A Lonesome Lot

from KANSAS! Magazine | Winter 2020

KANSAS! Photographers

‘A Lonesome Lot’

For Mary Hammond Sly and other Euro-American settlers who arrived in Kansas in the mid-1800s, life was unpredictable and full of loss

Originally from New York, Mary and John Sly had lived a year in Ohio with their two children before journeying in 1857 to homestead in Nemaha County, Kansas Territory. They knew the five-week trip via flatboat and ox-drawn covered wagon would be arduous, but it soon became more difficult than expected as Sly was three-months pregnant with their third child.

The couple had decided to risk the journey because of the land. In a letter to her sister Elizabeth, Sly favorably compared their new 100 acres of Kansas land to familiar locations of their native upstate New York. Before the year was up, she was urging her sister and brotherin-law to join them in Kansas. “If you are coming the sooner the better,” she wrote, “for the country is filling fast and the first settlers have altogether the best chance. No man can hold but 160 acres and they have to be 21.” Sly did sound one note of caution about the mosquito-borne disease then known as “ague” and which we now call malaria. She suggested family ties could help overcome this disease. “If you do have the ague a few weeks we are here and may be able to lend a helping hand.”

But malaria was a serious threat that affected almost every pioneer, including Sly’s family. She had given birth to her third child while suffering from the disease. She “employed a botanical physician, who lives

Author’s Note

My great-greatgrandmother, Mary Hammond Sly, was born in New York in 1822 to parents who believed in educating their daughters as well as their sons. A school teacher before marriage, she faithfully kept journals every year of her life. The only surviving journal, spanning 1894–1900, was in my paternal grandmother’s possession. However, I am fortunate to have copies of several letters she wrote throughout those same years. This article is based on those letters describing her life as a pioneer. four miles from us in Nebraska, he gave 16 pills to be taken in 8 hours and I have not had but one shake since and that was the next day after my little Catherine Elizabeth was born. A good old lady was obliged to officiate as M.D. as the doctor had just gone, thinking I could wait until in the night (I was glad he left though).”

Caring for a husband and three children, all of whom had bouts of malaria, was hard for Sly, who was clearly accustomed to having household help and was distressed at being unable to find it. She eventually hired a 12-year-old girl and paid her three dollars for 10 days of work. The situation was so bad she admitted to her sister that “I was so discouraged as to make threats at one time,” but concluded that admission with her change of heart: “I am not sorry now that we are here.” “The climate,” she wrote, “is rather variable—subject to frequent changes of temperature, but generally dry and little fog or gloomy weather. Winds are generally high, but no more so than is common in all open prairie countries.” She notes that “coal abounds but is not of good quality although it is believed that heavier coal and better veins underlays the country, also that there is an abundance of building stone and limestone, sand and water.” The latter was found in streams and springs or by digging to a depth of 25 to 60 feet. To persuade her sister and brother-in-law to migrate to Kansas, she writes, “The soil is unsurpassed for fertility. On this point it would be hard to exaggerate.”

Unique indoor display of over 200 antique and vintage Christmas Trees.

November 1st through January 3rd

10-4pm Wed-Sat | 1-5pm Sun (785) 887-6148 www.lecomptonkansas.com

But the Kansas land was also gathering a different reputation. By 1858, Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune had dubbed the Kansas Territory “Bleeding Kansas.” The same Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed the Slys into the territory also allowed residents of the potential state to vote whether they would become a free or slave state. A bitter demographic contest ensued between free-state and pro-slavery settlers hoping to swing the vote in their favor.

A staunch abolitionist, Sly watched the political situation and expressed gratitude that the bloodshed in other areas had so far passed by her area of the territory. “Politically this region has been the most favored in the territory. It is strictly true there has been less excitement here than in most portions of Kansas. And this political quiet still continues,” she wrote in May 1858. “We are, I think, located for life, and mean to be contented and happy.”

Their situation, however, was almost immediately undermined by politics. After the defeat of the Lecompton Constitution, which would have brought Kansas into the Union as a slave state, Southern extremists in Congress, backed by President Buchanan, passed a bill to resubmit the state constitution and threatened that if Kansas was made a free territory, the residents would lose 4,000,000 acres of public land grants, meaning the homesteaders would have to buy their land.

Sly characterized the homesteaders’ feelings in an 1858 letter: “Everything seems to go off right since the rejection of the Lecompton Constitution, except for the fiendish revenge manifested by Buchanan’s late proclamation to sell all the surveyed lands in the territory. The people are forming mob laws for their protection—in some places, not here. James Buchanan, unless he repents, will die an unenviable death, unwept, unmourned, and perhaps unhung.”

Kansans would reject the Lecompton Constitution in August, providing a victory for free-staters and abolitionists such as Sly. But soon, she would face a great personal tragedy. In September, their eldest child, five-year-old Cornelia, died of an undetermined ailment. Sly was heartbroken. She described seizures suffered by the little girl, one of which lasted the entire night before her death. “At first I felt that I could not give her up, but she suffered so much I was brought to beg of God to take her out of her misery,” she wrote to her sister Elizabeth.

She told of the elderly woman who helped her make Cornelia’s shroud, and of the Baptist minister who “talked first rate” at her funeral, substituting for their Methodist preacher who was away at a camp meeting. Sly’s faith alone enabled her to get through the loss of her child. “I miss, wherever I turn, her smiling angel face. I have no comfort only on my knees in prayer to God. Still I would not murmur or wish her back. She is now and always will be happy. If she was dear to her earthly parents she is dearer to her Heavenly Father, and He gave her to us only for a short time and now He has seen fit to call her back. My heart says He

doeth all things well. I hope to go to her, but she can never come to me.”

A grieving Sly mentioned that Cornelia was first in the burial ground, “a lonesome lot lying close by our meeting house, right on the open prairie near dwellings…. I send you a lock of Cornelia’s hair. When you look at it remember her and her sorrowing mother.”

As winter approached, her Methodist preacher asked to move his wife and three children in with them for the winter. Sly decided not to allow it because, “Mrs. Clark, is very fond of good things and many of them, and some nice hand to prepare the same betimes.” She remarked that the preacher’s wife “wears only seven hoops all the time and does not see how she could do without. They are in general use here, though not by me. I am becoming weary of following in fashion’s train.”

By December 1861, war had come to Nemaha County, victimizing pioneers caught between anti-slavery Jayhawkers and pro-slavery forces. Each used tactics of terror. Sly had no use for either side. “The Jayhawkers are all around and we are expecting trouble from them as we have been threatened. I have a poor opinion of them, let them be on which side soever. We understand that North Missouri is all in rebellion again. We are afraid that as soon as the river freezes over they will step across into Kansas and make all the destruction possible. They hold such a deadly hatred to Kansas.”

The expected attack from rebels didn’t come until 1864 when Confederate general Sterling Price led an expedition through Missouri in an attempt to force the state to join the Confederacy. In October, as Price and his troops approached what would become the crucial Battle of Westport, Sly observed that “the railroads are all in rebel hands in Missouri, or nearly so, Price in connection with others are playing Smash there. … Every able bodied man is called off after Price. The present hour for Kansas is a critical one indeed. Indians on the south and west, and rebels on the east and both trying to do her all the injury they can, still I hope she will escape a general extermination.”

Price’s defeat at Westport, and then again at the Battle of Mine Creek, ensured relative safety and stability for Kansas until the end of the war in 1865. For a while after that, the area prospered. In the last letter in my possession, dated July 8, 1868, Sly writes that “farms are rising in value very fast, one that … could have [been] bought last year for $2,000 was sold for $5,000 in cash this summer.” However, her hopes may have been fading that her sister and brotherin-law would move to Kansas: “Now Charles and Lib tell us if you mean to come or not.”

They eventually did, but the letters and journals detailing that settlement in Kansas have been lost. Our family has only the record of Mary Hammond Sly as an early Nemaha County pioneer. She lived another 39 years, dying in 1907 at nearly 85 years of age.

Settling

Nemaha County

The first Euro-American settlement of Nemaha County began in 1854 after passage of the KansasNebraska Act as newcomers could claim 160 acres of farm land, then pay $1.25 per acre once the land survey was completed. The county then, as it is now, was primarily agricultural.

In 1860, the year before the Civil War began, the county had a population of 2,436, but the population rose quickly after the Civil War ended as the Homestead Act of 1862 promised 160 acres of land to any head of household who would live on and improve the land for five years. By 1870, the population of Nemaha County had more than tripled. The county’s population rose each decade until it peaked at 20,376 in 1900 and then declined every decade since, now registering approximately 10,200.

Source: History of Nemaha County, Kansas, Ralph Tennal, 1916; U.S. Census Bureau.

AL

Long before Euro-American settlers built soddies and farmhouses in Kansas, Indigenous people populated the area and built houses with native materials. Thanks to oral and written history, the connected memory of living tribe members, and the diligent work of archaeologists, we know what those structures looked like and roughly how they functioned in day-to-day life. These structures were successfully used for thousands of years and continued to be built for all the same reasons people still build houses today: comfort, safety, and community.

WICHITA GRASS HOUSES

At the age of 79, Stuart Owings, an elder with the Wichita tribe living on the Wichita reservation in Anadarko, Oklahoma, thinks he may be one of the last living Wichita with first-hand knowledge of grass house building.

In 1975, Owings helped orchestrate the building of a grass house north of Anadarko. The biggest challenge, he says, was the gathering of the materials, which consisted of large pine poles, hundreds of locust and willow branches that had to be handstripped of bark, and finally, a huge supply of long-stem reeds to create the shingle-like thatch for the outside of the structure.

Owings notes there is some disagreement among Wichita elders about what type of material the Wichita used over the 500 years that they are believed to have built these homes in locations such as along the great bend of the Arkansas River, west of the Flint Hills near present-day McPherson.

“Some of them say you can use grass,” says Owings, who goes on to explain why he disagrees. “Years ago, some explorers who lived with the Wichita said they had domesticated a lot of wild animals—deer for one—that wandered around in the village. If you’ve got a house made of grass, what’s going to happen? They’ll eat it if they run out of food.”

Owings believes that the beehive-shaped “grass houses” were most commonly built with reeds, some of which are called “swamp grass” and could easily be found growing near rivers. These reeds are much sturdier than prairie grass, and they wouldn’t have attracted deer.

“Nothing will eat it because it’s too tough and there’s no food value,” Owings says. Traditionally, Owings notes, the Wichita would have used cedar for the large load-bearing poles, as cedar lasts longer and resists insects. “We contacted some Pueblo men, and they brought us a load of pine from New Mexico,” he says, detailing the building of the house near Anadarko.

About 40 volunteers assisted in building that grass house. “We got the bending forks set first, four on each side. They’re about eight foot apart—depends on how big the grass house is—then we laid poles across [the tops of] each of those forks.” Once this center structure was created, Owings said they set a larger ring of thinner poles outside this structure, bending them inward. “All these poles meet at the center up at the top of the grass house, and they’re tied to one or two—or sometimes I’ve seen three—hoops of heavy grape vines,” explains Owings. During the building process, two doorways at least six feet high were left open on either side of the structure, one facing east and once facing west, for spiritual purposes. “Mornings they’d pray to the east,” says Owings.

The black locust and willow branches were then secured perpendicular to the pine poles to create a sort of scaffolding, “about two feet apart, all the way to the top,” says Owings, “and the grass bundles are laid against those.”

While the men of the tribe would cut and set the poles, it was often the women and children who gathered the swamp grass and tied the bundles to the house, climbing the framework as they went. Starting at the bottom, the bundles were laid over top of each other, much like shingles, with the swamp grass about six inches thick near the ground. “As you get up higher on the grass house, the grass can be eight or ten inches thick. That’s why the grass house is cool in the summer and warm in the winter,” Owings says. A hole was left at the top for smoke from the cooking and heating fire to escape, though Owings says the tribe would’ve cooked and even slept outside during good weather. With regular maintenance, the grass houses could last for years, shedding rain and standing up to the winds of the Great Plains. Inside, bunk beds were located around the edge of the house. Higher up, the ribs of the house were used to hang supplies or hides, and to dry jerky.

Though the central support poles of the grass house were always aligned with the points of the compass, Owings was taught that they had another, symbolic meaning. “Some say those are directional poles,” says Owings. “But where the four poles met, one of my grandpas told me that was like man laying on top of his grass house—two of those poles were the legs and two were the arms. They prayed to God to protect their home, and he said that’s what those poles are.”

The grass houses of the Wichita were built to accommodate extended families. “Usually more than one family,” says Owings. “They would have grandmas and grandpas and in-laws and whoever they had room for.” When the Wichita had to leave their villages for hunting trips, they’d hide tools and other valuables in pits dug near the houses, and they’d camp in lean-tos or tipis with wooden poles and animal hides carried to the hunt.

PAWNEE EARTH LODGES

For much of the previous thousand years, the Pawnee were one of the largest and most powerful tribes of the Central Plains, with territory stretching from central Kansas up through Nebraska. The Republican River in Kansas is named for the Kitkahahki (Kit-KA-HAW-kee) band of Pawnees who were

To learn more about Indigenous housing, our experts recommend the book Plains Earthlodges: Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives edited by Donna C. Roper and Elizabeth P. Pauls, available through the University of Alabama Press, and Archaeology on the Great Plains, edited by W. Raymond Wood, available through the University Press of Kansas.

SEE ORIGINAL KANSAS HOUSING

Pawnee Indian Museum State Historical Site 480 Pawnee Trail, Republic, KS 66964 (785) 361-2255 The Pawnee Indian Museum is built over the archeological site of the remains of a Pawnee earth lodge.

Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead 13800 Switzer Rd, Overland Park, KS (913) 897-2360 Deanna Rose has a reproduction of an earth lodge and tipis open to visitors.

given the name “Republicans,” by French traders in the late 1700s. Virginia A. Wulfkuhle, former public archaeologist with the Kansas Historical Society and current editor of the Kansas Anthropologist newsletter, has spent many years studying the Pawnee, who built large earth lodges that held many people and even horses, when necessary.

“Those structures were very impressive,” she emphasizes. “Big. Some were 40 feet across. When you think about how much timber that took, and sod, and the weight that understructure had to bear—tons—they knew what they were doing.” The Pawnee earth lodge had a robust frame of wooden poles and stringers covered with branches, dirt and sod, with one doorway that usually faced east. The lodges held extended families of as many as 30 to 50 people and were substantial enough to hold young men who perched on top to watch for approaching enemies.

“The earth lodge house on the plains made a lot of sense, or they wouldn’t have been doing it for such a long time,” says Wulfkuhle. “I always think the settlers who came and built soddies and dugouts could have taken a cue from the Native Americans, but they resisted.”

Every able-bodied person in the tribe helped to build the earth lodges, says Wulfkuhle. “Everybody worked on it, but in many Native American cultures—including the Pawnee—the women owned the houses,” she explains. “The earth lodge itself is a microcosm of how they viewed the cosmos. Their whole spiritual concept was reflected in the arrangement of the earth lodge. It was the semi-cardinal directions that were important. Each of those semi-cardinal directions had meaning.” Each post she says, was assigned a set of spiritual associations. “They had a color, an animal, a kind of corn, a tree, the elements of climate like wind and lightning, clouds and thunder,” Wulfkuhle explains. “And in the house, the activities were divided into areas—there were certain things you would do in one area of the lodge but not in others. The cooking was done centrally, and there were storage pits in the floor, too.” Additional storage was found underneath raised beds located around the edge of the lodge.

The earth lodge was a place to sleep, eat and live during bad weather, and the extended entryway could even hold horses. With regular maintenance, the Pawnee earth lodge would last ten years or more. Like many people indigenous to the plains, the Pawnee would leave their earth lodges for weeks at a time to hunt bison, and during these times they would camp in tipis.

KANSA EARTH LODGES

Lauren W. Ritterbush, professor of archaeology at Kansas State University, says that the traditional structures of the Kansa tribe were bark-covered houses, influenced by the materials available to them in their original wooded homeland east of the Mississippi River. As they moved into the plains and what would become Kansas in the late 1600s, the Kansa began covering their wooden structures with sod as opposed to bark, and their traditional earth lodge evolved from an oblong shape to a rounder one. The earliest Kansa archaeological sites in Kansas are located in Doniphan County along the Missouri River. “Then roughly around 1790, they moved to Blue Earth Village, which was just outside of Manhattan,” says Ritterbush. “We believe at that point they’re moving probably because of animosities with other tribes.”

Their new site was a hospitable location near the confluence of the Kansas River and the Blue River, says Ritterbush. Life near modern-day Manhattan worked out well for the Kansa. “At Blue Earth Village we believe there were about 160 houses altogether, so it was a good-sized village,” says Ritterbush. “They had a population at that time probably between 1200 and 1900 people, and they all lived in that one village. However they did have enemies. The Pawnee to the north were their enemies, so they were threatened by raids occasionally.”

Today, modern Manhattan has completely covered the Blue Earth Village site. “We’re really fortunate that in 1819, a group of scientists who were traveling with Steven Long up the Missouri River were sent up the Kansas River to visit the Kansa at Blue Earth Village, and they had two artists along with them. So we have some really good descriptions of earth lodges, and also the first-known illustrations of earth lodges from anywhere on the Great Plains are from that actual village,” says Ritterbush. From these illustrations we know the Kansa earth lodges were built by setting a smaller ring of large, ten-foot or so poles in the center, with beams connected to a larger, but shorter, outer ring of poles. Like the Pawnee lodges, the Kansas’ lodges held a firepit in the center of the house with a smoke hole in the roof. The outside of the lodges was covered with dirt and sod. Eventually, grass would have grown over the lodge, further strengthening the structure.

Also like the Pawnee, the Kansa farmed corn, squash and beans, and would dry the corn and squash to eat throughout the winter. They also left their village for bison hunts, camping in tipis. “They would be gone for a lengthy time—certainly weeks if not months. They took a lot of things with them, but they would also store a lot of food in deep pits under the ground,” says Ritterbush.

THE VISITATION

Oral tradition holds, and archeological evidence supports, that the Pawnee and Wichita tribes are distantly related. “The Pawnees and the Wichitas are very close,” says Wichita elder Stuart Owings. “We still carry on the same practices we did a thousand years ago with the visitation.”

Each year the Pawnee and Wichita come together and camp for a couple of weeks, switching back and forth from Wichita to Pawnee land. (Both tribes are now located in Oklahoma.) Each year the tribes meet, share meals, exchange gifts, dance, pray, and honor each other. The designated “tobacco man” from the visiting tribe makes up a pouch of ceremonial smoking tobacco to be presented to the leader of the hosting tribe. The tobacco is then smoked and shared ceremonially. “It makes a complete circle with the Wichita on the south side and the Pawnees on the north side,” says Owings, who served as the Wichita tobacco man for many years. Plans for the following year’s visitation are made before saying their goodbyes and pledging to meet again in the next year.

of Kansas

Legends, photos and details of five historic, quirky, stunning or otherwise interesting homes in Kansas.

By Debbie Leckron Miller

ven after 150 years, Dr. Brewster Higley’s humble cabin still stands sturdy at its home on the range. It’s the site where the frontier doctor penned his legendary ode, beloved today as Kansas’ state song and as a frontier anthem nationwide.

Higley homesteaded on the Smith County prairie in north-central Kansas, where he built his simple log and stone cabin in 1872 on the banks of West Beaver Creek. Moved by the grassland beauty, wealth of wildlife and spacious skies that surrounded him, Higley wrote the six-verse poem he called “My Western Home.”

Tucked away and forgotten, the handwritten poem was discovered by a visitor when it fell out of a book inside Higley’s cabin in 1873. Two area newspapers published the piece, a friend set it to music, and a local band performed Higley’s song, which became known as “Home on the Range.” Its fame galloped across the country as pioneers and roving cowboys spread the tune along cattle trails and to towns throughout the West. Eventually, the Kansas legislature made it the official state song in 1947.

Today, the inspiration for the song remains rooted in the prairie 18 miles northwest of the town of Smith Center, not far from the Kansas-Nebraska border. A carved limestone sign on K-8, named Home on the Range Highway, points the way west to Higley’s homestead. Rolling grasslands and fertile farm fields frame the 240 acres where, surprisingly, the doctor’s logand-stone cabin remains on its original site.

Repurposed as a chicken house over the years, the aging cabin got new life in 2013, thanks to a fundraising and restoration campaign, spurred by a benefit concert by cowboy singer Michael Martin Murphey. The three exterior walls made of limestone and one of logs were restored. Inside remains starkly simple, with a handmade table and benches, chair, stove and loft, reminiscent of Higley’s days. A photo display details the refurbishing of the home that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“There’s a bench outside the cabin,” says El Dean Holthus, local driving force behind the restoration. “If you sit quietly out there, you can hear so many sounds of nature, maybe see deer or turkeys, and you get a sense of the peace that Higley felt there.”

Holthus, 87, has lived his whole life six miles from the cabin, in a house his father built in 1914. Holthus’ aunt and uncle owned the “Home on the Range” property and saw to it, despite tempting offers, that the original cabin was never moved from its site. It’s now privately owned and managed by a community foundation, but is open free to the public, daily.

Holthus, foundation president Mark McClain and other volunteers oversee the property.

“Ours is the only combination log and limestone cabin remaining on its original site,” Holthus says. “But more impressively, visitors can sing that famous song on the site where it was written! There aren’t many places like that.”

A two-mile nature trail meanders through the land. Interpretive signs along the way tell about the native grass, wildflowers, historic bridge, pioneer families and the awardwinning “Home on the Range” movie. Expansion work begins soon on additional hiking and biking trails, bridges and eventually an amphitheater.

“I want people to explore the trails, enjoy the prairie and the creek, and get a feel for what inspired Dr. Higley,” says Mark McClain, who never tires of stopping by the site several times a week.

“Visitors are really impressed with the cabin and its restoration,” McClain adds. “It gives them a real sense of Higley’s life when the song was created.”

Visitors are on their own to tour the property, but Holthus loves meeting up with people who come from all over the world.

“They walk in and just stand in the center of the cabin and look around, very respectful like it’s a church. When I see the reverence and appreciation they have for history, that’s my greatest reward,” Holthus says. “Many break out in song in the cabin or on the grounds.”

Holthus, though, has a favorite verse of “Home on the Range”:

“How often at night when the heavens are bright With the light from the glittering stars Have I stood there amazed and asked as I gaze If their glory exceeds that of ours.”

For Holthus, that stanza gives him a sense of the peace Higley felt while at the cabin and the inspiration behind the song.

“That’s my favorite!” he says. “I don’t care if someone is from the city or country, when they hear the words, ‘Oh, give me a home,’ they’ll always think of their childhood home.”

Honorary Home Picks

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE MUSEUM

Independence The famous Laura Ingalls Wilder Home sits on a homestead just 13 miles southwest of Independence. The one log cabin preserves the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House books, and her family, who lived in the home in 1870. The home is also the birthplace of Carrie Ingalls, Laura’s younger sister, the third child to Charles and Caroline Ingalls. The cabin was reconstructed in 1977 and again in 2018 to reflect Laura’s own descriptions of the cabin and is now open to the public. The museum also features a one-room schoolhouse, post office and farm house from the same time period. littlehouseontheprairiemuseum.com

CARRY A. NATION HOME

Medicine Lodge This historic site was once home to a prominent woman from the Prohibition era. Here, Carry A. Nation devoted her life to helping the less fortunate and advocating against the use of alcohol by organizing the Medicine Lodge chapter of Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). After witnessing many saloons ignore Kansas’ law banning the non-medicinal sale of alcohol, Nation took it upon herself to enforce the law by destroying saloons around the state. The first saloon Nation destroyed was in Kiowa, Kansas. The Carry A. Nation Home sits within the Medicine Lodge Stockade Museum. Although Nation’s home is privately owned, those who visit the Stockade Museum can also tour Nation’s home. medicinelodgestockade.org/exhibits/

WARKENTIN HOUSE MUSEUM

Newton The Warkentin House Museum in southern Kansas was once home to Bernhard and Wilhelmina Warkentin. Bernhard, an entrepreneur and successful miller, ventured from Russia to the U.S. before eventually building a home with Wilhelmina in Newton. Bernhard played a significant role in the community as he was one of three founders of Bethel College. He also played a major role in turning Kansas into a “wheat state.” The house is owned by the city, and tours are available to the public. Nearly 80 percent of the original furnishings remain in the home. WINTER 2020 warkentinhouse.org | KANSAS! MAGAZINE 49

By Christine Steinkuehler

ewis Fayette “LF” Garlinghouse was the right man, at the right place and in the right time—a Kansas homebuilder who created a model for popular, affordable homes at the beginning of a housing boom in the early 20th century.

On July 28, 1906, the Topeka Daily Herald announced the opening of the Garlinghouse Realty Company at 608 Kansas Ave. Soon, this new firm was filling the paper’s real estate section with advertisements for homes, commercial properties and land for sale. For the fastest growing business in Kansas—For best houses—For least money—For any kind of investment— SEE Garlinghouse Realty.

It wasn’t entirely commercial bravado. By 1913, LF Garlinghouse had obtained and platted a tract of land west of town named “Edgewood Park.” Here, he began selling lots and building bungalow-style homes. In 1916, LF released Bungalow Homes, a plan book for constructing houses that combined aspects of standard tract plans and customized options. This first book was predominantly photos and blueprints for 1- to 1½-story bungalows that Garlinghouse had built in the Edgewood Park area, making it a showcase of sorts for Topeka homes. To make the book possible, LF hired designer Iva Lievance to photograph homes and draw their layouts. A team of draftsmen would then draw customization plans to order.

By the 1930s, Garlinghouse had built over 6,000 homes in Topeka, and his business transitioned from building and selling real estate to primarily publishing plan books. Each book would continue to include a photograph, floor plan, description of the house, and approximate cost. The blueprints, which could be purchased for $5 to $10, detailed all materials and quantities needed for construction.

Garlinghouse homes were known—and popular— for their large living rooms, breakfast nooks and brick fireplaces with built-in bookcases. Garlinghouse is also recognized for popularizing the airplane bungalow, a predominantly one-story home featuring a prominently raised secondfloor porch or room with numerous windows. By, 1945 Garlinghouse had sold more than 600,000 plan books worldwide, surpassing many of his rivals such as Sears and Wardway Homes. The company continues to operate today and still offers a range of home plans.

The Garlinghouse legacy is different from the heritage of the other homes featured in this story. Whereas the other homes are celebrated for their uniqueness, the Garlinghouse homes are the embodiment of comparatively affordable and stylish housing. In that sense, Garlinghouse homes are not an iconic Kansas home, but rather the democratization of the ideal of an iconic home.

Honorary Home Picks (Continued)

SILO-ECO HOME

Greensburg After a tornado struck the town of Greensburg in 2007, the devastation was evident. Over 95 percent of the town was destroyed, but one of the few things left standing was the grain silo. The silo became a symbol of hope during hard times and was later made into an energy and water efficient home known as the Silo-Eco Home. The home is now private but was originally owned by Greensburg GreenTown, a nonprofit organization, and designed by Armour Homes. It features 6-inch concrete walls, and its cylindrical shape can withstand a tornado’s high winds. greensburgks.org/visitors/ photo-tour/greensburggreentown-silo-eco-home/view

1889 McINTEER VILLA

Atchison Considered one of the most picturesque homes in Atchison, the 1889 McInteer Villa sits on a hill, like many in the area, and features an intricate Victorian-style architectural design. It was built in 1889 for Irish immigrant John McInteer for $14,000—nearly half a million dollars by today’s standards. The 131 year-old home, widely believed to be haunted, is available for tours and overnight stays. Guests who dare to visit can go to the website to purchase one hour, self-guided tours that will run from September 26 to October 31. Tickets are $10 per person. 1889mcinteervilla.com

By Patricia E. Ackerman

owering above the corner of First and Vine, the Lebold Mansion in Abilene anchors decades of city history and connects the community to one of its very first structures. Here, on the west bank of Mud Creek, Timothy and Eliza Hersey made their home in a one-room dugout in 1857. Eliza gave birth to the first EuroAmerican settler born in Dickinson County and is believed to have selected the town’s name, which means “land of meadows,” “land of tall grass,” and “land of streams,” from Luke 3:1.

The Herseys went on to construct a two-story cabin above their dugout home, along with a stable, a store, and a gristmill. Their property became an important stop along the Overland & Butterfield stagecoach line. Eliza served food to visitors while Timothy worked as a tracker, tended horses, and sold hay. Soon, the Union Pacific Railroad line would pass near their farm, carrying cattle from the Northern terminus of the Chisholm Trail to the East Coast.

In 1869, Conrad H. Lebold, looking for opportunity, traveled to Kansas from Ohio. In partnership with Jacob Augustine, Lebold purchased the Abilene town site for $3,000 and established the National Union Land Office, which later became the banking firm of Lebold, Fisher & Company.

In 1880, Lebold also purchased the Hersey’s 100-acre farm, located at the newly platted corner of First and Vine. He tore down their two-story log cabin but left the original dugout home, which became the foundation for a 65-foot cupola tower looking out over the growing city. Native Kansas limestone, transported from Russell and Ellis counties, formed the walls and tower of the massive structure. Constructed at a cost of $118,000, the 20-room mansion boasted 12-foot ceilings, inlaid floors, four flights of stairs, and bathrooms with hot and cold running water. The Abilene Gazette would tout the newly finished mansion looking over the “dreamy little stream of Mud Creek” as “the finest residence in Central Kansas.”

Lebold went on to serve in the Kansas State Legislature and as mayor of Abilene. During the economic depression of 1889, however, he lost his bank, his home, and his extensive land holdings. He left Abilene for Kansas City and later moved to Washington state, where he died of heart failure in 1906.

In a court-ordered sheriff ’s sale, the Lebold Mansion was sold to George C. Sterl, who lived in the home until his death in 1918.

From 1926–1945, the title to the Lebold Mansion was held by businessman Cleyson L. Brown and the Brown Memorial Foundation. Through the Depression and World War II, Brown not only based his telephone company at the mansion but also ran a boarding house for working girls, an orphans’ home and an old folks’ home there.

Between 1945 and 1972, the Lebold Mansion was divided up into 17 separate rental units that shared 9 kitchens and 4 baths. In 1958, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers redesigned the “dreamy little stream of Mud Creek” into a flood-control project that changed the view from the Lebold Mansion tower considerably.

Such were the conditions under which Kurt and Kathy Kessinger purchased the mansion in 1972. The Kessingers’ stewardship led to the National Park Service’s designating the Lebold Mansion a National Historic Site of architectural and historical significance. In 1974, Fred and Merle Vahsholtz purchased the property and embarked on a massive two-year restoration, bringing the Lebold Mansion back to its elegant single-family design. In addition to extensive interior preservation, they rebuilt the tower, constructed a carriage house, and surrounded the property with ornate wrought iron fencing. Between 1976 and 2000, thousands of visitors from around the world experienced guided tours of the renamed Lebold-Vahsholtz Mansion. Each room of the home was filled with Merle Vahsholtz’s extensive antique and tapestry collections. Tours began in the basement with a visit to the Hersey’s original dugout home, continued through each room on three separate floors, and culminated with an invitation to view Abilene through the windows of the tower room. After the Vahsholtzes’ deaths, the home transferred ownership three times before being ordered to a sheriff ’s sale in 2019. Currently owned by the Dickinson County Bank, the Lebold Mansion waits patiently through uniquely challenging times for the next phase of its future to unfold.

By Beccy Tanner

ecognized as one of America’s most gifted 20thcentury architects, Frank Lloyd Wright built more than 500 homes, museums, places of worship and office buildings, eight of them included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. In Wichita, at 255 N. Roosevelt, Wright also created a tribute to domestic comfort.

Known as the Allen House, this home exemplifies how Wright’s genius was applied to the “element of daily living,” according to Howard Ellington, restoration architect and director of the Allen House Foundation. “People can come here and see the furniture Wright designed. We have every piece of furniture that he designed, except for one that belongs to one of the heirs. All of our glass windows are intact—they weren’t sold off during the Depression, which a lot of people did to survive. The house is very complete and that’s what people find so enchanting.”

Ellington says touring the home is akin to “going to a concert to absorb music,” view a famous painting or read a classic piece of literature. The Allen House remains one of Wright’s most intact and complete projects. Partly because of these reasons—as well as its distinct horizontal bricks— USA Today listed the Allen House as one of the nation’s top 10 Wright-designed homes. Wichita residents Henry J. and Elsie Allen commissioned the home in 1915.

“They weren’t just any family,” Ellington explains. “He owned the Wichita Beacon and was a governor of Kansas and later, U.S. senator.”

Finished in 1918, the house was one of the last Prairie-style projects (with a low roofline and sweeping horizontal aspects) that Wright completed, but it retains a contemporary feel.

“It is still considered a modern house,” Ellington notes. “Wright was so forward in his ability to design. He was one of those rare, creative people who are born with inventiveness.”

Ellington says Wright’s spirit can be felt during a tour of the home.

“There is an emotional connection, and then there is an intellectual connection,” Ellington notes. “You can see it on people’s faces. They come in and then they start picking up on how Wright did things—such as the cross ventilation of the house and how air flowed.”

The Allen House is open by appointment. Reservations can be made online by going to flwrightwichita.org.

“This is not a secret,” Ellington says. “It is something we want everybody to know. It is an important work of art by the greatest architect of the 20th century.”

By Justin Lister

he William Allen White House in Emporia, Kansas, is a beautiful 19th-century home with a surprising history that influenced the path of Kansas and the United States to this very day.

The home, originally built by a lawyer, Mr. Almerin Gillett, was later bought by William Allen White after the stock market crash of the 1890s. The 3,000-square-foot home was initially a Queen Anne–style home, but after a chimney fire in January 1920, it was renovated into a CraftsmanTudor style, according to Ken Wilk, site administrator for the Red Rocks State Historic Site.

The home is filled with artifacts and collectibles gathered by generations of the White family. Wilk, who has worked as a site administrator for the past 7 years, notes his favorite room is White’s study room.

“It’s his room!” Wilk says. “All the features reflect his personality. Whenever I am in that room, I can imagine him there with some of his friends having a good time or working on one of his projects.”

White was a writer and later the owner and editor of the Emporia Gazette. In 1896, White wrote an influential editorial titled “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” that earned international coverage. It argued against the populist movement of the time and called out leaders for letting the Kansas economy fall behind neighboring states. The article also grabbed the attention of Republicans, and it helped

President McKinley win the election. This led to White becoming a friend and adviser to Teddy Roosevelt and seven other U.S. presidents.

Five presidents visited the residence, including Teddy Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover, William Howard Taft and Calvin Coolidge, according to Wilk.

White and his wife, Sallie, were also known for their love of entertaining guests, Wilk says. The two filled the house with socialites, actors, politicians and locals.

“William Allen and Sallie were very outgoing people who loved to have guests at the house. With William Allen’s notoriety, many famous visitors came to Emporia to see them,” Wilk says.

Soon, Emporia earned a reputation as a quintessential Midwest town, and the Gazette was often looked to for the political perspective of White and the Kansans he represented. White went on to win two Pulitzers and was on the cover of Time magazine more than once. It was clear he had gained stature as a problem solver and political strategist.

After White’s death in 1944, his son William Lindsay White lived in the home and continued to run the Emporia Gazette. In 2001 the family donated the home to the State of Kansas, and it opened to the public in 2005.

Despite its renovation and slight modernization in the early 1920s, the home today sits just as it did then, still adorned with period furniture and artifacts from around the world, Wilk says. Notable rooms in the home include the living room, dining room and White’s study. Hundreds of books remain on the shelves—only a small portion of White’s collection. The dining room, a surprisingly small space, opens through double doors to the backyard, a spot for many family dinners. Upstairs in the study sits White’s desk, accompanied by a travel typewriter and fountain pen. Wrapping one corner of the home is a covered porch with an outdoor telephone. White apparently got so many phone calls that he had one wired outside.

The home is open to tours Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m.–5 p.m., April through the last Saturday in October. Cost is $5 for adults and $3 for kids. Visit www.kshs.org/red_rocks for more details.