Harvey County Main Street 5

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The clues for this Harvey County Main Street include Old Settler’s Picnic, the transparent Anatomical Mannequin, Valeda, and the filming of the movie “Picnic.”

Parade on Main for Old Settler’s Picnic, n.d.,

1873 Halstead

The Halstead Town Co. purchased 480 acres and platted a new town at the confluence of the Little Arkansas River & Black Kettle Creek.

The town was named for journalist Murat Halstead. G.W. Sweesy built a two story wood frame hotel at the site.

1877

Halstead incorporated as a 3rd class city on March 12, 1877.

1887

First Old Settler’s Picnic.  The event continues today and is Harvey County’s longest running event.

1907 Old Settler’s Picnic, Main Street, Halstead, Ks

1902

Dr. Arthur Hertzler establishes a clinic and hospital. In 2002, the Hertzler Hospital & Clinic closed due to financial difficulty.

1955

The movie, Picnic is filmed in historic Riverside Park.

1965

The Kansas Health Museum, Halstead,  opened as a “teaching” museum.  Valeda, “the transparent woman,” and other exhibits were designed to educate about the systems of the body. Today the museum, known as the Kansas Learning Center for Health, continues to provide health education for all ages.

Valeda Kansas Learning Center, Halstead, Ks

Valeda fun facts:

  • She is 5’7” and, if alive, would weigh around 145 lbs.
  • The  model actually weighs 98 lbs.
  • She describes the human body as various organs light up.
  • The original mold was made by completely coating the body of a living, 28-year-old German woman with a rubber composition. This was allowed to harden, then peeled off to form the mold for Valeda’s plastic skin.
  • Her aluminum skeleton is situated exactly as it is in the normal human body.
  • In 1965, she cost $14,105.00.

1994

Federal Flood Control Project is completed, protecting the city from future floods.

 

 

Happy Kansas Day! Judge Muse Remembers

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Today, January 29, the state of Kansas turns 158 years old!

In the History of Harvey County 1871-1881, Judge Muse  described his first visit to the area that would become Harvey County. The photos are the earliest Harvey County homes made of sod.

Judge Muse writes:

On the 25th day of August, 1870, we left the city of Topeka . . . and traveled westward via A.T. & S. F. R. R. to the city of Emporia.  . . . On the 26th procured teams and provisions  . . . and started westward.  On the night of the 26th, we stopped at Cottonwood Falls, with Mr. Doolittle, who kept a small hotel in that place. . . On the 27th we continued our journey through an almost uninhabited region, passing over the ground where Florence now stands, and encamped for the night at a ranch owned by Coble and Kelly, about 4 miles east of the present town of Peabody. 

On the 28th we passed over the ground now occupied by the town of Walton. . , We stopped for dinner at a point on Sand Creek just south of where the residence of D. Ainsworth is now situated , and upon the the present town site of Newton.

Here for the first time we struck the Chisholm, or the great Texas Cattle Trail and followed it down on the west side of Sand Creek as far as the mouth of the creek where we found the first settler we had seen in the county, Dr. T.S. Floyd, with who we staid all night.

During the day, and after travelling over thirty miles, we had seen no human habitation or sign of civilization, our way being through high prairie grass, often standing above the height of our wagon wheels and bed.  We varied the monotony of the journey by shooting at wolves, coyotes, antelope and prairie chickens.  After reaching the cattle trail, we were beset by swarms of buffalo gnats and mosquitoes, so ravenous that Mr. Lakin declared that they bit his head through is hat.

Identified as a sod home in Alta.

We found Dr. Floyd and family living in a log house covered with a sod roof, upon which corn was growing and situated on the west bank of Sand Creek a few rods due west from where his present residence stands. . . . After remaining over night with Dr. Floyd . . . we set out the following morning and drove through Park City, then considered a dangerous rival of Wichita and continued our journey as far as Wichita.

Judge R.W.P. Muse, History of Harvey County, 1871-1881 available at the Harvey County Historical Museum & Archives. Muse’s history was included in the 1882 Harvey County Atlas.

Harvey County Home

Harvey County Main Streets 4

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During mid-1930s, this community enjoyed an oil boom.  Any ideas?

Burrton, Ks

1873

The city of Burrton was laid off in the summer by Arkansas Valley Town Company along the mainline of the A.T. &S.F. Railroad. The first building was a blacksmith shop operated by A.W. Ballard. A Post Office was opened in July and by fall the new town had two general stores.

1877

Burrton Mills, a three story frame structure with three runs of buhrs and a forty horse power engine, was opened.  The Mill burned in 1889.

1878

September 3—Burrton incorporated as a third class city. W.H. Kinney was elected mayor.

November 2-The Burrton Telephone was established.

1881

May 20-first issue of the Burrton Monitor, G. Vanderveer, editor.

Burrton Public Schools, 1915. The building with the tower was constructed in approximately 1885.

1895

The Harvey House in Burrton was destroyed by fire.

1914

November 11-Fire destroys the east side of Burrton’s Main Street.

Burrton Bank with the Opera House located on the second floor, 1910. Destroyed by fire in 1926.

1926

Burrton Opera House was destroyed by fire.  The building also housed a furniture store, barber shop, telephone and real estate offices.

Burrton Bank & Opera House destroyed by fire, 1926.

1932

Olsen Oil Co. drilled first oil well, M.B.Blake No. 1, west of the Burrton Grocery store.

1932-1937

Oil boom in Burrton with the peak year in 1934.  During this time over 1,000 people arrived in Burrton to take advantage of the  work and money to be made.

Aerial view of the Empire Oil & Refining Co., Burrton field, June 24, 1936

Phillips Service Station, Hwy 50, 1947.

1990

March 13 – a F-5 tornado took the life of 6 year old Lucas Fisher before continuing through the center of Harvey County and on into Marion County.