Explore Wabaunsee County

The Wabaunsee County Historical Society and Native Stone Scenic Byway have contributed to installing roadside historic markers, informing travelers about ghost towns, schools, churches, stone fences and more.

Old Stone Church, Maple Hill. Photo by Mark Feiden

Native Stone Fence
The 1867 law abolishing the open range provided for payment of 40 cents per rod (16 ½ feet) to landowners to build and maintain a 4 ½ foot stone fence. Stone was plentiful and was the main material to build fence. Miles and miles were built in Wabaunsee County until the introduction of barbed wired in 1872.

Snokomo School
This stone country school has served the Snokomo community since being built in 1883.  The district was 11 square miles with only nine taxpayers. Due to school consolidation, it closed in 1947 and was restored by the Snokomo Silent Workers Club between 1972 and 1975.

Hessdale
The town was first called Bismarck and was renamed Halifax in 1885 by the U.S. Post Office.  After the closing of the post office the town was renamed Hessdale by the Atchison Topeka Santa Fe Railway. It was a major cattle shipping railhead on the ATSF spur line in Wabaunsee County.

Old Stone Church
This church was dedicated in 1882 as a Mission Church of the Eliot Congregational Church from Newton, Massachusetts. Services were held here until 1905 when a church closer to town was dedicated. Currently, Memorial Day services are held the last Sunday in May.

Keene
In 1856 the Keene community was known as Fremont City. In 1877 the name was changed to Keene. Like many small villages in the Flint Hills it provided trading opportunities for area ranchers and farmers to purchase goods and enjoy social connections. By the 1970s the store had closed, and the school, blacksmith shop, and town hall had all been demolished. Keene became a residential community like many other small towns that have virtually vanished from existence.

HISTORIC TRAILS & SCENIC BYWAYS

Native Stone Scenic Byway
This Scenic Byway, established in 2005 now spans 75 miles through Shawnee, Wabaunsee and Riley Counties. The scenic route showcases native limestone: not only the fences, bridges, and buildings but also the natural stone outcroppings along this Byway. The Byway maintains ten informational kiosks along the route, with eight of them located in Wabaunsee County: Echo Cliff, Eskridge, Lake Wabaunsee, Highway 99, Alma, Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie Park, and Wabaunsee. For more information about the Native Stone Scenic Byway route visit: www.travelks.com

Skyline Mill Creek Scenic Drive
This scenic drive was established in 1968 by business people in Paxico, Alma and Alta Vista to encourage traffic to the businesses in these towns. The Native Stone Scenic Byway committee adopted the drive as an added feature of its highway route. The drive spans the county beginning in Alta Vista,  following the West branch of Mill Creek on old K-10 Hwy through Alma, then south on Hwy 99, turning east up Skyline Road for beautiful views from ridge lines of the county. Note that Skyline Road is a gravel road, so plan accordingly!

Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail, celebrating the 200th anniversary in 2021, makes a brief but significant trek through the ghost town of Wilmington in the far southeast corner of the county. In this area, there are several historical plaques that mark where the Santa Fe Trail traversed the county.

Clapboard Ravine Overlook
A go-to spot for 360 views of Wabaunsee County and beyond! To the north you will see the Mill Creek Valley, and Interstate 70. To the east is a view of  Kuenzli Creek Valley. To the south you see an expanse of pastures and cattle. To the west you can view the town of Alma and all the way beyond the hills that rise above Volland.

LANDMARK BUILDINGS

Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Photo by Dave Leiker

Sacred Heart Catholic Church
Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church, Sacred Heart Parish was established in 1874 by German Catholic immigrants who had been attracted to the area by Catholic newspaper articles written by the Jesuits of the Potawatomi Indian Mission in nearby St. Marys. The articles were written to encourage German settlement in the area. The present church was built in 1922. The native stone schoolhouse across the street was erected in 1905. With its twin spires that can be seen for miles, the church is known as “The Cathedral of the Flint Hills.”

North Pole School, District #67, courtesy Wabaunsee County Historical Museum

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES

There are 19 places in Wabaunsee County on state or national historic registers, including two registered in 2020: The Grimm-Schultz Farmstead and the Pratt-Mertz Barn. The historic places include barns, churches, parks, downtown districts, bridges, and schools. Information courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society.

Security State Bank, Eskridge. Photo (crop) by Andy Romanoff

Alma Downtown Historic District
Downtown Alma is characterized by two-story stone and brick commercial buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nearby stone quarries provided much of the building material for Alma’s turn-of-the-century historic resources, and even today the town is known as “the city of native stone.”

Eskridge City Park & Bandstand
The Eskridge City Park & Bandstand was built between June 1908 and March 1909. Standing in the approximate center of Eskridge City Park (established in 1903), the bandstand is the park’s focal structure. The park and bandstand are associated with the most vigorous period of economic growth and community development in the history of Eskridge.

Grimm-Schultz Farmstead
The Grimm-Schultz farmstead is a group of eight related structures. Built between 1875 and 1915. The farmstead’s historic buildings include five primary farm structures: a stone house, stone barn, stone corn crib/wash house, stone and frame granary, and a frame and concrete hay shed.

The Fix Homestead
The J.R. Fix Family homesteaded the land in 1865. The large stone house provided a bedroom for each of the eight daughters.  Now the Fix Homestead is called Mill Creek Lodge at Volland Point and has accommodations for individuals and a venue for weddings. The Fix Homestead is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Paxico Historic District
Paxico is an example of the T-type railroad town popular in the late nineteenth century. The town was platted north of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad line with two intersecting commercial streets: Newbury Avenue and Main Street. The large two-story general store, now an antique store, was an economic and architectural landmark in the town.

Pratt-Mertz Barn
The Pratt-Mertz Barn is a two-story multi-bay limestone barn constructed in 1876 by Samuel G. Pratt. The two-story native limestone barn has a gabled-roof with wood cupola and attached loafing shed, chicken house, and shed bay for livestock feeding. Limestone detailing includes elliptical arched door openings, and an engraved keystone bearing the craftsman’s initials and date of construction – S.G.P. 1876.

Thoes Barn
Early Wabaunsee County settler Peter Thoes established his home and farmstead around 1854.  It was one of a cluster of properties that took root before the Civil War and the founding of Alma, and it even vied for the location of the county seat. Thoes lived on and farmed this same property until his death in 1894. The sprawling and iconic barn on Thoes’ property was built in phases from the late 1870s to the early 1890s.

IMPORTANT CEMETERIES

Below are some of the cemeteries that are the final resting places of more well-known residents. Among them are African-American Buffalo soldiers, Underground Railroad conductors and stationmasters, and veterans of American wars. Many of the gravestones are engraved with German or Swedish script, reflecting the heritage of those who settled here. There are quite a few family cemeteries, mostly inaccessible on private land. However, the Fix Cemetery and Nehring cemeteries have road access and can be visited.

Memorial Day in Wabaunsee County. Photo by Patty Reece

Newbury Cemetery
Buffalo Soldier John H. Medley (1834-1921), of Company B 10th Cavalry is buried here. The 10th Cavalry Regiment of the US Army was originally formed as a segregated African American unit in 1866. They were the original “Buffalo Soldiers” and served in the post-Civil War Regular Army. They served in combat during the Indian Wars in the western United States, the Spanish American War in Cuba, and in the Philippine-American War.

Prairie View Cemetery
A high prairie cemetery in Rock Creek Township, it contains the graves of early settlers and colonists from the nearby Wabaunsee Exoduster Colony which was founded by Isaiah Montgomery and the Kansas Freedman’s Relief Association in 1879. Colonists Cynthia Jane McCutcheon, the 19-year- old daughter of Peter and Charity McCutcheon, and Gilbert Jackson, and possibly other Exodusters are buried here.

Keene Cemetery
This cemetery was originally called “Mission Creek Township Cemetery.” Free-state immigrants from Appleton, Wisconsin, settled in this valley in 1856. Sylvester and Cynthia Ross, parents of US Senator Edmund G. Ross, made famous by President John Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage, are buried here. Captain Henry Cowles, an early Topeka settler from Oberlin, Ohio, was a promoter of this settlement. Succumbing to pneumonia, he was the only casualty of John Brown’s famous “Battle of the Spurs” near Holton, Kansas, in 1859. This cemetery contains a number of interestingly-carved gravestones and the grave of Elizabeth Beach, wife of Dr. Samuel Beach. The couple ran an Underground Railroad station at their log home not far west of the cemetery.

Harveyville Cemetery
This cemetery is an official National Park Service Network to Freedom site commemorating the Underground Railroad. It is the burial place of four individuals known to have participated in this famous network of safe houses assisting enslaved people to escape to Canada. They are Jehu Hodgson, Mary Loy Hodgson Thomas, Ann Madden Harvey, and Morris Walton. The cemetery is located on what was part of Jehu Hodgson’s original claim of 160 acres. The first burial occurred on July 15, 1858. The Hodgson home, built in 1857, was a short distance west of the cemetery. Today there are no visible remains of the Hodgson home. However, the homesite, which is an open field, can be viewed from the cemetery. The home was a station on the Underground Railroad and Jehu Hodgson was both a station keeper and a conductor. His wife Mary Loy Hodgson was present at the time and cooked for her guests. The Hodgson’s land abutted George Harvey and Henry Harvey’s claims, and is less than a mile from the site of Henry and Ann’s cabin, which was also a station and is a Network to Freedom site.

Wabaunsee Cemetery
Also a Network to Freedom commemorative site, this cemetery is the final resting place of many notable people associated with the early days of Kansas. Resting in the shade of old cedar trees are seventeen individuals known to have participated in the Underground Railroad. They are: Captain William Mitchell, William Mitchell Sr., Agnes Mitchell, James Monroe Bisby, Hannah Bisby, J. Evarts Platt, Enoch Platt, Sarah Platt, Joshua Smith, Mary Dibble Smith, John Smith, Charles Burrill Lines, Maria Wooding Lines, Austin Kelsey, Maria Bristoll Kelsey, Samuel R. Weed, Julius F. Willard and Amos A. Cottrell. The famous Beecher Bible and Rifle Church, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is in the village just to the west. Mount Mitchell, a 170-acre hilltop tallgrass prairie park is one mile to the east. A monument to the memory of the Colony is at the park’s summit. This cemetery also contains the graves of about sixty Civil War veterans and many of the Colony’s members and their descendants. Maude Mitchell designed the memorial gate built from local glacial erratics (Sioux quartzite) in 1952. She was the daughter of Captain William and Mary Mitchell.