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.

Russell Springs

After turning south on KS-25, you can see forever in every direction. The gently sloping land was parceled out into dry, dusty fields full of dead cornstalks, and others where alfalfa was coming up thick and green. Russell Springs used to be the county seat until 1963, when it moved to Oakley, leaving the old courthouse to become the Butterfield Trail Museum. There's not much left in town, except some houses, a consolidated school that looks unused, and a pretty little Episcopal chapel.

Winona

We followed US-40 along the railroad to where the map said we'd find McAllaster. But what we actually found is that McAllaster was just like one dude's house these days. No town remains to speak of. So onward we headed toward Winona! 

This was a cute little town. The downtown area had a mural, a number of tidy old buildings, and some new businesses. There was a mix of historic buildings and new construction. The town was tidy and well-kept, and also the proud host of Triplains school - home of the Vikings. It did have a small park, though we didn't see much fun play equipment there. The town also had a financial institution called "The Bank," whose slogan is "Money for Rent."

Wallace

Wallace is a charming old town with grain elevators, a mural, and some older buildings on Main Street, including a super cute café and antique store in the old bank building. 

The lady at the café confided to us, "I may be biased, but I think our Fort Wallace Museum just east of here is probably one of the best museums around." Turns out, we agreed with her! The museum was a gem, featuring a huge collection of interesting artifacts, in beautifully built display cases. From ichthyosaurs to frontier warfare to antique pump organs, this museum had a little bit of everything. We loved it.