The City of Beautiful Maples-Stop 2 6/21/08

I wish I could tell you Hiawatha meant "The City of Beautiful Maples" in some Sac or Iowa Indian Language but I can't. Oh well.

Again the Courthouse sits in the middle of the town square, a coffee shop, a signature clock tower,built in 1891 on the bank. The picture to the left is the Veterans Memorial, the statue of the helmet,rifle and boots is a tribute to a citizen of Brown County who died in Afghanistan,2006. The bricks around it have the names of the fallen in other wars.It's a powerful site. Each town and city do in their own way, but this one tugged at me.

To the west is the Brown County Historical Society and Musuem. Now everything on the internet told me it's not open on Weekends. I saw some cars on the street and knocked on the door, and got the tour.

The buiding is amazing,it used to be the Memorial Auditorium. The literature talks about the lower level seating and serving 600 people and the home of dances,commencement exercises,dinners and meetings. The Auditorium with balcony sets 1,200 people and has hosts theatre companies, Opera diva Madame Schumann-Heink and William Jennings Bryan.In the 20's it showed silent movies and later talkies.In 1975 a referendum authorized 1.25 million to restore it. So the building is amazing, but what's inside it:

A General store,the bedroom of a newspaper publisher, Wedding gowns dating back to 1860, a school room, a western union station, a soda fountain from the 50's (unfortunatly not working,but I've craved a Root Beer Float all day),a dentist office ,doctors eqiupment and a military room with arm bands from Nazi Germany.People donated pop bottle collections,tons of peroid dresses ,banners from state winning basketball teams,band uniforms ,victorlas the list is endless and the highlight of the day as the picture page will show.

what I really came to see is the Sarah Davis memorial. A state wide contest a few years ago named it one of the 8 wonders of Kansas.The link here reprints the brouchure and tells the story better than I:
http://www.cityofhiawatha.org/visitors/what-to-see-do/davis-memorial

I like the last line why ?

Hiwatha with population of 3,147 in 2000 also hosts one of the longest running night time Halloween parades in the country.