A little look at Kansas

While we were in Smith Center we took a couple of short day drives. The first was down to the town of Lucas, Kansas to the ‘Garden of Eden’. I had seen a TV show about this place many years ago and was looking forward to seeing it in person. What a place!

Samuel Dinsmoor(1843 – 1932), a retired schoolteacher, Civil War Veteran and farmer, began building this home in 1907 at the age of 64. He worked on the home and gardens for the next 22 years using 113 tons of cement and many tons of limestone from nearby quarries. He used the limestone logs as the walls of the cabin.

He built the home as a tourist attraction with the first floor and gardens included in his tours, while the second floor held the family bedrooms and the basement floor included the kitchen and family areas. Samuel built the house using a variety of wood, in fact each piece of furniture and all stairwells had to have a minimum of 5 different types of wood! Each room included from 3 to 5 doorways and none of the doorways were the same size. It could make one very dizzy walking through the house!

Outside he built many statues mostly with religious and political overtones.

 

In Samuel’s words the statues below illustrate the bringing down of civilization.

“There is the Goddess of Liberty with one foot on the trusts and a spear in her hand going through the head of the trusts. The trusts’ claws are getting nothing. Down below is a man and woman with a crosscut saw marked ballot, sawing off the chartered rights limb that the trust stands on. That shows how we can get away with the trusts and if we don’t get away with them with the ballot, they will be shot away with the bullet, as they were in Russia. They are getting too big. They have got all our sugar. Under this tree is a strawberry bed and I have stubs going up joining the tree above, to set out vines that will crawl around, without getting on my strawberry bed. Say! that tree will be a beauty. I want to see it in ten or fifteen years from now. I may be in the Mausoleum. If I am, some dark night I will slip out and take a look at it, or, some other people will see it which will be just the same.

The statues below are mounted above a small building. According to Dinsmore:

       “  This is my coal house and ash pit, with Labor crucified above. I believe Labor has been crucified between a thousand grafters ever since Labor begun, but I could not put them all up, so I have put up the leaders – Lawyer, Doctor, Preacher and Banker.I do not say they are all grafters, but I do say they are the leaders of all who eat cake by the sweat of the other fellow’s face. The Lawyer interprets the law. The Doctor has his knife and saw ready to carve ;up the bones. The Preacher is saying to this poor fellow crucified, “Never mind your suffering here on earth, my friend, never mind your suffering here, secure home in heaven for A-l-l   E-t-e-r-n-i-t-y and you’ll be all right.” This is the stuff he is giving Labor for his cake. He knows nothing about Eternity and that he does know, if he knows anything. What fools we be to sweat to give the other fellow cake. The Banker has the money, takes the interest and breaks up more people than any other class. “

 

While building this house he married his second wife. He was 81 and she was 20. They had two children! His wife complained that she didn’t see him enough and so he built this little guy outside the kitchen window so she could see him waving whenever she wanted!Busy, busy, man!

The home is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town of Lucas had two other places to visit, but we ran out of time. However if you are ever there, you might enjoy the Grassroots Art Center where you can see some very creative art displays. Or the Museum of Largest Things. Lucas is home to the World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the the World’s Largest Things Traveling Roadside Attraction and Museum. Wow…now that’s a title!

We had lunch in a little restaurant, bar, pool hall combo. Lee had fried chicken livers – yuck! But he enjoyed them. And then we walked down to the Brant’s Meat Market which had been in the same spot since the 1930’s and was run by the third generation of the Brant Family.

On another free day we drove just a few miles east of Smith Center to the US geographical center! It was an unusual place in that it was located in the middle of a field and not much around it. This small chapel with seating for FOUR people and a sign! I guess not many people have the US center as a destination. But it was interesting and a place to say we have now been to!

From Smith Center we had planned on a leisurely trip back to the east coast with stops in Illinois to see my grandmom and then Virginia to spend time with Lee’s brother. However, we are flexible and so when family needed us to get back quickly, we were able to put the rig in gear and MOVE OUT. Now we are back on the east coast and settled in till after the holidays, when we will head south for warmer weather.