A sunflower silo and a couple of towns

I had seen a Facebook post about a silo outside of Augusta (KS) that was painted with sunflowers.  Last time we were coming home from Arkansas, we tried to locate it, but I didn't have the correct directions.  This time, we found it!

The owner of this farm is a realtor in Augusta, Diana Burress, and she painted this.  She and her husband also have a field of sunflowers for people to enjoy.  Here's how to find it.  At Lulu Street (the east side of Walmart on 400) drive south to 6th street.  Turn right (west).  6th turns into SW Thunder Road.  It will curve around a couple of times.  When the road runs parrellel with the railroad tracks, you will come to SW 120th street.  The house and silo are right there.

We drove around Augusta for a little bit.  I looked up the history of Augusta.  Originally, this area was inhabited by the Osage people.  In 1868, C.N. James settled in this area and built a log cabin to serve as a general store and trading post.  He named the town in honor of his wife, Augusta.  There is a neat little historical museum and the log cabin that I would like to visit sometime.

We got a later start than normal.  We generally eat lunch in Webb City, MO, but it was past lunch when we hit the town of Fredonia.  We decided to see what was available.  There were several places, but we thought we'd try this place out.  It seemed pretty busy!  People coming and going.  A good sign.

The waitress asked us which car was ours.  The wait was pretty long.  We think the locals call in their orders and pick up since many just came and grabbed their food.  Had we known, we would have placed our order, done some sight-seeing and then come back.  That's ok.  We weren't in any huge hurry.  We waited in the car and then about 20 minutes? later (maybe it just seemed that long), the worker waved at us to come pick up our order. 

When we were done, we decided to drive around the town.

Fredonia was laid out in 1868 along the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway in SE Kansas.  It was named after Fredonia, New York.  Today the population is approximately 2,225.

Fredonia has a town square, with the town built around the court house.  In the 1960's, they tore down a magnificent court house and rebuilt it with a modern one.  It is so very sad that they did that.  What were they thinking??  Guess, they were trying to modernize and save $$.

The Gold Dust Hotel, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

When it was completed in 1885, the Wilson County Citizen asserted:

The Gold Dust is without doubt as fine a hotel as can be found in Southern Kansas. It would be splendid hotel in a city of ten or twenty thousand inhabitants. It is not only a grand building externally but contains the most modern appointments and conveniences of first-class institutions of this kind and is furnished in all respects in a most elegant and comfortable manner. Its ventilation is perfect and not an important essential feature for a number one hotel has been omitted.

There wasn't any gold found in Fredonia, but a large vein of semi-anthracite coal was discovered near town and it was "said to be of better quality than any other found in Kansas" at that time.  Today this "hotel" has been converted into apartments.

There were these unusual stone walls with amazing steps at 6th and Washington.  We wondered what it was.  I saw a little plaque on the wall.  

It was built by the Works Progress Administration and school board back in 1936.  The Works Project was part of the American New Deal agency, employing millions of job-seekers to carry out public works projects all across the US.  It was established by presidential order under Franklin D. Roosevelt.  In Fredonia, women were employed whose husbands were disabled or who were heads of families.  Wage scale was 35 cents an hour and not more than 6 hours a day.

There was a school on the property that had been built in 1880 for $10,000.  Because the school is right by one of the mounds in town, it was called Mound School, as well as south school.  There was a north school also.

When you pass Fredonia, you will see these 2 "hills".  We explored them once.  You can see that post here.  The school has since been torn down and a physician built a home there. 

We have been going to Arkansas on 400 for years now and we learned new things.