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.
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