A DUSTY Ford pickup slowed in front of us as we crossed the road in Osawatomie, a small town in Eastern Kansas. “You from New York?” drawled the driver. “How did you know?” I asked, more than a little surprised. “Word gets around,” he answered, driving off. “You have a good day, now.”
My father and I stared at each other in disbelief. Sure, we were visiting the state for our first time, but heck, we were driving an American-made SUV that was bigger than my Brooklyn apartment. I’d purposely avoided wearing black. Dad had stashed his Blackberry. Could we still be that obvious?
Apparently, the word was out in Osawatomie, population 4,533; the New Yorkers were here.
We were hardly the first East Coasters to stir things up in Kansas. The fiery abolitionist John Brown, who came to be known as Osawatomie Brown, had preceded us by some 150 years, defending the area’s free-state settlements against an invasion of pro-slavery forces. That 1856 battle kicked off many a violent episode in the state, which came to be known as Bleeding Kansas.
On the site of the battle is the John Brown Memorial Park and Museum (www.kshs.org), where we walked through the original log cabin belonging to his brother-in-law, Reverend Samuel Adair; Brown himself often stayed here and also used it as a safe house for slaves.
For those not familiar with Brown, let’s just say the guy had the right idea, but the implementation was more than a little heavy-handed. It’s been documented that Brown, his sons and his followers went to pro-slavery households in Kansas, knocked on doors pretending to be lost travelers, then hacked the men to death with swords. (The museum’s eminently knowledgeable curator offered a far more nuanced picture of the man, describing him as a “fatherly figure” with a “calm demeanor.”)
Here in “John Brown Country,” historical markers were posted everywhere, noting such Kansas firsts as “The First Land Office” and site of the “First Kansas Republican Party.” It’s no wonder then, that folks in Osawatomie — as in most of the rural places we were to visit — were intensely aware of their towns’ historical roots and bent on preserving them. I quote my father, who put it thusly: “[Kansans] want to preserve everything. They are connected to a complex past that includes the pre-Civil War events . . . the Santa Fe Trail, the cowboys and the cattle drives coming up from Texas and Oklahoma, the great prairies, and the Indians.”
When we took off our sepia-toned glasses, though, we discovered that there’s a whole lot more to Kansas than just Americana. Sure, it has soda fountains, drive-in theaters and giant balls of twine, but also great architecture and art. In some places it’s flat prairie, in others, rolling green hills. (We also learned it does have a lot of tornadoes, but comes in third behind Oklahoma and Texas.)
Like the rest of America, Kansas’s Main Streets are up against that modern-day Goliath –Wal-Mart. This was especially evident in Paola, located just 20 minutes south of Kansas City. We exited Highway 169, and there, in a crowded strip mall, the discount retailer loomed, its bulk casting a shadow over the neighboring Applebee’s. We steeled ourselves, drove on another few miles and came upon one of those picture-postcard American towns that make you want to drop down on your knees and pray it will stay that way.
Fortunately, Paola (pronounced pay-oh-la) offers the perfect place to do just that — at the Ursuline convent. On the 36½-acre grounds we stopped by the Lourdes of the Plains grotto (a faithful reproduction of the French original) for some face time with Mary, then visited the shrine of the Sacred Heart (inexplicably, a miniature reproduction of Castle Rheinstein). The sisters, we learned, had recently vacated the grand 1896 Italianate building, but the renovated, freestanding auditorium is still being used by the Paola community.
The rest of downtown Paola has similarly impressive architecture, including a whole host of structures designed by Kansas native George Washburn. The grandest is the 1898 Miami County Courthouse, dolled up with towers, gables and stained glass. But it was Washburn’s understated Victorian gazebo that we found most appealing. It’s set in the town square, in a quiet, leafy park complete with a fountain, gas lanterns and multiple monuments, including one that honors Paola’s Native American founders.
Flanking the park are the requisite antique and collectible shops, as well as Beethoven’s No. 9, a German restaurant where, in addition to familiar dishes like schnitzel and sausage, we were introduced to a tasty Kansas (by way of Germany) delicacy called bierox. A mixture of ground beef, onion and cabbage baked in dough, this Teutonic hot pocket was to surface on nearly every menu in the state.
The next day we headed south, stopping off in Garnett, where we again came across George Washburn’s work, a turn-of-the-century, Romanesque brick and limestone courthouse. (We wondered, did every rural Kansas town boast one of his stately buildings?) It was in Garnett’s unassuming library that we discovered the Walker Art Gallery, established by New York art dealer (and town native) Maynard Walker in honor of his mother. In two small rooms hung canvases primarily by American artists, including Kansan John Steuart Curry, alongside two rather lovely works by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and Edouard Manet. There was no other way to describe viewing these European masters in a tiny town in Eastern Kansas other than “postmodern.”
Similarly postmodern was our experience in downtown Chanute, where we indulged in the small-town ritual of handmade limeades at a drugstore soda fountain (the Cardinal), then two blocks away, paid a visit to the utterly exotic Safari Museum of Martin and Osa Johnson. Haven’t heard of the Johnsons? Well, most of those old black-and-white “Tarzan” flicks contain footage shot by the couple, who introduced the public to the sights and sounds of far-off places and peoples. This Kansas-born couple (Osa was a Chanute native) flew all over Africa, sailed the South Seas, climbed Mt. Kenya, explored remote Borneo, bonded with cannibals and pygmies — all the while filming their expeditions; out of it came the first “adventure” movies including “Congorilla” (1932) and “Borneo” (1937).
Housed in what had been the town’s train depot, the two-story museum also includes an impressive, rotating array of African artifacts — masks, instruments, weapons, textiles. Some were brought back by the Johnsons, others were bequeathed to them (the couple bonded with many tribespeople) and still more continue to be added to the collection. Fashionistas will drool over the display of Osa’s (real) zebra-skin shoes and python and crocodile purses — she lived quite the glamorous Hollywood life when not filming in some remote jungle — and should pick up a copy of her book, “I Married Adventure,” with its stylish zebra-print cover, in the gift shop.
At Summit Hill Gardens, just outside of town, we met another exotic, Chanute-born woman, Patsy Smeed, who practices the art of soap-making. Using herbs from her own gardens and honey from local bees, among other ingredients, she handcrafts 50 varieties of soap, which are sold out of antique wooden bins in a restored barn. A tour of the 65-acre property reveals one of the more interesting pieces of real estate we’ve seen. Smeed rescued and renovated the Summit Hill School, built in 1874 (her grandmother taught there and her father was a pupil), then to it added an old claim shack and joined the two structures using leftover materials from a razed monastery. “I was green before there really was such a thing,” says Smeed.
Next on our list was Wichita, Kansas’ largest metropolis, a two-hour drive west. Wichita is a place that definitely grows on you the longer you’re here — both for its colorful past and its surprisingly “happening” present.
First things first: There are two rivers that wind through Wichita, the Little Arkansas and the Arkansas. And it’s imperative that they are pronounced correctly: ar-KANSAS.
Our faux pas behind us, we headed to the intersection of the two rivers, where the Keeper of the Plains, a steel sculpture of a Native American warrior, rises more than seven stories. As if the monumental figure weren’t impressive enough, every evening, for 15 minutes, a pyrotechnic display called the “Ring of Fire,” consisting of huge pots of flames, burn in a circle around him.
A less showy, but equally imposing sculpture stands outside the city’s art museum. Titled “Dreamers Awake,” by Wichita native Tom Otterness, the 15-foot-tall bronze figure holds a scythe-like object in its one remaining arm, as numerous little creatures scuttle around below. (These will no doubt look familiar; similar Otterness characters are installed at the 14th Street A/C/E subway stop.)
Inside, the Wichita Art Museum houses a top collection of American art that includes Georgia O’Keeffe, Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington and two enormous works by glass artist Dale Chihuly. My father, a huge fan of Edward Hopper, was delighted to see up close and in person two of his favorites: “Sunlight on Brownstones” and “Conference at Night.”
Wichita is divided into east and west sides by its rivers. Back in the mid-1800s, the west was clearly the more colorful, with brothels, saloons, cowboys and figures like Wyatt Earp roaming the streets. Today, the Delano area retains some of that spirit, with a handful of bars, live music venues, vintage stores, salons and the famous hatmaker, Hatman Jack’s. But the Old Town section on the east side was hopping, too, even on a sultry Wednesday evening. People milled around the red-brick streets lined with warehouses that now housed galleries, shops, chic restaurants and lots and lots of bars.
So many bars, in fact, that Carrie Nation must be rolling in her grave. The 6-foot-tall, hatchet-wielding harpy of Prohibition, Carrie Nation became famous throughout Kansas for singing hymns while hacking up saloons with an axe. One of her first and most notorious attacks took place in December, 1900 at the luxurious Carey House bar in downtown Wichita (now called the Eaton Hotel). The 54-year-old grandma smashed a mirror, destroyed a risqué painting of Cleopatra bathing and broke several bottles of liquor before being arrested and tossed into a Wichita jail. (The hotel has since been converted to condos, but you can still dine at the ground-floor’s Eaton Steakhouse.)
There was far more to Wichita than we could see in a day and a half — we got a quick glimpse of the John Mack Bridge (the second-longest Rainbow Bridge in the US) and grabbed a stellar chocolate malt at the Old Mill Tasty Shop on our way out of town — then we were off to Cottonwood Falls.
Just about every Wichita resident we’d spoken to had waxed poetic about the beauty of Cottonwood Falls and the nearby Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. The drive north includes a stretch of national scenic road that cuts through the Flint Hills, so named because of the gently undulating terrain formed from limestone and flint. Because there is so much rock and so little soil, not much can grow here besides the native tall grasses, making the area more suitable for grazing animals than farming.
Today, just 4 percent of the original tallgrass prairie remains. We climbed to the highest point in the preserve (a whopping 1,500 feet) and took in the surrounding hills (and finally, got cell phone service). It may not look like much, but the grasses are home to 200 species of birds (we spotted several meadowlarks and a spritely quail), lizards, butterflies and wildflowers; there are plans to reintroduce bison next year.
Late afternoon we pulled in to Cottonwood Falls, where we were immediately struck by the building that towers over the end of its main street. Built out of native limestone with a mansard roof and an ornate clock tower, the French Renaissance-style Chase County Courthouse stands 113 feet, easily the tallest building within 80 miles. It’s also one of the oldest operating courthouses west of the Mississippi. Inside the fully restored 1873 building is a three-story floating staircase; at the top is a recessed oval window that offers amazing views of the countryside.
Without a doubt, the coolest part of the tour is the courthouse jail on the second floor. Behind a thick, steel door is a most intimidating room, its floor and ceiling covered in sheet metal, bars on the windows and in the center, a huge metal cage with two windowless cells. Though the jail hasn’t been used since the late 1970s (when it was deemed too harsh), the graffiti of its inmates remains etched into the walls.
The 1884 Grand Central Hotel is the only hotel in Cottonwood Falls, and fortunately, it’s a pretty nice one. The vibe throughout is understated Western, with lots of original brick, and each of the 10 rooms is “branded” with the name of a local ranch. And the restaurant’s Sterling Silver steaks are quite tasty (Lyle Lovett even has them shipped back to Texas).
A couple of blocks away we found the only other restaurant in town, the Emma Chase Café. Where the Grand Central is upscale, Emma Chase is more home-style cooking, and it’s clear that this is a favorite hangout for locals. There’s no menu at Emma Chase, and no credit cards are accepted, but owner Sue Smith is more than happy to sit down at your table and tell you all about what’s going on in town. Turns out, there’s plenty to tell.
Every Friday night, they host a jam session out in front of the café, on a portable stage on the town’s main street (called Broadway), and fried catfish is served. Wednesdays are a hamburger night, Sunday nights it’s chicken fried steak and fried chicken, and a biker breakfast is served on the third Sunday of every month. And there always seems to be an excuse for a festival — especially one where you can dress up in period costumes and dance to “contra,” which Sue described as “old-timey music” that involves mandolins, fiddles and banjos. (It also explained why, at Jim Bell & Son, the town’s only clothing store, there was a large section of period clothing alongside the western wear.)
We set off after breakfast for our final destination, Abilene, but were waylaid in Council Grove, a charming town through which passes the Santa Fe National Historic Trail. All along Main Street are sites showcasing the town’s storied past, including wagon wheel tracks (from early pioneers), a train depot and hotels, banks and stores that sprang up by the railroad. Council Grove was the last stop to “fuel up” until one reached Santa Fe, 600 miles away.
One such business was the Hays House Restaurant and Tavern, built in 1857 by Council Grove’s first white settler, Seth Hays (the grandson of Daniel Boone). Its biggest claim to fame is that it’s the oldest continuously operating restaurant west of the Mississippi, but it’s also justly famous for serving excellent pie. Eating here was like dining in a museum; everywhere you look, you’re surrounded by artifacts from the restaurant’s 152-year history. In the cellar you can see the original bar, alongside old meat hooks and a bone grinder; apparently the room is quite popular for private dining. Successive owners of the restaurant contributed their own decorative ideas, which include an enormous collection of family crystal in the second-floor dining room, and a rotating display of turn-of-the-20th-century ladies’ accessories.
Driving into Abilene, my father began singing, “Abilene, Abilene, the prettiest town I ever seen.” I pointed out that the song was written about Abilene, Texas, but it hardly mattered, since this Abilene was very pretty — its shady streets lined with beautifully preserved historic homes. Why all the incredible architecture? It was hoped that Abilene would become the state capitol — but that honor went to Topeka, 83 miles east. But it has been called the greyhound capitol of the world – as in dogs, not buses — and you can find out just about everything you’d ever want to know about the breed at the Greyhound Hall of Fame.
Two of the town’s most resplendent houses are available to tour: the Lebold Mansion and the Seelye Mansion. Though both are historic, they couldn’t be more different. The 10,000-square-foot Lebold house, built in 1880, has been restored and decorated in the high Victorian style, with an excess of ornamentation and an abundance of wallpaper. The decorative artists who undertook this enormous task — in all 23 of its rooms — note that most of the décor is not original to the house, but is, rather, accurate to the time period. (In fact, several were modeled after the period rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)
We learned all sorts of interesting things on our tour. Like why the walls in the Neo-Classical dining room were painted red (it supposedly aids digestion) and why all the heavy, fringed drapery (they served as a sort of stagey backdrop to the rooms). But the most interesting space isn’t actually part of the mansion. It’s a downstairs bunker, which was preserved as part of the house’s foundation. This tiny (even by Manhattan studio standards) stone dugout was carved out by the town’s first settlers, Tim and Eliza Hersey, in 1857, who lived underground for protection when Abilene was still a wild and wooly place.
The town’s other exceedingly grand house is the perfectly preserved three-story Seelye Mansion. A New York architect was called upon to design the Georgian-style home for patent medicine magnate and pharmaceutical baron Dr. A. B. Seelye. Built in 1905 at a cost of $55,000 (or about $5 million in today’s dollars), the home remained in the family up until 1982, when the mansion and all of its contents were purchased. Which means that absolutely everything inside the house is original: The furniture purchased at the 1904 World’s Fair, the Tiffany-designed fireplace, the Steinway pianos, the Edison phonograph, the mint-condition, single-sided recordings of Enrico Caruso, the library filled with first editions by Zane Grey and Winston Churchill, among others, the six Kellogg wall telephones, the Steuben vases, the Haviland china and sterling, the 1905 box ball alley (an English bowling lane that never quite caught on in the states).
Seelye’s daughters, who never married, went to high school with the town’s most famous family, the Eisenhowers. But it’s doubtful that they ever socialized: Dwight and his brothers were from the “wrong” side of the tracks. In fact, many of the well-to-do families of Abilene wouldn’t even allow the Eisenhowers inside their homes. That was the case at the B&B where we stayed, Abilene’s Victorian Inn, which had been the home of Dwight Eisenhower’s wealthy boyhood friend, Swede Hazlett. Apparently, the young Dwight was instructed only to enter through the back door.
Somewhat ironic, since the inn was just minutes from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, a 22-acre site with five buildings dedicated to the 34th president of the US. I donned my “I LIKE IKE” button for the tour, which was absolutely fascinating, whether you know much about the man or not (and I, being born in 1968, did not).
The five galleries that make up the museum start with Ike’s boyhood then trace his life through his military career, to his presidential life and beyond. There’s an entire gallery devoted to Mamie and her dresses, shoes and jewels (this woman was quite the Carrie Bradshaw), menus from state dinners, Ike’s military outfits and his jeep during the war, Nazi memorabilia, gifts from heads of state and a recreated early 1950s living room complete with a black and white TV airing old episodes of “Guiding Light” (apparently a favorite exhibit of visitors). I learned Eisenhower had created the Interstate Highway System (we were to drive on the first stretch of it, I-70, the next day) and founded People to People International, which promotes understanding between countries and cultures through its ambassador programs.
We wrapped up our time in Kansas with dinner at the famous Brookville Hotel (which, to clear things up, is not a hotel, but a restaurant, and one that only has one thing on the menu, fried chicken), and my last Kansas-made malt, at the Kuntz Drive-In. It was a fitting way to end the trip, at two traditional, family-owned Kansas establishments. If this was what being postmodern was all about, a second helping for me, thanks.
For more information about travel to Kansas, visit www.travelks.com
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KANSAS STATE PLUS 8
Vote or die for the best of Jayhawker country
OF the opinion that Kansas hasn’t any attractions worthy of being dubbed a wonder, let alone eight?
Native Marci Penner, one-half of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, dares you to put your ballot where your mouth is.
She’s the brains behind the “8 Wonders of Kansas,” a Web-driven contest to crown the top eight Kansan attractions in eight distinct categories ranging from architecture to cuisine to geography, all in the name of re-education.
“We want to debunk the myth that there’s nothing to see and do here,” Penner says of her home state. Turns out, a change in hearts and minds is just as needed among residents as it is outsiders. “When I was writing a guide book about Kansas back in 1990, I used to go to one small town after the next [with residents] who’d tell me, ‘We have nothing here — go to the next one over,'” she laments. “Of course they did, they just didn’t know it.”
Penner’s ensuring those dark days are over. Results of the 8 Wonders of Kansas are decided 100% by popular vote; any and all are encouraged to participate. Already, winners in half of the categories have been decided (all tallies are final with no term limits) include the Ball of Twine in Cawker City, the 160-foot-tall Big Brutus coal shovel and the John Davis Memorial.
Haven’t chimed in yet? Not to worry, some of the more hotly contested races are still in progress.
“We’ve already seen 13,000 votes in our cuisine category,” says Penner who, despite running a small office out of her family farm’s barn in Inman, knows her Google Analytics.
Visit www.8wonders.org to make your voice heard.
— Chris Bunting