Kniveton

The fields around Kniveton are sown in winter wheat. When we came through, we saw carpets of green stretching out to the horizon on either side of the gravel road. We also saw fields of haybales with a "for sale by owner" sign offering them up to any willing bidder.

Kniveton itself was hard to find; it was really just a few farms strung along the gravel road adjacent to the highway. There was an old railroad depot, and we think the old cemetery we saw down the road used to be called Crocker Cemetery.

In so many of these small dead or dying communities across the state, we see markers of former glory slowly fading away. The farm where we stopped to take our picture had a sign on the fence boasting that it had won the Kansas Bankers Association Award for Soil Conservation in 1983. It felt a lot like the towns that have signs by the road boasting of their winning basketball team in the 1970s. 

Pittsburgh

We stayed the night in Pittsburgh at the Lamplighter Inn and Suites, which we found quite adequate. The kids always love hotel breakfasts, so they were in heaven the next morning.

Before hitting the hay, though, we went to the Caballo de Oro Mexican restaurant, which was excellent. We really enjoyed ourselves. They even had live music!

The downtown area of Pittsburgh is quaint and interesting, with lots of shops and restaurants. It also has some more industrialized areas, as well as chain restaurants and hotels on the edge of town. The residents of Pittsburgh love the Pitt State Gorillas, judging from the red-and-yellow painted gorilla statues all over the city.

Baxter Junction

 

We found Baxter Junction on our map of Kansas, and even on Google Maps, but when we arrived at the spot, it was little more than a stop on the railroad, with a grain elevator near the tracks. We were lucky enough to see a train come through while we were there. This was pretty fortunate, since it seems like that's about all there is going on at Baxter Junction!

Baxter Springs

Baxter Springs is a town with a lot of parks. In fact, we saw three parks before even getting into the city limits!

The town has several claims to fame, including (as the town sign says) being the Birthplace of Waterjet Cutting. Another sign declares it to be "The first cowtown in Kansas."

Long before white settlers came to this part of the country, the Osage tribe often stopped in this area to enjoy the natural mineral springs here. Those springs used to flow right alongside the road through town, though they no longer do. 

The town has a lot of nice older homes and a historical society. Unlike many older towns we've been through, there weren't many homes in a state of disrepair. It felt like a community where people really cared about their buildings and land. There was also a downtown with several shops.  

 

Lowell

Lowell is a small town with some charming older homes, and others that are more run down. The dam outside town is remarkable! It has a rest home called the Quaker Hill Care Home, which pays homage to the early Quaker settlers in this part of Kansas. The cemetery was established in 1869.  

Riverton

 Riverton is another town on Route 66. It was originally set aside for the Cherokee tribe, but mining and farmland led white settlers to steal the land here. These days, it has a hydroelectric plant, a number of blue-collar neighborhoods, lots of brick ranch-style homes, fewer junk-filled yards, and some really nice neighborhoods with well-maintained homes.

Some notable spots are the Empire Dam Falls and the Rainbow Curve Bridge, which is the only remaining Marsh Arch Bridge on Route 66. 

Galena

 

Galena is on Historic Route 66, and it was used as a research location for the Pixar movie Cars. If you stop at the Kan-O-Tex service station, you'll see the boom truck that inspired the character of Mater.

The town also has a mining museum which, we regrettably found, closes at 3:30. It does have some outside exhibits that we got to see, including an anti-aircraft gun manned by a 5-year-old girl. We enjoyed the downtown area, and we wish time and weather would have allowed us to visit Schermerhorn Park, where a cave and river show the landscape and wildlife of the Ozarks of Kansas. 

The town has a few churches, a cemetery, and a shopping district where a sign in front of a store called Liberty Hall boasted, "We buy gold, silver, and guns."

We were charmed by the Dalmatian-painted fire hydrants throughout the town.

Empire City

Empire City was a famously iniquitous town, according to these contemporary newspaper comments from Legends of America:

Such a motley collection of houses, men and women…The town looked as though volcanic convulsions had heaved it up. Houses had been erected with no regard to architectural beauty, the regularity of line, or locality. The streets are as crooked as illicit distilleries, and from morning till night, they are filled with people and teams. Saloons and gambling houses are the most frequent objects. Gambling quarters are in such great demand that several members of the profession are compelled to conduct their operations in the open streets. (Topeka Daily Commonwealth)

The principal thoroughfare was known as Red Hot Street. It became so true to the name that all legitimate businesses withdrew and left the street to saloons, gamblers, and dance halls. For several months the orgies that held sway on Red Hot Street were perhaps never exceeded in any other frontier mining camp. (Kansas City Star)

In 1877, the town council built a stockade blocking off commerce with Galena, a town just to the south. You can read the full story here, but the short version is that an armed posse from Galena surprised the stockade guards and burned it to the ground, thus reopening trade between the two rivals. Ultimately, Galena won out, and Empire City was annexed to its rival in 1910. 

These days, Empire City is a blue collar town. We saw a quaint old limestone antique store there, as well as lots of railroads. It also featured a number of white-painted water towers, a flood plain, some brick farmhouses, thick woods, road signs peppered with bullets, and a few yards filled with items that could charitably be described as "potentially useful."

A sign in town proclaims that Empire City is "The Oldest Mining Town in Southeast Kansas."