W. Jackson. It, too, was gutted and remodeled to modern standards, with another upstairs apartment. Thrive moved to the former tavern from an Iola-owned building half a block east.
Toland is quick to note that because of his association with Thrive, he sold his interest in the Rocking-B building to Lohman, “for exactly what I had put into  it.”
Last January, Quincy Ventures — the name of the Tolands’ development company from living on Quincy Street in Washington — purchased the Iola State Bank building, which included office space on the second floor and three small shops at the rear facing Jefferson Avenue.
“It was an investment for us, but we also recognize the building’s history and the fact that my grandfather and uncle, John Toland, practiced law there,” Toland said.
His father, Clyde, didn’t join the firm until it moved to 103 E. Madison Ave.

“THE BANK building was 80 percent vacant when we purchased it,” Toland said, with only Mel’s Place, a beauty salon operated by Melissa Ambrose, at 108 S. Jefferson.
“She had fixed up her suite, but it was surrounded by despair,” Toland said.
He had a call from Sigg, looking for a place to open a boutique. With restoration already started, Toland gave Sigg a tour of the suite at 110 S. Jefferson.
“A workman fell through the floor while we were looking,” Toland said. “I have to give Kelly a lot of credit for looking past what a wreck it was. Most people would have walked out.”
When work was completed, Sigg moved in, as did Suzette Martinez at 106 S. Jefferson with Healing Touch massage.
Toland continued to work on the building, renovating offices on the second floor and doing restoration on the bank proper.
From the start, he wanted a retail concern for the bank’s spacious lobby, but not just any enterprise.
“I had a restaurant in mind and turned down a flea market and a couple of other things,” Toland said. “I wanted something that would enhance the downtown business district.
“I approached Kelly three times about moving into the bank,” he said. Third time was the charm.
“She and her boutique are exactly what I wanted,” Toland said. “She’s a smart and savvy business person who will be successful.”
Sigg expects to complete the move “up front” by the end of the month.
One office on the second floor will be occupied by Homebuyers U.S.A., operated by Nathanial Dunne, who is married to former Iolan Lisa Tholen. “They’re expanding from a home office,” Toland noted. The company buys foreclosures throughout the country.
Another office on the second floor, one that Toland had intended for himself, soon will be occupied by a California oil company that plans to establish operations in the nation’s midsection.
Rear areas of the second floor will remain as storage for architectural items and other things Toland has accumulated. The basement, with an entrance onto Madison Avenue, eventually will be available for lease, but not until a water problem is solved.
Toland said there are features of the bank proper that Sigg’s customers will appreciate, including walk-in vaults and a large round steel safe in the front window that hasn’t been opened in years.
“We may have a ceremonial opening of the safe,” Toland added. “Beverly Franklin, when she worked for Iola State, opened it every day and we want her to do it one more time.”
He has the combination, which Jim Gilpin found in miscellaneous family papers.
“The bank lobby has beautiful mosaic tile,” he added. “And, if you look closely you can see indentations in the hardwood floor where the tellers used to stand.”

IOLA STATE BANK opened at 24 E. Madison in 1907 and after several ownership changes today is a block east on Madison, Great Southern Bank.
The Gilpin family was associated with Iola State for many years, starting when it was bought in July 1944 by Claud and Helen Gilpin, grandparents of Ken and Jim Gilpin, now at Community National Bank.
Jim Gilpin explained his grandfather was a school teacher in Linn County when World War I started. He accepted a position at a Centerville bank when the draft took employees. He found banking to his liking and after the war was an examiner for the Kansas Banking Commission for about 20 years.
In 1940, after retiring from state work, he purchased the Riley (County) State Bank, owned it three years and then sold to local investors. He then purchased Iola State Bank.
Jim and Ken’s father, Howard,  and his brother, Glen, joined their father at Iola State Bank. Glen left to own an asphalt company, but Howard remained with the bank until his retirement, with Jim and Ken joining later.