Park

The town of Park used to be known as Buffalo Park, according to the welcome sign. A railroad station sign also says "Buffalo Park," and the water tower (visible from five miles away) has a buffalo on it. Some other things in the town include a church, an RV park, and a fairly new restaurant called Buffalo Park Station.

We noticed a lot of houses with water tanks in front of them, which made us wonder why. We had just played at a park in Gove City, but playing at a park named Buffalo Park in a town called Park that used to be called Buffalo Park? Too irresistible for us to withstand.

Grainfield

Grainfield has a high school right off of I-70. It also has a number of businesses, including a tractor dealer, farm supply store, grain elevators, and a bank. The main street is quiet, with a community center and post office. 

We got out and played at the park, down the street from some cute houses. Not too much was going on in this town, but things seemed to be in good repair and well-maintained. One fun thing we noticed was that someone had turned the old opera house into a boutique.

Gove

 

Gove, also known as Gove City, is the county seat of Gove County, but it's a pretty small town. While driving through, we saw a feedlot with calves, the Gove County courthouse, and a main street with a number of empty store fronts. There were also several modest homes with tidy lawns, as well as the Ccounty offices and a museum. The kids enjoyed climbing around on the M-60 A3 tank at Larry's RV Park.

Grinnell

 

Grinnell is a quiet little town with grain elevators, nice homes, a park, and a few stores on Adams, the main street. There are also Methodist and Catholic churches, a fire station, and -- our kids' favorite -- a howitzer at the park. It seems to be a place where the folks know and appreciate their history.

Oakley

 

We had a great time in Oakley! We stopped there toward the end of the day, but we still had enough energy to explore the Buffalo Bill Cultural Center and the Fick Fossil Museum. The museum shares a building with the local library and contains a huge amount of art and scientific exhibits, as well as historical artifacts from the area. Oakley also has a hospital, a couple of parks, and lots of businesses and activity.

For dinner, we stopped at The Bluff, where the food was tasty and the beer was cold. It was a great way to wait out the rainstorm that burst just as we were parking out front.

Monument

Monument is a small town with some tidy little houses and gravel roads. It's surrounded by farm and ranch land. Monument Consolidated School seems to be no longer in use, though our kids had a great time swinging around on the playground for a while. Matthew was fascinated by a ruined old church and it was all I could do to keep him from poking around inside.  

Page City

Page City had a couple of grain elevators, but most of the buildings here seemed more or less abandoned, including this old bank where Magen got out of the driver's seat long enough to be photographed. A few inhabited homes still remain, but not many. One last bastion of the town is still around: the Bethesda Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is celebrating its 175th anniversary this June.