Category: Flint Hills Stories
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Stone Fences of Wabaunsee County
– by Paul Miller – One of the features of Wabaunsee County that visitors and natives enjoy viewing is the native stone fence. Many of the fences are still in use today as they were originally intended after standing for over 130 years. Others have fallen into disrepair as they are no longer needed, or…
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Wabaunsee County Video Recollections
Click here for the main menu to view these recordings. These films are the result of a collaboration between Mark Feiden and the Wabaunsee County Historical Society. It is an ongoing effort to record stories from county residents. The current interviewees include Martin Gnadt, Bill Brethour, Bill Schwalm, Tony Meseke, Gary Schultz, Evelyn Zeckser, Mary…
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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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Barn Dancing
An long-standing tradition in the Kansas Flint Hills is the holding of dances inside barns scattered across the rural Kansas prairie. The barns offered an ideal setting when the large hay lofts were empty, providing a large, unobstructed wooden floor. In some cases, such as the Thierer’s barn, located at Volland, Kansas, barns hosted regular dances each weekend.…
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The Barns of Wabaunsee County
Wabaunsee County enjoys a rich ranching heritage which is reflected in the many expansive barns which adorned the landscape. All of late 19th century and early 20th century barns had large hay lofts to accommodate the storage of loose hay. Later, the loft provided storage for small bales of hay. Barns which had cupolas attached…
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The Cold War in the Flint Hills
– By Greg Hoots – For four years in the early 1960s the Flint Hills of Wabaunsee County was home to one of America’s weapons of global destruction, an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile carrying a thermonuclear warhead. Located one and a half mile northwest of Keene, Kansas, Missile Launcher No. 6 was one of nine such…
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The Early History of Lake Wabaunsee: 1933-1945
– By Greg Hoots – In 1925 the Kansas Forestry, Fish and Game Commission was formed, and soon that agency began constructing state lakes across Kansas. In Wabaunsee County, a group of sportsmen, businessmen and community leaders organized an attempt to convince the Fish and Game Commission to build a lake in their county. With…
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Wabaunsee County Schools
Wabaunsee County’s first school district was created at the town of Wabaunsee in 1859 and by the end of the 19th century there were 88 districts in the county. Except for the “city schools”, all of the rural districts operated only one building and the vast majority had only one teacher in their employ. The…