Burdick

We saw some collapsing houses and silos in the area surrounding town. Others farms had weathered farmhouses, worn by wind and time. 

The town sign says:

Burdick
Est. 1887
Friendly Town
Pop. growing

Just down the road is another sign announcing that the town is part of Morris County’s Meth Watch program.

Downtown are an antique store, a meat locker, and a brand new post office. The homes in town are generally very well maintained.

There’s a Park next to the American Legion. Across the road is the old high school, where the roof is off and chickens roam the once hallowed halls of learning.

I got some pictures of the purple flowers that are so common throughout the region. They were blooming everywhere on the beautiful early summer day that we drove through.

Opolis

 

Opolis is a small town with modest homes. It's the type of the place where cats cross the road without looking either way. There's a park, a post office, a Bible church, and a flea market that looks like it has seen better days. (Though, really, what flea market ever looks like it's in its heyday?)

Frontenac

Frontenac is a little town that feels like a suburb of Pittsburgh, but still has its own personality. We really liked walking through the Wilderness Park, and we were also charmed by the community burn pile. The town's trashcans are distinctively painted in a yellow-and-red or yellow-and-pink pattern, and they are very proud of their Raiders athletic teams. 

 

Marion

Marion is a small town with a lovely downtown area and a great park. Our friend Ruth was directing the high school musical, so we came to cheer her on. The musical was a great success, and there were great performances by many students, including several who had never done a play before!

 Since we were focused on visiting Ruth, we didn't get to enjoy the historic courthouse, downtown area, or nearby reservoir, so we definitely need to check those out next time we're in town.

Effingham

Effingham is a town of about 500. It has a downtown, a library, a post office, a park, and a pool. The homes and yards are generally well-maintained -- it seems like people take pride in their hometown.

The town is surrounded by beautiful, peaceful fields and farms. Thanks to all the rain, there was greenery everywhere! The wildflowers practically exploded across the hillsides.

Some of the farms in the area are well-cared for, and others have seen better days. One dead giveaway of a farm that's no longer doing much is a small cluster of rusted silos, crowded all around by uncontrolled thickets of elm, mulberry, or oak trees.

Trust us to find books for sale wherever we go! There was a flea market / craft sale in the Effingham park, and our kids gravitated toward the Usborne book dealer. We left with about $25 less in cash and about $25 worth of books in hand. So it turned out pretty well.

Nortonville

Nortonville is a small town surrounded by farmland, right on the edge of the Jefferson / Atchison county line. Its name came from a popular railroad boss who often parked his railroad car on a siding near the town site. For a century, the town's prosperity was linked to the Santa Fe railroad, but that changed in the 1980s and '90s.

Today, Nortonville resembles many other small Kansas towns: It has a few agricultural businesses, as well as a bank, a bar, and some other small companies based in its historic downtown. It seems to be slowly declining as the state becomes more urban and farms become more corporate.

Nonetheless, the town does still have a spirit of community involvement. You can see this even in the town park, which is thoughtfully equipped and well-maintained. There's a nice little bandshell there, as well as slides, seesaws, and several play structures. There's also a nice picnic shelter.

One of the really neat things about this town, for an old history buff like me anyway, is that they have a couple of history books: A Century of Friends Old and New (1973) and 125 Years of Friends Old and New (1998). Most of the information above comes from those books. I love seeing people take an interest in their local places and taking pains to pass that knowledge down to future generations!

LaHarpe

LaHarpe is a small town where we found what is perhaps our favorite park of all time. I am struck by the generosity, ingenuity, and hard work of the folks who put this zip line up -- they certainly succeeded in bringing our kids a lot of joy, and I hope they are blessed for their efforts.

Reading

Reading, "A City of New Beginnings," was a little more sizable than the other towns we visited today. It still had a number of dirt roads, but it also had a nice city hall, a park, and basketball courts. 

The town is bigger than it seems at first, and it also has a cafe, grain elevator, fire station, and feed store. It is an ag-based community filled with life and people who care about their town. The Baptist and Methodist churches are in really good shape, as are most of the homes and other buildings.

Five years ago, a massive tornado wiped out much of the town. Here's a good video of the event. We didn't notice any remaining damage to the town. This in itself is remarkable, since many small Kansas towns wouldn't have the wherewithal to recover after something like that. A City of New Beginnings, indeed!

Lyndon

Lyndon is a small town just south of the Pomona Lake Project. We saw many homes there -- some old, some new. Matt loved that the water tower had a tiger's paw instead of an "O."

The town has a clear agricultural heritage; it is surrounded by wheat fields and cow pastures, and many yards have chickens in them. The houses were neatly painted and the yards were well-kept.

Downtown Lyndon is charming and well-populated with businesses, a county courthouse, and a city hall.

The kids and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm January afternoon to play in the park while Mom checked out a boutique and a consignment sale down the street.

The park is clean and well-maintained, though the dirt driveway was a bit muddy because of recently melted snow. At the edge of the park, there's a territorial-era house (the Wells P. Bailey House). When Myrick heard that Laura and Mary Ingalls probably lived in a home like this one, he insisted on running around it and howling like a wolf to terrorize its occupants. I can only hope they were not home, or they surely would have been frightened out of their wits.

Baby Madelynne and I took to the dead brown turf on a little hillside -- I to enjoy the sun and she to master the art of grass-crawling.

It was as perfect a January day as one could hope for. The sun's insistent warmth was tempered by the chill of the earth under my elbow, as well as a light breeze. It smelled of damp prairie earth and dead grass. In the bare trees, chickadees, sparrows, and cardinals sang sweet celebratory songs about spring's imminent return.

Other than having to occasionally fend off a six-month-old's attempts to eat my notebook, I hadn't a care. But then Myrick needed the restroom, so I got up and resumed my role as responsible parent.