Viewer’s Guide 2001 Topeka, KS Viewer’s Guide 2001 Produced by KTWU, this television series has been made possible thanks to financial assistance from the Kansas Humanities Council, AAA of Kansas, Footprints of Lawrence; Blanche Bryden Foundation; the Southwestern Bell Foundation, and from the Friends of KTWU. Written and edited by Amanda Shaw, Scott Williams and Dave Kendall (c) 2001 KTWU/Channel 11, Topeka, Kansas Table of Contents Page number Introduction . .1 Program #1401 - Big Springs to the Bowersock Dam The Victory Highway: KC Star Columnist Jim Fisher on U.S. Highway 40 . .6 Kansas Springs: Statewide Kansas Geological Survey Project, Big Springs . .6 The Bowersock Dam: Reflections on an Industrial Revolution, Lawrence . .7 Program #1402 - Lawrence to Atchison Circle S Ranch: A Family’s Cattle Ranch Becomes a Bed & Breakfast . .9 First City of Kansas: Historic Wayside Tours of Leavenworth . .9 The Atchison Trolley: A Tour of the Historic Homes of the Community . .10 Program #1403 - Horton to Blue Rapids The Golden Eagle: Gaming Casinos on Kansas Indian Reservations . .12 Clean Water Farms: Improving Water Quality on Kansas Farms . .12 County Fairs: The Marshall County Fair in Blue Rapids . .13 Program #1404 - Marshall County to Junction City The WPA: A Survey of Work Projects Administration Sites in Kansas . .15 The Kansas Landscape Arboretum: An Outing with Gus van der Hoeven . .15 The Pennell Collection: Historical Photographs of Junction City . .16 Program #1405 - Chapman to Salina Cars & Drivers: The New Kansas Auto Racing Museum, Chapman . .18 Great Plains Theatre Festival: A Professional Theater Company, Abilene . .18 Blue Heaven Studios: Blues Masters at the Crossroads, Salina . .19 Program #1406 - Hedville to Ellsworth Rolling Hills Refuge: Charlie Walker's Animal Park, Saline County . .21 The Brookville Hotel: A Community Institution Leaves Town . .21 C.O.W.B.O.Y. Culture: Jim Gray & Drover's Mercantile, Ellsworth . .22 Program #1407 - Wilson to Ellis The Midland Hotel: A Community Preservation Project in Wilson . .24 Grassroots Art Center: The Great Post Rock Limestone Wall . .24 Abandoned Farmsteads: "Monuments to the Past" Project . .25 ii Page number Program #1408 - Fort Hays to Great Bend Fort Hays: Living History at “Christmas Past” . .27 Victoria's Colonists: Tracing the Roots of a Local Ranching Family . .27 Lustron Homes: Prefabricated All-Metal Houses, Great Bend . .28 Program #1409 - Larned to Pratt Scouting in Kansas: Central States Scout Museum, Larned . .30 The Biggest Well: Retrieving a Time Capsule, Greensburg . .30 Wildlife Photographers: Images from Wildlife and Parks, Pratt . .31 Program #1410 - Isabel to Wellington Along Route 42: Exploring Rural Communities with Mil Penner . .33 Cotton in Kansas: Harvest Time at a New Cotton Gin, Anthony . .33 Kansas Wheat Festival: Celebrating the Dominant Grain, Wellington . .34 Program #1411 - Ark City to Sedan Bridges of Cowley County: A Guided Tour of Historic Stone Bridges . .36 Cedar Vale & the Big Caney River . .36 Weary Willie: The Emmett Kelly Museum, Sedan . .37 Program #1412 - Caney to Toronto Opothle Yahola: A Memorial Trail Recalls an Indian Exodus . .39 Neewollah: A Fall Festival in Independence . .39 The Cross Timbers: An Endangered Forest in the Chautauqua Hills . .40 Program #1413 - Yates Center to Topeka Courthouse Squares: National Historic District, Yates Center . .42 The Music Box: Saturday Night Live in Burlington . .42 The Kansas Turnpike: Interstate Highways & Our Sense of Place . .43 Related Information . .45 Cover Photo: Along our blue highway tour, an unpaved road provides a scenic view east of Salina off Old 40 Highway. iii The producers of Sunflower Journeys: (from left) Bill Shaffer, Dave Kendall, Jim Kelly, Scott Williams and Amanda Shaw Introduction In February of 2001, the 14th season of ways. He used the phrase “blue highways” to Sunflower Journeys hit the air across describe these roads, which highway maps Kansas. Broadcast on all public television often depict with this color. stations in the state and circulated through numerous schools, resource centers and This approach proved to be so popular with libraries (see the list at the back of this our viewers that we decided to take a similar guide), these programs focus on various journey in our 2001 season. Kansas City aspects of life in the Sunflower State. Star columnist Jim Fisher, who regularly trav- els such secondary roads as he writes about In 1999, we took a “blue highways” tour of small towns and rural residents, helps us Kansas as we followed a meandering route kick off the first program as he reflects upon of back roads to circumnavigate the state. the experience of traveling the rural high- We borrowed this theme from the Missouri ways of Kansas. author William Least Heat-Moon, who wrote about his personal odyssey as he traveled Driving east from Topeka on US Highway 40, around the United States on a backroads we come to the town of Big Springs. Noting tour that avoided interstates and major high- that the springs that provided the town with 1 Sunflower Journeys’ 2001 Two-Lane TourRoute its name have been greatly altered by the Moving on to Marshall County in north cen- construction of an interstate highway, we set tral Kansas, we learn about the Clean Water out with members of the Kansas Geological Farms project of the Kansas Rural Center Survey to explore the fate of other springs in and join a parade through the small town of the state. On down the road in Lawrence, Blue Rapids as we reflect upon the impor- we stop to examine the dam that spans the tance of clean water and county fairs to rural Kansas River and learn how it contributed to areas such as this. We also consider how the industrialization of the city. the WPA left its imprint on this region - and the city of Marysville, in particular — as we Heading up through the northeastern corner take a look at some of the skillfully crafted of Kansas, we explore hidden places like public facilities that were constructed here in Circle S Ranch, a bed-and-breakfast inn the 1930s. located in the wooded hills north of Lawrence and tour a couple of historic Missouri River Heading south, we pass through the Kansas towns. At a riverside park in Leavenworth, Landscape Arboretum, where Gus van der we attend the dedication of newly installed Hoeven, an extension horticulturalist for wayside historical markers, and in Atchison Kansas State University, surveys the diverse we ride along on a trolley tour of historic plant species that add texture to our rural vis- homes. tas. Continuing on across the undulating terrain In Junction City, we stop at the local histori- of northeastern Kansas, we pass through the cal society, where a book signing ceremony Kickapoo Nation, where we visit the Golden celebrates the publication of a new book fea- Eagle Casino and talk with tribal members turing an impressive collection of historic about the local impact of casino gaming. photographs from the collection of Joseph J. Among the more visible benefits they point Pennell. Then we turn west on a two-lane out to us are improved roadways, which are blacktop that parallels Interstate 70. so important to this far-flung community - a Highway 40 once followed this route, but collection of housing clusters scattered out now it’s a county road that primarily services across the rolling hills. local traffic. 2 Passing through Chapman, we stop at the vives in this former cattle town, which hosts new Kansas Auto Racing Museum on the annual gatherings of “yahoos” who kick up a edge of town before moving on to Abilene, storm on main street and keep their vision of where we see how and why the popular the cowboy alive. restaurant called the Brookville Hotel relocat- ed here. Also in Abilene, we meet a couple While Ellsworth affirms its cowtown history, a of energetic actors who moved here from few miles up the road the small town of New York City to establish a professional Wilson celebrates its ethnic heritage, which theater company in a small, remodeled takes center stage each summer during its church. annual Czech Festival. As we discover, the festival is not the only activity that demon- On down the road in Salina, we see how a strates the active community spirit here. church in the heart of this city has been con- Local citizens have embarked upon an ambi- verted into a recording studio by a man from tious project to renovate a large, long- Louisiana who came here to get a fresh start neglected limestone building that once on life. Blue Heaven Studio has attracted served as the showcase hotel for the town. national attention for an annual music festi- val that brings in veteran blues musicians To the north of Wilson in another small town, from across the nation. a project demonstrating a sense of regional community is underway. At the Grassroots Driving west from Salina, we’ve crossed the Arts Center in Lucas (also home to S.P. north-south highway (US 81) that’s widely Dinsmore’s “Garden of Eden”), artisans from considered to be the unofficial dividing line this region of the state have been sculpting between eastern and western Kansas. The “The Great Post Rock Limestone Wall.” The changing vegetation reflects declining levels center’s director, Rosslyn Schultz, describes of precipitation and the land becomes less how the project honors the stoneworking tra- densely populated as we move into the ditions associated with this area. Smoky Hills. Many of the stone farmhouses and barns Not far outside of Salina, Rolling Hills Refuge that once dotted the landscape in this part of sprawls across 500 acres of mid-grass the state have been deserted or destroyed.