St. Paul

 

After a full weekend of exploring southeast Kansas, we were ready to head home. But we thought we'd visit one more town on the way: St. Paul. 

The name of the settlement used to be the Osage Catholic Mission, but after the U.S. government drove the tribe off their ancestral lands, the town was renamed to St. Paul.

We were attracted to this little town by the spire of St. Francis Hieronymo Catholic Church, which we saw from miles away. Across the street from the church are the Neosho County Museum and the Prairie Mission Retirement Home. 

St. Paul is actually a pretty bustling place for only having a population of 629. It has a market, a carwash, a cafe, and a gas station, as well as a business district with several small shops.

After exploring St. Paul for a little while, we stopped at a gas station for snacks and to use the restroom, and Maddie wanted to display her fashion sense next to the display of Natty Light. Poor Zed started out the trip home cool as a cucumber in Mom's sunglasses, but eventually succumbed to slumber in the back seat.

Chanute

We stayed in Chanute on Friday night because we were planning to go to the Biblesta in Humboldt the next morning. We had gone through the city on our trip to Iola back in July, and we had decided to stay in downtown Chanute the next time we were in the area if at all possible.

We had dinner at Little China restaurant downtown. It was fine, but no match for our beloved China Pavilion in Topeka. There was a fair variety of food, prepared pretty well, and the staff was very friendly.

We stayed at The Nest, a nice hotel downtown. It used to be called the Tioga Hotel, and this building has been a fixture in downtown Chanute for nearly a century. The lobby smelled a bit like smoke, but the room was clean and well-maintained (though very small!).

We also visited the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum, which is housed along with the Chanute Public Library in a beautiful old railway station.

Stark & Kimball

Stark is a tiny town with little more than a post office and a pretty popular hunting / getaway lodge. It was a nice change for the kids to get out and stretch their legs.

Kimball is an unincorporated community that initially spelled its name "Kimbal." It gained its second "l" in 1950, but lost its post office just six years later. In addition to an overgrown old church, we saw a lot of silkworms in the trees there. We were also pretty amused by this railroad crossing sign that had been riddled with large-caliber bullets. (That's how you know you're really in the country.)