Council Grove in Pictures

Madonna of the trails and Council Oak

A dress made of newspapers used at a custume party in 1901, the Kaw Indian Mission.

The flag of the Vice President .Custer Elm

Custer Elm a 300 year tree that died in the 1970s. The ring.

Another Draft I never posted

Council Grove- A city that does it right

A town with population of 2,321 in 2000 boasts 24 Historic Sites. The first site we came across on 177 was the remains of an Elm tree where Gen. George A. Custer and his troops stopped to rest in 1867. From there the wonders continue, a stone erected in 1902 marks the site the Santa Fe Trail headed South west. A Restaurant in town Hays House has been in Operation since 1857 and boost the same General Custer and Jesse James as patrons. The restaurant is the oldest continuously operated this side of the Mississippi and is named after a relative of Daniel Boone who was the first white settler of the town in 1847.

East of the Neosho River with it's wonderful River Walk is an Oak tree where in 1825 where the Army negotiated with the Indians safe passage from the thousands of wagons heading west. Between the Oak tree remains and the River is a statue, The Madonna of the Trails, depicting a Woman and her children braving the trail and an 8 foot bronze statue of a Kanza Indian, The Guardian of the Grove.

The weather this summer has been wonderful and on the last September weekend, the Green has not given way to the brown grass, and this year I don't believe it ever will. A teenager sat fishing on the banks of the river.This is truly Kansas.

The Kaw Indian Mission is run by the State Historical Society, one of the student in the school was Charles Curtis, the flag of the Vice President hangs in the staircase. Curtis was Vice President in the late 1920's and was the first Vice President west of the Mississippi and the first Native American Vice President.A Book sold at the Mission tells the story of Curtis running away from the school and walking the 50 some miles to Topeka. The book, published in 1921 tells only of Senator Curtis.Curtis statue stands in the US Capitol. The Charles Curtis story takes us from a school for Indians to the White House, truly an American Story.

I keep going back to the William Allen White quote "What starts in Kansas,ends in History Books." Council Grove embraces it's history and a town so small had left it imprint on the country.

Pictures to follow

The National Parks- America's Best Idea

I hope anybody reading this blog has been watching all of or part of Ken Burn's latest masterpiece ,"The National Parks-America's Best Idea." With one episode to go,It has been a great series, with a few flaws. For as majestic as the pictures of Yosemite and the Grand Canyon have been, we have seen little if any of the Parks dedicated to preserving and explain our History,both the good and the bad. So the week of the series, I visited 2 National Parks, I have written twice about Tall Grass and in the middle of the week, I went to a National Historic Site,run by the Park Service that pass by sometimes twice a day on my way to work. This is probably the shortest distance I will travel in this blog, turning right on Adams , a few miles and a left on 17th street to the corner of 17th and Monroe. Maybe 5 minutes depending on how I hit the lights and traffic.

We find ourselves at a red bricked school house that opened with much fanfare in 2004.The old Monroe school, now the Brown v. Board of Education site. In the early 1950's the NAACP made headway in opening up the argument over Separate but equal facilities, this included bathrooms,restaurants,movie theatres and in some National Parks,camping area. In Topeka this meant 4 schools were opened for Blacks.Students had to walk miles out of their to attend schools,even when one was blocks away.

Brown is an accident of the alphabet,2o courts were bundled together for the Supreme Court to hear the case , the official title of the Case is "Oliver Brown,et. al v. ....." so Topeka gets the fame in the history books over people in South Carolina,Virginia and two other states. That being said the story of Oliver Brown is an amazing story,he attended school board meetings attempting to change the law, the school would hear none of it, even changing meeting time so he couldn't attend due to work.

The school contains two galleries ,a short film and a room to record your impressions. The galleries talk about the case, Jim Crow laws and the firestorm that proceeded the decision. For the most part I see school buses when I drive by, it does not contain the transcendent feelings you get at the Grand Canyon or Tall Grass.Yet it tells an important story.

Post script. Opps bad me, I left this as a draft. Ken Burns did briefly out that other National Parks,Mounments,Historic sites do exist,but he spent little time discussing it. That being said I watched most of the series.And it was fantastic, and caused me to do a little planning. We'll see if it comes off. Kansas has 5 spots under protection of the National Park service. Many more exist within a few hours drive, doable in day trips.

Fall on the Prairie

Fall at TallGrass - September 26,2009

When we were here last summer, we were told the grass doesn't really get tall until the Fall, so we planned a return. There are areas of the hiking trail where the Park Ranger assured us the Grass is over your head. That is a trip for another day. I wrote and posted a lot of pictures from the first trip, so I will be brief with this one. I was disappointed to find the park subject to budget costs, the house is now only open for Self Tours and they ask you to return the sheet of paper that is a guide after you are done. For the moment you don't get the experience of waiting on the front porch and having a park ranger in green uniform and smoky the bear hat open the door and greeting you. Also the bus tours have been cut to twice a day. The good news is Bison will be at the park by the end of the year. As if this wonder of nature needed any reason to return time and time again, we will go back.

The Prairie itself does look different, the blue stem grass shows a fall color that was absent the first time and adds to the subtle beauty of the place. The vast expanse of nothing ness is still mediative, you wish you can stay all day, and I guess if you want to leave the bus tour you can, as a group on our tour did.

I'll let the pictures of Fall on the Prairie speak for themselves.

Big Brutus, the pictures

Stay tuned for the next entry . If you all the way back to the first trip, the bus driver at Tall Grass National Park, said we really had to come back when the grass was tall in the fall.Well I'm going , the next entry will be in a few weeks Return to Tall Grass ......

Big Brutus

West Mineral Kansas lay just over the county line in Cherokee County, If you blink you might miss the town, I think I saw a bar. I can assure you drive down back roads you will not miss Big Brutus. The first view is Brutus towering over a line of trees. It reminded me a lot of a Godzilla Movie.

Brutus is the second largest electric shovel in the world.In hasn't been used in several years and a group of citizens saved it from being scrap iron in the 1980's.It you ever played in a sand box with a tonka toy shovel, I think maybe you could imagine Big Brutus.16 stories high and you can see from the picture just how small the people sitting up the stage for a concert that evening are . It was easily voted one of the 8 wonders of Kansas and would probably qualify for most any other state as well. As the map at the visitor center shows , people come from around the world to see it. The other two pictures are also from the visitor center and talk about Coal Mining. According to Pam Grout's book "Kansas Curiosities", this is the second time I've mentioned the book, so it must be good, Brooke Shields has actually visited the site. It's also available for weddings. I'll do a separate entry for pictures on the interior and the view from as high hope as we were allowed to go.