Small Business in Small Towns

A personal story here. In Junior High I walked to school to school, down a block to pick up Richie, then we walked to a couple of blocks to sometimes Juniors house and then to Gary's house, then across the lawn of Highland Park South over the tennis courts to Eisenhower High School. Sometime in 1980 or so Gary moved to Bennington,Kansas. Richie moved across town to Washburn Rural, I last saw him when he brought over a Record ,Men At Work as my Graduation gift. I have fond memories of those warm and cold days walking to school,going to movies. The Parents picked us and took us to the mall and several movies, sleep overs, the good times everyone hopes for,the true time of innocence.

Gary went with us on a trip to Texas,we stopped several places on the way, I think that was the trip to Astrodome, I remember Galveston Island pretty well, I'm not sure what we did in Oklahoma that trip. I slept a week in Bennington the summer of 1980 and remember 3 things, a tracker pull, seeing "The Muppet Movie" at a downtown movie palace and going to a drug store on the main street that had a soda fountain.


I had passed by Bennington several times over the past few years,going up 81 or connecting to I-70 in Salina. The cut off seemed familiar,but I never stopped. So this trip seemed the time. A couple of factors at play, 1) personal memories, I wondered what I would remember from 30 years ago,never holding out much thought Gary could still be there 2) I always came back in my memories to the Soda Fountain,It was probably the memorable part of the trip.and 3) as I have been though so many small towns,what was the state of this small town.

On the Soda Fountain, I was sure the place was an Alco,Duckwalls or woolworth,that is how I remember it anyway. Soda Fountains are so much of a by gone era that you can mostly only find them in Museums, I have seen several the view years on my travels, the one that sticks out is the Old Train Station Museum in Ottawa. Topeka has a working one in Old Prairie Town. I sort of wish my Lunch would allow me time to go more often. In the end it is only open at certain hours. But I have been there.The Soda Fountain is definitely a prime piece of Americana.As I have looked at so many on display I recalled I have been to one. At 45 Museums now contain,not the memories of others but mine.

On Small towns.I'm not talking County seats with the court house squares filled with antique stores,rexall drug stores,the town or county newspaper site, I think of towns with a main street that at the most is 3 blocks long. In Wellsville, It's 2 blocks long with one stop light,2 antique stores,a BBQ restaurant, a pizza place and a flower shop. It's doing pretty good.

Onaga,where I have not been isn't doing good. The town grocery store burned down earlier this month. Shuttle buses twice a week take those who cant or wont drive to bigger towns until they decide what to do with the store. I think about myself in Topeka,waking up to find I need milk driving the 5 minutes to the Wal mart or Dillions to get what I need.

Lebannon,Kansas the town you can see in the distance from the Geographic Center of the US, by appearances is not doing well.The Main street has a gift shop along side boarded up buildings and other than a cafe isn't doing well. There is a Casey's general store,a locally owned pizza place, a bank, including a branch of mine in Halstead,Kansas, a town off the main drag and location for the movie "Picnic".


The newspaper in Topeka talks about the decline of small town America. The new Governor wants to establish Rural Enterprise Zones and I wonder about Soda Fountains, what ever happened to the Kid I went to see so many movies with and took a vacation to Texas with. So it was time to go back to Bennington,Kansas ....

The Main Street was vaguely recognizable to me,I thought the store was the one boarded up but a wooden wall and a mirror was visible from a corner store with a sign in the window saying "Loft Apartments available". A sign out front asked "Have you had a Green River ?" a sure sign of a Soda Fountain inside. The sign above said "The Linger Longer".

I had only to walk in and recognize the Mirror,the wood paneling, the counter and the chairs. I was pleasantly surprised, It was not in a museum somewhere. The lady behind the counter asked what brought us here and I told my story. She didn't remember Gary,but knew someone with that last night. She said you probably remember it as a Drug Store, the mention of comic books and I could visualize the creaky comic book stand and spinning it around when I was there 30 years ago.

She gave a history of the building, said the fountain was against the other wall she is a farmer and opened the store a month ago "for the community". We talked about Kansas Sampler Foundation, they had been there and it's going to be on the cover of the next book.As we drank coffee, which hit the spot on a cold,windy day she called Gary's mother. He was in Olathe,married and a couple of kids.I was pleased, not pleased to hear his mother is not doing well.I didn't remember the city swimming pool. We talked a lot about Small town schools versus Big Town school, graduation rates,quality of life issues and eventually we decided it was time to leave,Hamburgers at the Cozy Inn in Salina beckoned. She offered to take a picture of me behind the Soda Fountain and explained how it worked. Invited us to the Rodeo in June and the street dance.And we left.

Bennington had 625 people , is doing ok thanks to people with the vision of opening a Soda Fountain where one stood so many years ago. I was pleased to be in Bennington again and see what I remembered was still there, not ready for the Museum just yet. And so in love with Kansas and great Kansans that a phone was made and I got to hear what my Junior High School friend was up to.

In 2010 I was in all 4 states that surround Kansas and several places in between.I saw street named after Country Music Stars,saw about 20 Court houses,ate at local chicken resturants, saw Wagon Ruts of the Oregon trail and stood in the middle of the Road of the famous Route 66.

Winter in Kansas being what it is, I can't say for certain I will get out again before Kansas turns 150 on January 29th, so Happy Birthday Kansas !!! No place seems a more Kansas place than a 15 year kid in a Drug Store on a hot August day in 1980 or a 45 year man in the same place on a cold December afternoon.
Thank you for reading, whoever you are.

wind and one last journey of 2010

The overwhelming summary I have of travel in 2010 is weather, the first to Fort Scott was delayed by snow and iffy when did make it. The fog was so thick on K10 in Olathe that a fire truck came out of nowhere,it cleared by the time we reached Fort Scott,but we missed the view of the power plant on the Military road the lines the east edge of Kansas.

In was cold and windy in Oklahoma City in February. I climbed a ridge in Ottawa in a light rain to see the Marais des Cygnes River in early May. It was over 100 degrees in July when I stood in Cawker City to take a picture of phone booth on a street corner.Coming back from Winterset,Iowa I watched a lightening storm over North Kansas City.As I stood looking at a sign explaining the fence some half mile in the distance was Colorado in October it was blustery and cold. A cold,grey day in November made thoughts of skipping the Veterans day parade in Emporia a good idea. This weekend the trip to Concordia on 24,down 81 to salina and then I-70 was defined by wind so bad it stopped you from walking at I walked north on the flat tree less plains toward a guard tower of a German POW Camp. It was a quite a year and very interesting trips.

We saw 3 court houses Saturday, In Clay Center,Concordia,and Salina. The Clay Center one was nice, in a town square with 2 teenage girls bravely manning a Salvation Army kettle,a painted sign for Coke was on a wall and our stay was brief. On the way we passed Riley County High School, at the intersection of 77 and 24,with its enrollment in 2008 of 221 students,the school can boast of 2 current players in the NFL,quite a feat. Jon McGraw of the Kansas City Chiefs and Jordy Nelson of the Green Bay Packers.

Concordia is the county seat of Cloud County. Home to the National Orphan Train Museum which is a visit for a another day. The Historical society annex features one of the more unique murals in Kansas, the side of the building has brick cravings of the counties history.I highly recommend the Museum nearby in the Carnegie Library building, It talks about the POW Camp,has an unusal collection of pencils with business printed on them,tons of milk bottles,old dressses,military uniforms and almost anything else you can imagine, truly charming

Cloud County was briefly the home of one Boston Corbett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Corbett

Known for several things,being the man who shot Lincoln Assassin John Wilkes Booth, shooting up the Kansas House of Representatives during his brief career as a door keeper and generally being crazy. Concordia was also known for being home to some 5,000 German and Italian Prisoners of War. The Guard tower and and one of the building still stand outside of town.It was hear on the flat plains with no trees in sight that the wind stopped me from walking to the guest sign in sheet.

The Mother Road -Route 66

Trip Date :November 13,2010


We spent most of our time in Missouri, just over the border in the Joplin Area. Visiting the Marlin Perkins statue in Carthage,another wonderful courthouse in Carthage. The George Washington Carver National Memorial in Diamond is of interest to Kansans as he Homesteaded in Ellis County.But the Kansas focus here is 13 miles of the great and legendary Route 66 that took millions from Chicago to Los Angeles from the 1920's to the 1970's.


Cherokee county touches Missouri to the East and Oklahoma to the South. The route of 66 takes from Joplin,Missouri the home of Dennis Weaver and one of Bonnie and Clyde most famous shoot outs through Galena,Riverton and Baxter Springs to Miami,OK where Mickey Mantle was born.Souvenir shops exist in each little with shot glasses,coffee mugs,T-Shirts and Maps. The main landmark is in Riverton where the Rainbow bridge,built in 1923 still stands on the Old Route 66 Road, the newer road is a few yards to the South. Few miles of the Old Road still exist. I traveled the old road in Seigleman,Arizona several years and now have seen the bridge.

Another Kansas Court House in Columbus on our way home and dinner at Chicken Mary's in Frontenac. To go back to a trip last year in Pittsburg, a chicken restaurant was started by 2 sisters to feed coal miners, the sisters feuded and Mary opened her own restaurant literally next door to her sister Annie. The Restaurants have been featured on the Food Channel and both are part of the 8 wonders of Kansas-Restaurants.

I have been to Hays House,Bobo's Drive in Topeka,the Chicken Restaurants of Crawford County and Brookville Hotel in Abilene. Trips scheduled to the rest soon.

High Plains

Date of Trip:October 16,2010

I recall my first trip west last year and being fasinated by the wind farms, miles and miles of Tall, lean white windmills dotting farm lands between Salina and Russell on I-70. The overwhelming image I had on what would be the longest trip I have taken since the mission to explore Kansas,was not taken with a camera,but lives in the minds eye. The wind farms at night.It's really dark in that stretch of road, the towns are all miles off the highway and the dark sky has a beauty all it own. To the north they are dotted with red lights,obviously used for air travel, the funny thing was they blink on and off in what is almost a dance to no music. In the car we were listening to a biography of John Wayne, so that couldnt be it. Heading west we timed the first view of the sentenial like windmills at 10 miles. So it was a few minutes before we reached the farms itself and the cause of the blinking was revealed. The blades whirling around cut out the red light for a brief moment. It was beautiful to watch the ballet of red dots against the black night.


The weekend was also a time of Fall festivals,a corn husking contest at the Buffalo Bill statue near Oakley to the Maple Leaf festival in Baldwin.

As we have gone on this trips, a bucket list has emerged, County court houses. I love the town square feel to them,mainly because we in Topeka have the Capital Building, the court house is a gross looking 1950's look to it.Most of the courthouses are old,situationed in the town square with mom and pops stores around them. As we found in December in Yates Center,wonderful christmas lights, 3 hit county court houses, in Sharon Springs,Goodland and Oakley. Plus a beautiful court house in Cheyenne Wells,Co.

Mount Sunflower is the highest point in Kansas at 4 thousand feet. It is not a mountain at all by the high point of several hills. It lays 11 miles down this road and 2 miles up that road from US-40. Or you get there from I-70, same directions, 12 miles here and 2 miles there. Either way you pass farm land,cows grazing and occasionally passing the road.

The Summit includes a picnic area,a mailbox with a guestbook and stories about a wedding conducted there on a New Years Day in bitter cold, some iron works and a note that Colorado is at the first fence in the distance, about a half mile away.

Please to note I made it all four states in this calendar year and Jan 29,2011 is the 150th Birthday of Kansas Statehood.

Pictures US-36

!. Skyline of Lebanon as seen from Geographical Center of the US Marker
2. Old Hotel at Center
3. Marker with directions to Center
4. Pony Express stable near Hanover
5. Oregon Trail Park, Pott County

Journey to the Center of the Country

Trip Date : August 7,2010

I saw a little bit of all the historical crossroads of Kansas as I set out from Topeka on this hot August Saturday. I-70 for about 20 miles to 99 North on the way to 36 and then West. Between Wamego and Westmoreland (Westy) we came across a historical marker for the Oregon Trail. Within eye sight of the marker was Scott Springs,where as many 300,000 heeding Horace Greely's call went West you man. Wagon ruts are still visible as much as 170 to 180 years later. America's Roman Highways.The Park is small,contains several historic markers and a wagon and ox statue. Visitors are encouraged to sign the guest book,which is a composition notebook kept in a box.To whoever keeps of it, Topeka represents on the Oregon Trail. I cannot help but wonder how many days out from the Ward-Meade cabin in Topeka this spring is.

Up a very scenic byway,still in the flint hills,we hit US-36 which travels across the Northern tear of counties from Missouri to the Colorado border.The first town we came to was Marysville, the truck stops,hotels and everything is Pony Express. so in the span of a half hours drive,we have moved from the 1830's to that brief time when the Pony Express caught the world fancy.Four miles off 36 is the Hollenberg Station one of the few, if not only Pony Express Stations still standing. Riders changed horses every 10 miles or so on the trip between St. Josephs,Missouri and Sacramento,California. Riders were required to stop every so often as well and stayed at stations like Hollenberg,The site is maintained by the Kansas State Historical Society.

The Flint Hills are gorgeous even in the faded brown grass, as you come out of the flint hills, the area is truly flat.You can gauge the distance as Grain elevators dot the skyline.We pasted Home,Washington,read historic markers near Scandia on the way to Lebanon,Kansas and eventually Smith Center,where we encountered a minor course correction.


Lebanon,Kansas had a population of 303 according the 2000 Census. I would guess it sees more than that passing in a summer. The object of interest is a stone obelisk with an American flag planted on it. It's a representation of the geographic center of the Continental United States. An old hotel that is now used as a hunting lodge stands behind it, also a small 1 room chapel stands near by.The few minutes we stayed a couple of guys on motorcycles came by as did a car from Florida. People do visit nowhere.

Smith Center,Kansas in 2000 had a population of 1,931.Now the town has at first look 2 sports bars,1 burger joint and a Pizza Hut and 3 Hotels. The reason for the hotels is the population explodes during hunting season. Not far is the home of the man who wrote "Home on the Range", the state song of Kansas and sung by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby among others. It is also the home of the Smith Center High School Redmen,a high school football dystany who had been undefeated for 6 seasons going into the State Championship game last November when the Nation tying winning streak came to an end. It was the subject of a wonderful book "Our Boys" by Joe Drape. It's a great book about Rural Kansas,High School sports and life in general.

Here we found out that our plans to go an hour down the road to Logan would have to be changed. Those it was 2:30 in the afternoon there was no way we could eat and make it to Logan before the Museum we were planning to go closed. A word about how these trips are planned, Topeka's PBS station has a wonderful show called "Sunflower Journeys", a friend had seen an episode about Logan, I said sure. Now I have no idea what the Museum is about,I could look on the internet, but that seems like cheating. So I did not make it to a Museum and have no idea what is about. Logan has been reschedule, the mystery remains.

Interesting side note,the book about Smith Center mentioned how far Smith Center was from the nearest McDonalds, we looked for it on GPS,Sitting at the county court house, It's almost 80 miles away in Holdrege,Nebraska. Wow. We plotted a trip home that took us through Cawker City,Beloit and Salina then home on I-70.

Small Town Kansas.

I have traveled this year, Interesting how weather has been a factor this year. It was sooo cold in Oklahoma City, and a cloudy gray day in Omaha. I decided a while ago unless there was a definite Kansas connection,I wasn't going to write.

I was in Lawrence briefly and then Franklin County. In Lawrence I took the Whiote Glove tour of the Robert J Dole Institute of Politics. It was a real behind the scenes look at the stacks of Papers and Gifts Dole recieved as a US Senator and Presidential Candidate. I'd encourage anyone to go and if you have an interest in Archival work, how things are preserved, the White Glove tour, offered once a month or so for Free is very good, as are any of the lectures I've been to since the place opened in 2003.

The point of the day lay Southward, about 20 miles south is Ottawa,Kansas, the county seat of Franklin. the town is cut in half by the Marais Des Cygne River, more about that and a wonderful song in a minute. There is a Museum called the Old Santa Fe Depot. It features history of Victorian Living Rooms,Soda fountains,old train stuff. Stuff that is pretty standard in my almost 2 years of wondering around.

Special attention is paid to th Pottawatomie Massacre, discussed briefly here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottawatomie_Massacre.

We walked on a dyke by the river, which floods often, giant flood gates surround a bridge over the river.


going North and East up I-35 we find outselfs in Wellsville,Kansas. Population around 1200 and hometown of country music singer Chely Wright. She made headlines a couple of weeks ago by announcing she's gay. I first heard her a couple of years ago on an AM station and see did a song that really moved me,called "The River". I didn't know who she was, bought the album based on the one song and because she's a Kansas girl.

Here are my impressions of this small town

I've been in a lot of small towns in Kansas. Wellsville has about a 3 block main street with a dentist office,a casey's general store. Every small town in Kansas seems to have a Pizza place,a bar, an American Legion Post. If it's a county seat it will have a subway and town square.Wellsville has a BBQ place, a burger place "Big Bopper's burger and ... See MoreVideos"

On this rainy,cloudy saturday we went to the Pizza place, Buzzard's Pizza. It had about 8 tables, a hand written sign saying this months special is "Road Kill Pizza". A flat screen on a wall next to saturday night beer specials. The 2 kids working the place were watching the history channel. After we were done eating we stayed to watch the end of "Pawn Stars", we had to know how much the civil war stamp sold for, the waiter asked us if we needed anything else. I said " No, we just want to know how much the stamp sold for." He "Yeah, it's a pretty interesting show."

The stores on main street all said "open till 4" but seemed to be closed by 3:30. The most modern looking building is the bank , I turned a corner and saw the high school so I walked the two blocks to see it. past some houses, one had a kids bike on the sidewalk. As I crossed the street a truck went by, the old man waved at me.I smiled and waved back.

The inscription on the sign at the school stopped me cold in my tracks.After asking yesterday about the truth in the song "The River" here was a sign in loving memory of ...

Before you turn onto Chely Wright Way, you pass a sign with the school state championships ,Boys basketball Chely's Junior (?) year.Which is typical of most small towns in Kansas, that along with FFA.

The nearest wal mart is either in Ottawa,15 miles or Baldwin, 15 miles in another direction. I am suprised with as many small towns in Kansas as I find myself that Wellsville is near a creek or a river, at least not the way we came in.If I had a dime for everytime I crossed a bridge to get into a small town.....

The neighborhoods are tree lined,churches almost every corner,farm fields on the outskirts. I'm guessing not much has changed since 1989. As Garrison Keillor says as he opens his monlogues "It was a quiet week in my home town of Lake Wobegon, the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve. " I thought it cool to be there, I'm glad I went.


Here is the song:

Last from Fort Scott

These always send chills down my bones. The bill of sale for slaves.

Interior pictures

a couple of Cannons, a field medical kit,dolls with hickory nuts used as heads,a jail cell in the brig

Fort Scott Jan 16,2010

Some pictures walking around the parade grounds. The Long white building is the horse stable. The buildings with Greek Columns are Officer Row.

Return to the Road

The last entry I did was in early December and a trip to St. Joe. Outside of the Casino were we ate on the bank of the Missouri River I took a picture of a Wonderful sunset. I posted it on some message boards I am on and got good comments. I had a feeling as I looked at the river that day,I was the last good day of 2009. I knew snow was in the forecast for Tuesday and the river would be snow packed if not iced up. Little did I realize how right my thoughts were.

We did have snow and icy conditions on that Tuesday. It was nothing compared to the three weeks that began on Christmas Eve.Told to go home at Noon on Christmas we at work scraped our wind shields and wondered how bad the slide home would be. Stopping at a quick shop near a hill,I watched a car slide backwards to flat land. It really had not yet begun to snow. 3 days it stopped. 13 inches with epic snow drifts. Someone wrote of driving an hour and half in the blizzard to go 20 miles. I noticed an area where because of the drifts you could see the ground, right next to two feet of drifts. At some point I had to laugh, one because the multude of people of who urn for a white Christmas got what they wanted and then some, and two I picked up several books on my stops in 2009 dealing with the frontier and the trials that ran through Kansas. True I was in a heated home and not out in the wilds, but I got the story of what they saw. When we were in Lincoln,Nebraska one of the glass painting depicted the Blizzard of 88 or some year.The guide asked if Kansas had any stories of the blizzard, I didn't think so, but I can now say , We remember and aren't likely to forget the Christmas Blizzard of 2009. Just to set the record, more snow fell the week between Christmas and New Year and more fell the first weekend of 2010.


Later that week, we were visited with bitter cold and wind chills in negative 20 range.That having passed, 40's and certain snow meltage and we could dream of more trips.... That has now come to pass.

Fog warnings did not stop us. So we went to Fort Scott,Kansas. The heaviest fog seemed to burn off the further East we went.and turning south on 69 it wasn't bad.

On to the Fort.

Fort Scott opened in the 1840's as part of a chain on the Indian Frontiers, the guidebook says the intent was to keep the Indians on one side and the non Indians on the other side. Dragoon fought in the Mexican-American War. Fort Riley,near Junction City opened in the 1850's and Fort Scott closed. Here is where the story gets interesting.

The buildings were sold and one of the officers quarters became a Free state hotel and one, on the other side of the parade ground became a Pro Slave hotel. The guide books speaks of many a drunk brawl. One of the signs contains a quote from a woman whose fiancee had been killed. She wrote in a letter:

"But remember this,I am a girl, but I can fire a pistol and if ever the time comes I will send some of you to a place where theirs 'weeping and knashing of teeth ..." that is one of the most powerful statements coming from Bleeding Kansas I have ever read.

As several battles took place in Kansas and Missouri took place, Fort Scott reopened and was the home of the First Kansas Colored,an infantry unit of Freed Slaves. This unit per dates the unit featured in the movie "Glory", though they haven't gotten a movie about them. This goes to the long held historians belief that the Civil War only took place East of the Mississippi.

The Fort closed in the 1870's,however it took a century to become a part of the National Park system.


The Town of Fort Scott is the County seat of Bourbon County, 2000 Census listed the population around 8,000. It always amazes me the eating opportunities.I've noticed a lot of these smaller towns have a locally owned pizza join, a bar and a subway. GPS gave us about the same eating opportunities in Fort Scott. Mostly we were pointed a half hour down the road to Pittsburg.We ate at a sports bar and watched the first half of the K-State/Colorado basketball game.I noticed almost everyone who came in brought kids. I also noticed the town Christmas decorations were still up, a testament to how bad the winter has been, the epic Christmas snow, the snow just after New Years, the record wind chill and now the fog.


The Fort itself is mostly refurbished buildings, but you do get to see what the Fort looked like. On of my favorite exhibits is a series of photos. The first from the 1860's of the powered explosive building, the next showing evacuations of the site and rebuilding the building. It the round building on the parade ground in the pictures that follow.

Many exhibits talk about the man who designed the fort,Captain Tom Sword,a West Point graduate who wanted to make the Fort the "Crack Post of the Frontier", he favored Greek Archtexture,which can clearly seen in the Posts on the Officer Quarters. The building are unique to anything else I have seen from the time.

On to the Pictures ...