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The last, and perhaps best, big stop on my Great Plains trip was to M.T. Liggett's art installation on his farm outside Mullinville. Almost all of his iron sculptures are captured in yesterday's video. It stretches for about a mile. I've got lots of photos to share, but they'll have to wait a few weeks.
I'm leaving this afternoon for a long vacation in Germany. No computer + no internet = no updates from me until June 8th or 9th at the earliest.
Greensburg Big Well-come
Big Well
Looking down.
Looking up.
I promised something deep and it doesn't get any deeper than the world's largest hand-dug well in Greensburg, Kansas. The well was completed in 1887 to provide water for the railroad. One crew of men dug the well while a second crew quarried stone and hauled it to the site. The well served as Greensburg's municipal water supply until 1932. In 1937 the well opened as a tourist attraction. It is 109 feet deep and 32 feet in diameter. The world's largest ball of sisal twine would easily fit inside.
For two dollars you can descend 105 rickety steel steps to the cool bottom. I knew climbing the 159 steps up Morningside Park every weekday would come in handy!
From 1949 to last October the Big Well museum and gift shop was also home to the World's largest pallasite (stony iron) meteorite. The half-ton meteorite is still there under glass, but professional meteorite hunter Steve Arnold found a 1400 pound specimen in the same field in which the Greensburg meteorite was discovered in 1949.
If Larned was sleepy, Kinsley was near comatose. Not much was happening on Sunday morning and it didn't look like much happened anytime downtown. Kinsley's population dropped by 416 people, 20 percent, between 1980 and 2000, and the Edwards County population has fallen by 40 percent since 1960. The same is true for much of the Great Plains, which has been losing population since the 1930s in its southern reaches and even longer in the north.
Kinsley's claim to fame is its location half-way between San Francisco and New York. The sign in the middle photo was apparently on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in the 1930s. What I find odd is that U.S. 50, the old coast-to-coast highway that passes through Kinsley, stretches from Ocean City, Maryland to San Francisco (technically, Sacramento as the portion between that city and San Francisco was absorbed into Interstate 80 in 1972 (the Internet is great for digging up obscure facts!)). There were two of these old Standard Oil (I think) stations in town.
A six-pack of Little Debbie mini-donuts in my belly and I was ready to take on a deep subject.
Larned was an attractive, if sleepy, little city about 25 miles from Great Bend. The highway runs along what was the Santa Fe Trail. The Santa Fe Trail Center and historic Fort Larned are nearby. I hadn't intended to stop in Larned but my mediocre breakfast at Perkins' in Great Bend left me wanting a doughnut. I didn't find any in Larned but I did see the Bat Cave, which had fewer calories, yet was almost as satisfying. I have no idea what the story is behind the Bat Cave.
Crest Theater
1908 Silver Building
Mini-storage
Santa Fe Trail mural
A very long Saturday ended in Great Bend. This was the second time I've stayed in Great Bend and, really, I should have learned my lesson the first time. Next time I'm staying in Larned. It has a bat cave! One thing I noticed on the trip is that many small towns still had classic movie theaters. Most were still in use, either as community theaters like the Crest, or still showing first-run movies.
After a good night's rest and a mediocre breakfast at Perkins' I was ready to go on Sunday morning. There was lots to see and do and I had to get close enough to Denver so I could make my Monday flight home.
If anyone reads this stuff for its entertainment value you are going to get your money's worth this weekend. There will be pictures, movies, weirdness, food, and scintillating text. Plus, I have to wrap this up as I'm going on another trip starting Monday.
When you get far enough west on the Great Plains there isn't enough rainfall to support tree growth. No trees means wood is scarce. Early settlers would have to find alternative building materials. In north-central Kansas the Greenhorn Limestone formation is close to the surface and in many places there are outcroppings. Aside from being evidence that Kansas was under the ocean 220 million years ago, limestone is a relatively easy rock to work with. It splits along straight lines in all three dimensions. Settlers built barns, houses, the Midland Hotel in Wilson (above), and many other buildings out of limestone. They also used the limestone as posts to string barbed wire. Hence the name "post rock". LaCrosse, Kansas didn't make the cut this visit. But next time I'm in the neighborhood I'll be sure to stop in to see both the Post Rock Museum and the Barbed Wire Museum.
Okay, let's review! I woke up and spent too much time in Hastings. Driving toward Kansas I stopped to take pictures of a dirt road. Then an intended quick stop in Red Cloud to visit Willa Cather turned into a longer stay waiting for a mediocre patty melt. I bought a cook book. Things picked up when I visited the center of the country. There were also a lot of cowboy stencils in town. I stopped in Cawker City, which lots and lots of string but nowhere open to buy souvenir trinkets. The Garden of Eden was closed but visible. It's hot, I'm tired, and I'm upset with myself for wasting so much time earlier in the day.
My plan is to drive south to I-70 then go west to Russell, to see if Bob Dole's hometown has a statue of him, then head Great Bend for the night. The drive from Lucas to I-70 is very pretty. Lots of hills and limestone outcroppings. Wilson Lake State Park looks like it would be fun on a hot summer's day. Just before the interstate there is a Kansas Originals store, which features goods made in Kansas. It's mostly purple pottery, painted gourds and lots of things with a sunflower theme. There's some good stuff, too, including painted post rocks and other pieces of carved limestone. I picked up a mini-grain elevator.
While browsing I lost all desire to drive around Russell looking for Bob Dole memorabilia, so I asked how long it takes to drive to Great Bend. "Go through Wilson and then it's about 45 minutes." I hadn't even noticed that Wilson was there, just on the other side of the interstate.
I drive into Wilson and my upsettedness quickly disappears when I see this sign:
Wilson is the Czech Capital of Kansas. That's worth stopping and looking around. There's a hardware store:
and the old Wilson Jail:
Can you top that?
Update: I forgot to do my homework last night. Here are two bits of Wilson history:
Next up: More than you ever wanted to know about limestone.
Garden of Eden
Temptation
Front yard
Crucifixion of Labor
How do you top the world's largest ball of sisal twine? Why, go to the Garden of Eden, of course.
The Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas was the creation of Civil War veteran and retired farmer Samuel P. Dinsmoor. With my lollygagging in Hastings that morning and unexpectedly long lunch in Red Cloud that noon I didn't get to Lucas until just after the 4 p.m. closing time. This was my second visit to the Garden. Missing the tour was not a big loss, but not having access to the grounds limited the camera angles. Bad angles and milky white sky equals bad photos.
After he retired Dinsmoor had a vision to build a log cabin. The house is made of concrete and limestone logs. The interior is California redwood. Dinsmoor built it entirely by himself in 1907 at age 64. The concrete sculptures of the Garden of Eden were added over a period of twenty years. There's Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, The all-seeing Eye of God, Satan, Moses and a whole cast of other characters. There's a 4x7 foot concrete American flag. There's a soldier shooting an indian shooting a dog chasing a cat up a tree. In the backyard Dinsmoor has sculpted The Crucifixion of Labor, in which a banker, lawyer, doctor and preacher nail Labor to a cross.
Dinsmoor was quite a showman. He realized that his home and eccentricities could be an attraction. As electricity came to town he installed lots of lights so that his home would be visible to trains passing through from Denver. People would get off the train and pay admission to visit the house.
Also in the backyard is a mausoleum Dinsmoor built for his wife and himself. He removed his first wife from the town cemetery and placed her in the mausoleum under enough cement that nobody would try to remove her. If you go when the garden is open, the highlight of the tour is seeing Dinsmoor himself! He's a bit moldy but holding up pretty well given his age. There's a water jug nearby because Dinsmoor heard he would need some water should he be headed southward.
At age 81 Dinsmoor married a 20-year-old Czech woman. They had two children. His youngest child served in Vietnam, the only Vietnam vet whose father was a Civil War veteran.
More on Dinsmoor and the Garden of Eden from Roadside America and Expresso Tilt.
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