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Contributed by barbara-dave
Description: Smallest Gov. Office Section 1, Page 6
Date: June 4 1905Newspaper published in: Washington, D. C., USA
Washington Times June 4, 1905 Smallest Gov. Office Section 1, Page 6
THIS IS SMALLEST GOVERNMENT OFFICE
When Mr. Gage Is In, Chair Must Be Outside, as There Is Not Room Enough for Both of Them.
The smallest Government office building on record is the structure occupied by C. K. GAGE, who represents Elliott WOODS, Superintendent of the Capitol Building and Grounds, in the work of excavating for the foundations of the Senate office building at B street and Delaware avenue.
This remarkable office measures 4 feet by 5 feet, and is about 10 feet tall. In it Mr. GAGE keeps his papers referring to the work, receives his orders by telephone from the Capitol, and he also uses it as a dressing room in putting on and taking off his working clothes.
The other furniture of the office is a lantern, a magazine, and newspapers and a desk chair. The chair, by the way, has to be moved outdoors every time Mr. GAGE wants to go into the office, as the room is not large enough to hold both him and the chair, when he is moving about. At night he gets out of the office, puts the chair in, locks the door and goes home. In the morning he unlocks the door, takes the chair out and goes in with the magazine and the telephone receiver.
The door stands open all day because it takes up too much room when it is shut. Mr. GAGE has to sit in the chair outside the office or stand up inside the office.
Above the door of the structure is a sign, fine, large, and imposing, bearing the legend: “Government Office - Mr. Gage.” At night the sign ought to be changed to “Government Office - The Chair.”
The office is on B street at the middle of the front of the square and near the pavement.
“It’s a telephone booth,” explained Mr. GAGE to a Times reporter yesterday. “Pretty soon I will have a real office, much larger than this one. I use this merely as headquarters, and I don’t stay in it long.”