Author: wabaunseecomuseum
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The Birth of a Town: Alma
Alma, Kansas is a thriving small town located in the center of Wabaunsee County and serves as the county’s seat of government. The town’s history dates to the middle 1860s when the town was first settled and almost simultaneously declared the county seat. In 1856 Gottlieb Zwanziger, a civil engineer, had settled on Mill Creek, building an…
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Herman Richter
Herman Richter was born in Germany in 1854 and immigrated to America in 1879 with his brother, Reinhold Richter and sister, Mrs. William Schroeder. Richter established a home in Alma and engaged in the cabinet-making profession. As furniture makers of the time usually were, Richter also engaged in the profession of undertaker. This relationship is…
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Alma Bottling Works
-by Greg Hoots- There are few of us that have never enjoyed a cold bottle of “soda pop” on a hot day. That simple pleasure has become a big business in the United States with revenue from the sales of soft drinks topping 100-billion dollars, annually. While soda pop seems as American as apple pie…
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The History of the Alma Salt Works
-by John Winkler- Editor’s note: This manuscript was written by Wabaunsee County pioneer, John Winkler shortly before his death in 1907. Winkler was scheduled to speak from the manuscript at a meeting of the Wabaunsee County Historical Society on August 6, 1907, but was taken ill and could not attend. His manuscript was read to…
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Hecker Bros. Traveling Medicine Show
Today’s Photo Friday is a real rarity, a view of a traveling medicine show taken between 1890 and 1900 at Alma, Kansas by Alma photographer, Gus Meier. An arena with bleachers has been erected for the show, and individual medicine salesmen have tents along the south edge of the grounds. This medicine show was owned…
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A Hardware Legend
-by Kathy Hendricks, WCHS Museum Curator- Alma, Kansas, known as the “City of Native Stone,” had its birthplace at what is today the intersection of Missouri and 3rd Streets. The county’s first courthouse, the town’s first store and its first hotel were all built near that intersection. The town itself is a mere 150 years old,…
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Derailed
In the history of Wabaunsee County, among the significant events which shaped the county’s development and growth were the coming of the railroad in 1880 and the subsequent addition of a second railroad seven years later. For a century the railroad provided transportation, commerce and employment for the citizens of Wabaunsee County. When one considers…
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Soda Fountain Memories
One of the iconic businesses that existed in most Kansas towns of the 20th century was the local drug store and pharmacy. The business, itself, underwent great changes as the patent medicine sellers whose medicine could barely be distinguished from the wares of snake oil salesmen, began to fade into obscurity, and the pharmacy business…
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Alma Portland Cement Works
Photographer Tom Parish visited the site of the Alma Portland Cement Works, a late-19th century manufacturing enterprise, located near Alma, Kansas. Parish photographed the remains of the large kiln where ingots of limestone aggregate were fired into cement clinkers. Closed in the early 1900s, the cement works remains a monument to the work of the…
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At The Museum: The “Beecher Bible” Sharps Model 1852 Carbine
The Sharps rifle was invented by Christian Sharps who obtained a patent for a new design of a breech-loading rifle. Sharps, born in Washington, New Jersey worked as an apprentice to a gunsmith as a youth, and in the 1830s he went to work at Harpers Ferry Arsenal, studying under Captain John H. Hall, the…