Diamond Springs

Diamond Springs is a ghost town and is now located on private property. We did see a historical marker commemorating it, as well as an old cemetery. 

In the surrounding fields, we saw wheat, hay fields, and a wooden-post fence with cattle inside. Meadowlarks flitted from post to post in the May sunshine. We also noticed lots of turkey vultures riding the thermals above the fields.

We noticed a really pretty house with a sign out front: Wm. Atkinson and Sons. I couldn't find much about Mr. Atkinson, except in this interesting article about the town of Burdick, which suggests he may have had some questionable business practices.

Most of the land in this area is fenced in and bears signs announcing that it is the property of "Diamond Creek Ranch - No Trespassing."

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!

Padonia

Even in some of the earliest histories of Kansas, Padonia is mentioned as a township where businesses and services were declining. Today, it is more or less a ghost town. Only a small group of houses and a grain elevator and remain, though in the past it also had a mill.

We've loved seeing the kids get old enough to take their own pictures on these little trips. On this occasion, it was raining quite a bit, so the kids did all the photography in the rain while Magen and I stayed in the van and cuddled. Pretty convenient for the parents of this outfit!

One of the most famous residents of Padonia was the poet Ellen Palmer Allerton, who arrived in a covered wagon in 1879. Two of her poetry collections are available on Google Books: Annabel, and Other Poems and Walls of Corn and Other Poems. Here are some lovely lines from "Annabel" that capture the sense of place that permeates her poetry:

Look there, my friend, through yonder clump of trees. 

You see yon lofty, weather-beaten wall?

You hear the hum of wheels, the broken fall 

Of pent up waters borne along the breeze? 

That is the old brown mill. Its walls have stood 

While children's children have grown old and gray, 

While ruthless axes have hewn down the wood,

And yonder town has grown, rood after rood, 

The mill has stood there as it stands today.

Bassett

Bassett is still an incorporated city, but in the last census, it had a population of just 14. So it's not really a surprise that we couldn't find much there! We did find a street sign, as well as a couple of forbidding signs formed of old tires.

Barclay

Barclay is now a ghost town. There wasn't a lot around, but we did see an aged cemetery and some farms. There was also a large old building with "Barclay" etched near the top of its stone wall. (It looks like this was the old high school.) Not much else was here.

Here's an article on the history and remnants of Barclay.

Ridgeton

Ridgeton doesn't seem to exist anymore. At any rate, we couldn't find it, except for a single sign near the railroad track. We crossed over that track three or four times, driving along those country roads and trying to find any other trace of it. Alas, we had no success.

It seems that Ridgeton is another example of a town that once existed because of the railroads, but slowly petered out of existence, one family at a time. The big difference is that many other such towns have grain elevators, so at least some physical reminder remains.

I did find a web site that mentions the railroad location, as well as this YouTube video showing the actual train journey between Melvern and Ridgeton.

Much to our amusement, the roads here are laid out much as they are in Topeka, complete with the same names. It was funny to be driving around looking for a ghost town somewhere between Wanamaker and Urish.

One thing we did come away with was an extremely filthy van. The rains of the past few days had left the dirt roads pretty muddy in places.