The College Hill Commoner by Barry Owens

4 No plans for

the former Baptist church on Hillside yet, but ‘Oh, the possibilities.’

8 A peek inside the

Symphony Show House. Plus, a view of Parkstone construction from the Hillcrest.

5 City cuts College

Hill pool hours. Neighborhood association hopes to buy more time.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER Vol. 2 No. 7

COLLEGE HILL

• CROWN HEIGHTS • UPTOWN • SLEEPY HOLLOW

JUNE 2009

THE LAND GRABBERS THE SETTLING OF THE HILL WAS NOT ALWAYS ON THE UP AND UP. PAGE 10

MAP: THE KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. SURVEYOR PHOTO: WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS. ILLUSTRATION: PARKER ROTH

Surveyors lay out Sedgwick County's boundaries in 1867. They worked around Indians encamped at the Little Arkansas and today's 13th Street (North High School), which is depicted on the north edge of Section 17 on the map. While the surveyor’s lines were straight, some early ‘settlers’ of College Hill were crooked. See page 10.

LETTERS

WEB VS. PRINT, PORCH VS. P.D.A

FOR THE BIRDS A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

TO THE EDITOR:

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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER VOLUME 2 ISSUE 7 JUNE 2009

PUBLISHER

J ESSICA F REY O WENS

EDITOR

B ARRY

OWENS

CONTRIBUTORS

K ATIE G ORDON , D AVE K NADLER , J EFF R OTH , PARKER R OTH , J OE S TUMPE

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER

Published monthly by The College Hill Commoner 337 N. Holyoke Wichita, K.S. 67208 316-689-8474 editor@collegehillcommoner.com www.collegehillcommoner.com

Regarding the letter “Web site was easy to read. Now it is not.” (May 2009 Commoner): Take the criticism with a large grain of salt. As you have pointed out, the Commoner is a print product first, and what goes online is simply there for the record. The Commoner is refreshingly physical newspaper about a refreshingly physical place. Why leap headlong into the ephemeral chatterverse and dilute the brand? If people want to read what’s going on in this part of town, they need to put aside the tiny screens and go look out on the front porch, if only for one lousy day a month. People now expect to live their entire lives on their netbooks and iPhones, and many of them are succeeding. As the writer pointed out, that doesn’t make them stupid. But it does isolate them from tactile reality of every kind – and they shouldn’t complain when not everybody wants to play along.

DAVE KNADLER Note to readers: We did not solicit the above letter. But we have asked writer Dave Knadler, a reformed newspaper man and full time crime fiction writer, to submit a monthly column [see the Op-Ed page]. Knadler, a Crown Heights resident, is a gifted writer with a generous, warm and funny style. He has worked in the newsrooms of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Kansas City Star and the Wichita Eagle, among others. We’re happy to have his lively, local voice in the paper. We’re certain you will feel the same way.

HERE KITTY, KITTY, KITTY,KITTY, KITTY, KITTY ... TO THE EDITOR:

A neighborhood cat squeezes between a bush and a fencepost...then it turns and sprays the post. This is the mark - literally - of a sexually intact male cat, and we’ve got a lot of them here in College Hill. On nearly every block, someone’s cat just had kittens or someone found a litter of kittens under their porch. We’re doing a pretty good job with dogs - the few loose dogs on our streets typically come from surrounding neighborhoods - but we could do a better job with cats. We have many, many outdoor cats and a good number of them are not neutered. Many of us would like to see Wichita become a no-kill community, one in which no adoptable animal is put to sleep for simple lack of a home. Other communities have achieved this, and their experience teaches us that in order to make it happen, we need to have seventy percent of owned pets neutered. That’s right, most of our pets have to be neutered. If your cat or dog is not yet neutered, please make an appointment today. Our city has a severe pet over-population issue. Please let us do our part by getting our own pets fixed!

THALIA JEFFRES

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

remain keen on the publisher of this newspaper for a lot of reasons, most of which I can’t always explain because I am a fumbling, doltish sort of guy when it comes to that sort of thing, but the other day as I watched her race out into the yard in her bare feet to rescue fallen baby birds from the circling cats, I was reminded. She is champion of doomed causes, a gloriously dirty fighter, a righteous Kung Fu queen, and if you mess with the little guy she will come after you, sucker. I can’t tell you how many times she has chased the wolves away from our door. We are in the newspaper business, dear hearts, and those wolves are always coming round. But last month, it was the cats. These weren’t the usual breed that we often seeing napping in the afternoon on porches up and down the block. These were hungry strays on the prowl. They slinked off, but evidently not far, and the baby birds hopped about in the grass for awhile as their hysterical parents circled and chirped overhead. What to do? Research, of course. I’m afraid this is the part of the tale where the action slows down. The tragedy occurs off screen. While we were searching the internet for options (how to rescue baby birds, care and feeding of cardinals, how to build a nest) those cats had returned. There is a reason Batman never turns to Robin and says, “Quick, to the Google!” There was only one bird left in the yard when we stepped back outside. We scooped her up into an old Easter basket, complete with plastic grass and deeply buried jelly beans, and hung the basket from a high nail on our porch. Then we waited and watched from the window until the momma bird finally lighted on the basket with a bit of food for her chick. It would be lovely to report here that momma bird continued to return and that the chick bounced in the basket for a few days until finding her wings and flying off. But it didn’t happen that way. Let’s just say that nature took its course. The publisher shed a tear and then set her jaw. Those cats better watch their backs. BARRY OWENS EDITOR

WRITE THE EDITOR: We welcome your letters. No subject is out of bounds, so long as it is local. Letters should not exceed 300 words and may be edited for clarity and length.

E-MAIL US: editor@collegehillcommoner.com WRITE US: 337 N. Holyoke, Wichita, KS, 67208 CALL US: 689-8474 ADVERTISE: jessica@collegehillcommoner.com, or 689-8474 CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS: Last month in an article about

a good deed done at Myoptix Fashion Eyewear, the owner of the store was misidentified. His name is Jon Herrscher. He is a master optician. We regret the error. Spot an error? Please let us know. It is the policy of The College Hill Commoner to print corrections and clarifications.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

OP-ED

Landscaping for Dummies

he problem with writing for a monthly newspaper, as opposed to a daily one, is that it’s difficult to guess what might seem current when the column finally sees print. Swine flu came and went, as will River Fest, and while it’s raining again right now, it surely won’t be when this issue hits the street. When you’re on a 30-day news cycle, as opposed to 24/7, DAVE KNADLER you have to read the tea leaves carefully when selecting topics. The only thing you can be sure of in any given month is that the sun will continue to rise and set and that the work on Kellogg will not be finished. Which is why I have chosen to discuss landscaping. I’ve become quite an expert in the few weeks I’ve been doing it, ever since these two taciturn guys from Hillside Nursery dropped off a great load of shrubs, compost and

mulch in the driveway. Working from a sketch provided by the same nursery, I’ve been digging and dragging and arranging and – between torrential rains – throwing grass seed around like rice at a wedding. Now, weeks later, I can stand on my new deck and savor the result: A backyard consisting largely of mud and mulch. They say anything worth doing is worth doing well, and I’m not sure that’s happened here. I may have cut a few corners. But I have learned much, both from my own labors and my daily walks with the dog around College Hill. And because these truths are timeless, I think it’s safe to share them in a monthly periodical: – One thing you realize walking a dog every day is that if you held the patent on black landscape edging, you could afford to move to Vickridge. Home-and-garden stores sell miles of this stuff, and the market appears infinite because it keeps coming out of the ground as fast as people put it in. There it gets chewed up by lawnmowers, or just curls along the ground like the molted skin of some mulch-loving reptile.

Personally, I’d rather edge a planting area in dog manure than this material, but I understand I may be in the minority here. – If you’ve ever considered a retaining wall to get a flat yard, forget about it. College Hill and Crown Heights are full of retaining walls that can no longer retain a stiff breeze. Now they tilt dangerously over the sidewalks, ancient monuments to the hubris of man. One day one of them will crush a small dog passing by, and it will be bittersweet moment for the owner of that small dog: The dog is gone, true, but the lawsuit will mean a comfortable retirement. If someone tries to sell you a retaining wall, take them for a walk around College Hill. – When you deploy those interlocking landscape bricks or decorative stone, it’s not enough to line up them along the ground and expect nature to honor the boundary between the grass and the perennials. No, you have to first remove the sod, treat the area with Roundup, hoe it vigorously, treat it again later with Roundup, mix in some depleted plutonium, and blanket the area with a foot of

expensive mulch – not the cheap bark you get in sacks at the gas station. Did I mention the Roundup? Then you repeat on a regular basis for the rest of your life, because Bermuda grass is a lot more patient than you’d think. – When buying lawn ornaments or statuary, get each piece twice as big as you think you need. Nothing is quite so pathetic as having St. Francis of Assisi visible only from the eyebrows up, drowning in a sea of rogue vegetation that somebody forgot to drench in potent herbicide. And nothing bungs up the Bush Hog faster than a submerged garden gnome. – Finally, don’t have a dog. Dogs don’t hate newly-planted flowers, exactly; it just seems that way. Same with new grass. Read the fine print on a bag of Scott’s Throw ‘n’ Grow, and it clearly says that one medium-sized dog can transform about 600 square feet of tremulous young shoots into something less appealing. I’m here to say that seems about right. Writer Dave Knadler lives in Crown Heights.

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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

No Plans for Church Yet, but Oh, the Possiblities BY JOE STUMPE Grant Rine always told his wife he would own a pipe organ one day. Now he does—along with the historic church on the edge of College Hill that houses it. Grant and Janet Rine bought the former Hillside Christian and First Southern Baptist church at Hillside and English this spring. They’ve scrapped their original plan for the building and admit they don’t know exactly what they’re going to do with the 32,000square-foot structure. But Janet says they haven’t experienced any buyer’s regret. “You know, we haven’t had one,” she said during a tour of the building. “We’ve always liked the unique. We’ve been drawn to that from the get-go.” The Rines, who live in College Hill, also own Caffe Moderne, which Janet runs, and Old Town Architectural Salvage, which is radiation oncologist Grant’s sideline. Most neighborhood residents recognize the church they bought by the towering columns and steep stairs that front the entrance along Hillside. What the Rines found inside was just as interesting, from exquisite stained glass to a huge puppet collection to the organ with pipes that take up two rooms in the rafters. The church was built in two stages. Members of Hillside Christian Church, part of the Disciples of Christ movement, built the sanctuary between 1923 and 1926 at a cost of $170,000, becoming one of the city’s first congregations to move from downtown to what was then Wichita’s “suburbs.” The adjoining education building was added in 1952. “The bones of (the sanctuary) are basically Greek classical,” Grant said, “but there are other styles used that are typical of early 20th Century architecture, including the arts and crafts movement.” The education building is styled in what Janet calls “mid-century modern,” including some touches that are “very Frank Lloyd Wright,” with a sub-base-

The former Hillside Christian and First Southern Baptist church at Hillside and English. The church was recently purchased by College Hill residents Grant and Janet Rine (shown below).

PHOTOS: JOE STUMPE

full of toys. Not to mention 11 pianos, a puppet collection that was a key part of the church’s children’s ministry, racks of folding chairs, vintage audio-visual equipment and much more. “They looked like they had just been played with,” Janet said of the toys. “It’s like a bomb went off and they just disapment fallout shelter. Hillside Christian sold the building in the late 1970s when the congregation moved further east to its current location at 8330 E. Douglas. The next tenant, First Southern Baptist, occupied the building until four years ago. However, most members had moved to Emmanuel Baptist on south Topeka by that time. The winnowing of the congregation is apparently responsible for the somewhat eerie scene the Rines found when they took over: a closet full of choir robes hanging just below name tags, hymnals and Bibles left open, a nursery

peared.” Janet says the couple got a good deal on the building and initially planned to move their architectural salvage business there. But after hosting an open house there last month, they decided the space—make that spaces—they’d acquired could be put to better use. The main sanctuary, for instance, has 752 seats in a banked theater setting. There’s a quaint smaller chapel, a large commercially equipped kitchen, a fellowship hall with a stage, and a floor broken up into a classrooms and a nursery.

A stained glass window, seen from the interior. Aside from grand architectural details, the church came complete with choir robes and Sunday school puppets.

Janet thinks the fellowship hall could be used for music, theater and parties, with food and drink brought from the kitchen next door; the large sanctuary would lend itself to larger concerts. The chapel could be “really dolled up” for intimate weddings, she says. Her chef at Caffe Moderne wants to use the classroom space for a culinary school. The Rines have hired workers to clean up the property. They’ve already power washed the front stairs and cleared a piece of land behind the church that they’re offering to the neighborhood as a community garden. Janet would love to see neighbors pull up a chair, pour a glass of wine or lemonade and watch the tomatoes grow on a summer’s evening. Next up are repairs to the roof. A caretaker is moving in to keep an eye on progress. Neighbors are encouraged. “They’re restoring the beauty and aesthetics of it and I think that’s great,” said Dale Hancock, who attended the church. As for the organ, Grant Rine says, “There’s no question in my mind that the pipe organ will be hooked up by the end of the year.”

IN CLIFTON SQUARE

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

Pool Hours Cut, Assn. Hopes to Buy More Time BY BARRY OWENS In a cost cutting move, the city has trimmed the hours that College Hill pool will be open this summer. The pool will be closed Mondays. Should rain come early in the day, the pool will shut down for the entire day regardless of a break in the clouds. And the pool will close an hour earlier than in seasons past. It is the final cut that is the deepest, College Hill Neighborhood Association members and pool patrons say. By closing an hour earlier, at 6 rather than 7 p.m., working parents will be hard pressed to make it down to the oasis after the day shift. “I think realistically the city could potentially lose some money if they don’t keep it open until seven because if a working family gets off at five o’clock, by the time they get the kids picked up, get home, get everybody changed and in their swimsuits it is six,” said College Hill resident Tim Goodpasture. “If the pool is open until seven, at least you have an hour. Otherwise, people are going to look to other alternatives like the Y or just not going to the pool at all.” The neighborhood association is working with the city to find a way to keep the pool open an additional hour each night. By the city’s tally, the cost for the season would be about $3,200. “Given the partnership agreements we have had, the neighborhood associa-

Above: A father and son frolic in College Hill pool. Right: A youngster seeks a little shade. In a cost cutting move, the city has cut the pool’s hours. The College Hill Neighborhood Association hopes to strike a deal to extend the hours. More photos are available at hfphoto.synthasite.com

PHOTOS: KATIE GORDON

tion is asking them to split that amount with us,” said Beth King, who is vice president of the association and former head of the task force that forged the public/private partnership that brought the new pool to the park in 2000. Through a special assessment tax, College Hill home owners picked up three-quarters of the cost to design and construct the pool.

“It is important that people continue to use the pool,” King said. “Sometimes we’re tempted to join a private pool or join the Y, but we need to remember that we committed to be invested in the pool because it is an asset to the community.” King said she was optimistic that an agreement could be reached with the city to extend the hours unless there were

logistical reasons, such as swimming lessons or other scheduled events already slated that would prevent more public hours. Neighborhood resident Heather Schultz said she hopes a resolution comes soon. “Unfortunately, time is not our friend,” she said. “It is such a short season.” A petition and pledge form is available at the pool for neighborhood residents and patrons to sign to support the extension of pool hours. Donations can also be sent by mail to the College Hill Neighborhood Association, P.O. Box 20707, Wichita, KS, 67208. Donations are tax deductible.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER â?&#x161; JUNE 2009

SHIRLEY QUICK

Last month a crew of home movers hauled an empty house off of the Parkstone development lot and up the street to Clifton Square. It was slow going. While the trip up the hill only took about 10 minutes, negotiating far narrower Yale took hours. Tree branches, which brushed at the eaves, needed to be trimmed, and workers hauled back hard on a no parking sign to squeeze through. After 6 hours, the house was finally wedged home.

Moving on Up: Empty House Hauled Up the Hill BY BARRY OWENS It is, as more than one person observed last month as they stepped outside to find a house parked in the middle of their street, not something you see every day. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is ...,â&#x20AC;? Yale Street resident Sue Martin said, searching for the word, â&#x20AC;&#x153;amazing.â&#x20AC;? A structure moving crew hauled a house up Douglas during the middle of one night last month, and made reasonably short work of it considering the seeming impossibility of it all. â&#x20AC;&#x153;How much longer do you think it will be?â&#x20AC;? one of the cable guys wanted to know just before dawn. The house seemed tantalizing close to its new foundation by that point. It had taken only 10 minutes to haul by truck up Douglas, but another two hours to squeeze the 30-ton,

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one-and-half-story bungalow around the corner on Yale and through the tree branches and no parking signs along the way to its home in Clifton Square. The cable guys, along with other utility workers, were needed to remove the lines along the way to prevent snags or breakage. The crosswalk lights near Clifton were removed, and put right back up once the house passed by. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oh,â&#x20AC;? the man in charge replied. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got something else to do for a few hours, you could probably go do it.â&#x20AC;? The house had been on the last lot before Parkstone on Victor Place and was purchased by the development and removed to make more room for a parking lot. Jo Zakas, owner of Clifton Square, bought the house with plans to utilize it as retail space. Nearly all the structures at the Square have been simi-

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larly trucked in, she noted. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m always moving things around the Square,â&#x20AC;? Zakas said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like my erector set.â&#x20AC;? While moving the house in a straight line was mostly a matter of horse power, negotiating the tight turn into the Square was trickier business. Workers climbed beneath the house, stacking and unstacking railroad ties, installing jacks, snaking chains, moving the wheels, give the signal to heave away a few inches, and then would climb underneath and start over. Finally it was rested on steel beams that spanned the foundation, and the lead man shared a trade secret. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ivory soap,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So it will slide.â&#x20AC;? Great amounts of the stuff, liquid and bar, was applied to the beams and inch by inch the house was towed home.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

EXPIRES 6/30/09

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

SYMPHONY SHOWHOUSE A row of newly constructed townhomes at Parkstone is the site of this year’s Symphony Showhouse, a show case for designers and a fund raiser for the Wichita Symphony orchestra. Four units, which have been named after College Hill streets—Pershing, Crestway, Belmont and Roosevelt–have been lavishly decorated. Styles include French Country, Contemporary, Old World and Traditional. We offer a peek of each of the styles below. Once visitors have concluded their tour, they are invited to drop in at the nearby Parkstone information office, just down the way on Victor Place, to cast a ballot for their favorite home.

PHOTOS: SHIRLEY QUICK

ROOM WITH A VIEW

The Symphony Showhouse runs through June 21. Tour hours are 10am-4pm, (extended till 7pm on Thursdays), Monday through Saturday, and noon to 4pm on Sundays. Advanced tickets are $10; $12 at the door. For ticket outlets or more info call the Wichita Symphony office at 316-2677658 or go to their Web site, www.wso.org.

OLD WORLD

Perched High in the Hillcrest, Photographer Trains a Lens on Parkstone BY BARRY OWENS “I’m shooting through two panes of glass,” amateur photographer Shirley Quick explained the other day as she showed a visitor the vista from her 10th floor apartment in the Hillcrest. “Every once in awhile, I’ll get the bottom of the window sill if I am not paying attention.” When you have devoted close to a year to photographing the day to day progress, great and small, at the construction site (Parkstone) across the street, paying attention is key. “Last month we were gone for a few days and when I got back I looked out and I thought ‘Geez, I missed a whole bunch of stuff,’ ” Quick said. Quick and her husband, Drew Livesay, moved into the Hillcrest two years ago. The pair moved from Helena, Montana, and the view took some getting used to. “No matter how many times we looked out the window, the mountains weren’t there,” Quick says. The church steeples poking up through the green tree tops, the helicopter landings atop Wesley hospital, and the summer storms grew on them. Still, it wasn’t until construction at Parkstone got under way in earnest across the street that Quick found a consistent subject to focus on. The resulting work is more than 300 photographs stored on her Mac laptop which span the seasons and show the progression of the site from a brown and

Since shortly after moving into a 10th floor apartment at the Hillcrest, Shirley Quick (at left) has snapped photographs out her window of the Parkstone construction site down below. At first, there was little to see. But over the past year, things began to happen in a hurry. “Last month we were gone for a few days and when we got back I looked out and I thought ‘Geez, I missed a whole bunch of stuff.’ ” The first four units are complete and this month are open for tours during the Symphony Showhouse.

barren lot, to gray foundations, to multi color houses all in a row. “This one I like because of the rain drops,” she said, clicking through the digital album one afternoon early this month. Another shows tire tracks in the snow, which she jokingly accused Drew of putting there for her benefit. “You know, I hadn’t ever really sat down and looked at them all this way before,” she said. “It’s kind of fun.” While the seasons presented opportunities for variety and creativity in the compositions, most of the photographs are straight forward shots that attempt only to document the day. To Quick’s surprise, the photographs

became popular among friends. “From the street level, you really can’t see what is going on over there like we can,” she said. “We have friends that live over on Quentin and every once and awhile they will email and ask for pictures because they want to know what is going on.” With one row of townhomes topped out and trimmed, and much of the front landscaping complete, there would seem to be few surprises left at the site. The remainder of the townhomes, and even the retail and loft space planned for the site, will look much the same. But there is the matter of the residential tower, also planned for the development. Quick didn’t seemed as excited to see that constructed, or on the skyline. “At first we were a little bummed out because we thought it would block our view,” she said. “But it looks like it won’t. Hopefully it will block the McDonald’s, which is the only thing that I can see at night.”

TRADITIONAL

FRENCH COUNTRY

CONTEMPORARY

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

COMMUNITY CALENDAR Call for Entries The merchants of Lincoln Heights Village are calling for entries of original art to help celebrate the 60th anniversary of the shopping center. The winning entry will receive $200 and the winning image will be reproduced on t-shirts. Any medium is accepted, but finished works must be submitted by email in jpg form. Keep in mind, the images should be appropriate for inclusion on a t-shirt. Deadline for submission is June 15. Submit entries to sarah.bagby@watermarkbooks.com.

East High Chairs for Sale The old, wooden auditorium seats at East High School will be ripped out and replaced next year. But it is not too early to make a bid, should you want to purchase one or two or a whole row. Proceeds from the sale of the chairs will go to Friends of East High Performing Arts. To make a bid or for more info, email easthighchairs@yahoo.com or call 9737280.

Third Thursdays Still On Warm weather is back and some area merchants are returning to extended hours on Third Thursdays, including Juliana Daniel Antiques, Traditions, and

JULY 5

Aspen Boutique. Aspen Boutique will host singer/songwriter Jennifer Petersen for the evening, June 18, and will offer 20-percent off of patio dresses from 5-8 p.m. Traditions will extend their Thursday hours throughout the month while the Symphony Showhouse is open. Traditions will also be open on Sundays during the Showhouse.

Trash to Treasure Sale Bay Leaf Cafe will host a giant sale and music festival, billed as “Trash to Treasure,” June 20 at Clifton Square. The community is invited to shop, and to sell. Spaces, which rent for $10, are available to display wares, pitch products, or provide services (there will be a massage therapy provider, for example). “You can bring the stuff you want to sell, much like a community garage sale,” Becca Thomas, owner of the cafe said. Anyone interested in renting a space should call the Bay Leaf Cafe, 6843800, or stop in. Deadline is June 15. The event will also feature live music throughout the day, a beer garden, barbecue, and Let’s Be Frank, which opened last month on Douglas in Uptown, will sell hot dogs. Admission is free, but there is a $5 charge to enter the beer garden. Those proceeds will go to the musicians.

HISTORY

Surveyors lay out Sedgwick County's boundaries in 1867. While the surveyors lines were straight, some early ‘settlers’ of College Hill were crooked.

MAP: THE KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. SURVEYOR PHOTO: WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS. ILLUSTRATION: PARKER ROTH

Stakers & Fakers The early settlers and shysters of College Hill. BY JEFF A. ROTH

n 1870 a transition between cultures was occurring in the valley below College Hill. Centuries of ancient nomadic and Native American Indian hunting were coming to a close. Game hunting was giving way to a new use of the land, that of settlement and town building. This is the third Recent confuinstallment in a sion surroundfour-part series ing the legaliabout the earliest ties of acquiring Osage residents of the old Indian land had neighborhood. been settled by Next month, Congress that year, ironically the farmers. and poignantly during the Osage tribe’s final fall buffalo hunt west of the Arkansas River. Soon the valley would be filled with settlers seeking farm land and speculators seeking profits. An examination of the earliest recorded land transactions in the area reveals the intentions of the first College Hill land buyers. Before the buying could begin, land boundaries had to be determined on the grassland prairie. Certainty of boundaries would lead to certainty of title, the avoid-

ance of litigation, and reliable land values (and related property taxes). Three years earlier in 1867, before the Osage had even vacated their hunting village, a survey of the valley was undertaken by government contracted surveyors. Their yellowed map is preserved to this day. It reveals inverted triangles along the Little Arkansas at today’s 13th Street, a final image of Osage teepees in the valley. The survey crew was equipped with a surveyor’s 100 link (66 foot) chain for measuring the terrain. The lead surveyor would squint through his tripod mounted telescope, having aligned it with its builtin compass. He made sure that his “foreman” hiked straight to a mark in the distance while unfurling the chain. After a tally peg was driven at the end of the hundredth link the rear was brought forward. In this inch worm fashion the squares that we see today from the vantage of air travel were measured over and over across the prairie. Eighty chains made a mile. Eight times eighty made the length of a township. A township’s thirty six sections were numbered from the northeast corner first, then westward, then eastward, back and forth until Section 36 was reached in the southeast corner, or as one writer described it, in

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

“boustrophedonic fashion” Greek for turning as in ox plowing. By the late summer of 1867 the survey crew had staked out “Wichita Township” east of the river. Among its mile square sections were Sleepy Hollow’s Section 14, Uptown’s Section 22, College Hill’s Section 23, and Crown Heights’ Section 24. Next the Land Commissioner in Washington, D.C. organized for the impending Kansas land sales. The Government Land Office was opened, first in Humbolt at the eastern edge of the trust lands (1869), then in Augusta (1870) and later in Wichita (1872). Buyers would be purchasing land by a practice called preempting, staking a claim and settling on the land before paying for it, i.e., federally condoned squatting. After one’s “entry” there followed a six month period of making improvements — establishing a farm to demonstrate one’s intention to settle there. After the proscribed time and toil a settler would head to the land office to “prove up” and pay the purchase price of $1.25 an acre, as mandated by Congress. Nearly everyone bought the maximum acreage allowed: a quarter section of 160 acres for $200. The officials in charge of the land office were the Register, who checked the tract books to make sure the land wasn’t already spoken for, and the Receiver who handled the money and recorded the proceedings. In response to varying levels of literacy these officials typically filled in the government forms. With ink and quill their penmanship sometimes resembled calligraphy. The applicant and his witnesses signed in the blanks left for them. In this manner the officials earned a 1-percent commission every time a tract was sold. Thereafter each applicant’s packet of documents would be sent to Washington, D.C. for double checking, final approval, and official filing. The 1870s paperwork backlog in Washington could cause a delay, but eventually a land Patent (government deed) was delivered to the buyer by courier. The physical improvements to the land, recorded in the settlers’ paperwork, give a clue as to what was going on in College Hill circa 1870. A farm would have at least a little farm house, sometimes referred to as a claim shack. Other efforts might include the building of a corral, chicken coop or corn crib. Prima facia farms would also have cultivated crops. The planting of hedge rows, “forest” trees and fruit trees was common. At the land office proof of these farm-like activities would be attested to by one’s witnesses. The applicant himself also

took an oath that it was his intention to occupy the land, not for speculation but for settlement, this having been the justification for removing the Indians in the first place. One such applicant was newly arrived Ephraim F. Staley. He had his eye on the empty tracts of virgin prairie just east of town. Originally from Easton, Kansas near Leavenworth, fair haired, blue eyed Staley had served for three years as a Civil War infantry and cavalry soldier in the Kansas 11th Volunteer Regiment, Union Army. During his enlistment he fought Confederate rebels to the southeast, Missouri bushwhackers at the border, and marauding Indians on the high plains. He was mustered out in 1865, keeping his government-issued pistol and holster in exchange for an $8 dock in pay. He thereafter made his way to the nascent village of Wichita. A contemporary account—New Tracks in America, by William A. Bell (1869)— from Salina to the north suggests the Wichita scene as Staley must have found it: “On the open grass land…several broad streets could be seen, marked out with stakes, and crossing each other like a chessboard…On each side of [the] main street were wooden houses of all sizes and in all shapes of embryonic existence. Not a garden fence or tree was anywhere to be seen…The suburbs consisted of tents of all shapes and forms, with wooden doors; shanties, half canvass, half wood. These were owned by squatters upon unsold lots,” Bell, wrote. Staley staked his claim in Section 23 of the Wichita Township, centered on the crest of the hill. He soon found his way into a few obscure pages of Wichita’s early history. 1870 was a federal census year, the eighth decennial since 1790. On June 29th local realtor “Big John” Steele was riding door to door across the countryside, taking the census. He interviewed squatter E.F. Staley at his newly built claim shack. Mr. Staley was recorded as being 22 years old (although he was in fact 27 as determined from other census years), a single man, and a “carpenter & joiner” by trade. Steele thereafter interviewed Staley’s neighbors including bachelor roommates and farm laborers, James F. Humphrey (21 years old) and J.M. Thomas (24 years old). These three gentlemen were to prove their entrepreneurial skills later that winter in real estate buys involving College Hill land. On the morning of December 12, 1870, neighbors Staley and Humphrey saddled up for a ride to the land office in Augusta. They were intent on proving up the property claims they had been sitting CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

HISTORY

STAKERS & FAKERS after ‘proving up’ the preemptor never visits his land again unless for the purpose of selling it. Says the Spanish proverb, ‘Oaths are words, and words are wind.’ Thus this unequivocal perjury is regarded upon the frontier. The general feeling is that it wrongs no one, and that the settlers have a right to the land.” Statistically you might expect at least one of the three bachelors to settle down and become a yeoman farmer. Subsequent College Hill real estate records unfortunately don’t bear that math out. E.F. Staley, having bought his

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

on and protecting from claim jumpers since earlier that summer. They were joined by a preemptor/squatter to the east, Nehemiah F. Conklin. He likewise had spent the previous six months working the grassland into farmland and guarding against interlopers. Humphrey’s room and boarder J.M. Thomas was enlisted to ride along to assist as needed at the land office. Real estate records from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., reveal the foursome’s activities in Augusta with reasonable accuracy. A line had already formed in the land office that winter day. Ahead of the boys from Sedgwick County, speaking to Receiver W.A. Shannon, was Butler County farmer H.W. Lemon. Lemon, a married man with one child, portrayed with pride the farm house, stable and “stone chicken house” he had recently built on his claim. Humphrey, Staley and Conklin dutifully waited their turns, checking their funds, checking their stories, exuding politeness as if renewing car tags a century and a half later. One after another they made application to become the first Anglo-owners of the former Indian hunting grounds, now dotted with a few shacks, scrawny patches of crops, and seedlings on the hill. Ephraim Staley applied to buy the north east quarter of Section 23 (the land north and east of Douglas and Bluff, up to Central and out to Oliver). To prove up his settlement facts Staley introduced his neighbor to the south (south of Douglas), James F. Humphrey. Humphrey agreed under oath that Staley had settled there on the 9th of June (more than required six months, by three days), and that Staley had built a ten by fourteen foot house, dug a well, cultivated the ground, and had planted 250 fruit trees, adding incidentally that these were apple trees, still “a-growing”. The testimony was written down by Mr. Shannon the Receiver. Humphrey, the good neighbor, signed just below his aforementioned affirmation. Next, the obliging neighbor J.M. Thomas vouched that he was personally acquainted with

A claim shack sits in the foreground, near today’s Douglas Avenue in College Hill, circa 1912. The view is from the second story of 3912 E. Douglas. Inset: An unknown settler stands in the door of a claim shack, circa 1900.

ABOVE: WICHITA-SEDGWICK COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM. INSET: COURTESY OF JEFF ROTH

both Staley and Humphrey and that he knew the testimony of the “preceeding” (sic) to be correct and true. Thomas scratched his name on the document where indicated. At closing Receiver Shannon and the Register Andrew Akin split a $2 commission out of Staley’s $200 payment. The neighborly cooperation that December morning was pervasive. Thomas and Humphrey thereafter vouched for their neighbor to the east, Conklin (Crown Heights); and Staley and Thomas vouched for their neighbor to the south, Humphrey (College Hill). Curiously or conveniently, all three hopeful buyers seemed to have built just about the same sized house, plowed about the same amount of ground, planted the same or similar trees, all in about the same amount of time. Their presentations were made with such alacrity that one wondered if they had rehearsed everything by fireside the night before. Each paid the requisite $200.00 and the public servants received their dutiful commissions, if not other sub rosa gratuities. The young entrepreneurs rode home that day with Land Certificates numbered 121, 122, and 123 securely tucked in their saddle bags. In time

these certificates would be exchanged for the land Patents arriving back from Washington. History does not record what the obliging witness J.M. Thomas received for his testimoniums. This sort of nineteenth century College Hill neighborliness was viewed by others with suspicion and cynicism. The Wichita Eagle on April 12, 1872 reported to its readers what was being said in Topeka following a recent grand jury’s disclosures: “We learn that a good portion of the time consumed by the grand jury has been in the investigation of fraudulent entries of land in Southern Kansas, and the result of their investigation has proved that at least two-thirds of the land entries made at Wichita and Augusta have been made by fraud and purjury (sic). A full statement of the facts, we are informed, will be forwarded to the land commissioner at Washington for his action. – Topeka Commonwealth.” Land speculation had long been a tradition in Kansas, dating back to the first Territorial days, including Topeka’s own surrounds. A traveling journalist, Albert D. Richardson, observed the practices of the time in Beyond the Mississippi, reporting that “In three cases out of four,

160 acres for $200 in December, sold it in April to a Pennsylvania immigrant farmer for $600. Staley thereafter ventured further west to Washington Territory to ply his carpenter skills in the construction trade. N. F. Conklin and J.F. Humphrey likewise sold out in short order with similar financial success. Even J.M. Thomas got in the game (northeast of Central and Oliver); he bought in at $200 and sold out at $600, two days later. So much for the credibility of their signed Affidavits obtained from the National Archives in which each had sworn they had, “…not settled upon and improved said land to sell the same on speculation, but in good faith to appropriate it to his own exclusive use or benefit…” While these entrepreneurial young men may have spent the summer and fall of 1870 on the hill “proving up” it appears their presence was mostly for the purpose of finding financial reward, not permanent residency. The distinction of being the first residents of College Hill lay right around the corner…or furrow, as it were.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JUNE 2009

KIDS

AT THE DRIVE IN

A night of popcorn, previews, & twinkling stars at Hyde Elementary.

Photos and text by BARRY OWENS

ne starry night late last month, a few days after school was let out for the summer, the playground at Hyde Elementary school was full once more. Though crowded, it was perhaps the stillest it has ever been. Youngsters lounged on lawn chairs or on blankets, munched on popcorn, or quietly fidgeted in their parents laps. On this night, all the action in the playground was on the big screen. It was “drive in” night at Hyde, an improbable first for the school, and quite a spectacle (Yes, that was Adam Sandler’s giant mug you saw projected against the side of the building at First and Glendale). The screening was the brainchild of principal Heather Eubank, who modeled it after the driveway screenings she and her family sometimes enjoy at their Crown Heights home. “On a much smaller scale, of course,” Eubank said. “We only use one sheet.” For this screening, Eubank sewed together six sheets (“queen size”) and attached them with grommets to PVC pipe. The screen was then lifted into place against the side of the building and secured by lines running to the roof. “They’re going to stand it up, right there,” a parent explained to his child as they deployed their lawn chairs while parent volunteers were hoisting the screen into place. “It is going to be like you’re in the front row of the theater.”

Joshua, Laura and Olivia Drouhard take in the previews.

The film, “Bedtime Stories” was projected from equipment set up on a scaffolding. Sound was broadcast through an open FM radio band (Yes, that was Adam Sandler yukking it up that you heard if you were driving past with the dial on 87.7). For parent Jennifer Rinn, the screen-

Jennifer Rinn feeds her son, Brody.

ing was a welcome chance to get out and see a movie with her infant son, Brody. Like most parents, going to the theater with a baby is not a feat she would normally attempt. “This might even be iffy,” she said. “We’ll see.” Eubank too was nervous. There was

no no time for a test run. Dusk was settling, the audience was seated, and it was showtime. Her husband, Scott, pushed a few buttons and the familiar FBI warning popped up on the big screen. It worked. Eubank seemed inspired anew. “Lets play the previews,” she said.

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Sssssst .... BANG! Fireworks Fun or a Nuisance? As the Fourth looms, police want to hear from the neighborhood. BY BARRY OWENS It is a spirited bunch here in the old neighborhood where Halloween is a full production, the Christmas season rides in on a trolley and the Fourth of the July sometimes sounds like a battlefield. As Independence Day looms, community police are looking for cues from the neighborhood on how stringent to be on enforcement and if there may be specific areas where they need to focus more attention. “Each year we get a couple of people that call in about the fireworks and it seems to really be an issue with them,” said Wichita police officer John Ryan, who is the community police officer for the College Hill and Uptown area. “We also get several calls from other people and they are upset that we are not letting people enjoy the holiday.” Residents are invited to respond to an online questionnaire on fireworks enforcement on the city’s Web site, www.wichita.gov. Go to the Wichita Police link and then

FIREWORKS QUESTIONS ❚ Is there a problem with fireworks on your block? ❚ Is there a problem on another block that effects you? ❚ On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate the past level of enforcement? (1=not enough, 3=just right, 5=too much). ❚ How important of an issue is this to you, personally? ❚ Would you like to see more or less enforcement of fireworks laws?

Firecrackers sold within the city limits are legal to set off in College Hill. That doesn’t mean that all residents enjoy watching or hearing them, police say.

FILE PHOTO

click on Beat 31. Alternately, residents can email Ryan with the answers to the questions listed in the box at right. Submitters are not required to leave a name or address. “I want to get a feel for what the neighborhood feels about the holiday,” Ryan said.

Armed with that information, Ryan said, the neighborhood beat officers can be better ready to respond. “I feel like we can kind of take care of people with ongoing issues,” Ryan said. “We want to try to make it safe, but we don’t want to go overboard.”

Respondants are not required to give their name, but they are asked to provide the street name and hundred block of their residence. They can also confidentially list addresses where fireworks have been a problem in the past. Answers and comments should be submitted to: jtryan@wichita.gov, or 350-3420.

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