Flyover People Daily News

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:

IN THE REAL EUREKA

LAST MONTH, I wrote a column about Jim Lehrer’s book “Eureka.”

In this work of fiction, Lehrer pulled Eureka out of its natural habitat. He lifted the town’s name, gave it a larger population and placed it, oh, approximately where Topeka is.

Novelists are like that; they make stuff up.

But while reading the book, I felt that the town of Eureka deserved to be recognized for what and where it was. I’m not sure how to do that, but decided the least I could do was stop into town and say howdy.

I didn’t have a lot of exploring time, but on a recent trip to Wichita, I took a spin through Eureka, the center of operations for Greenwood County.

Eureka is not a booming metropolis, nor is it a rich town. For a county seat, this is a small place, less than 3,000 people.

The high school mascot is the Tornadoes. You’ll find the Greenwood County Hospital at the north end of Main Street. U.S. 54 runs east and west through town and the Fall River clips the west edge of Eureka.

It had been a couple years since my last visit, but I noticed that the Lo-Mar drive-in is still open for business. This place is a long-time Eureka tradition.

The red and white metal building which houses the Lo-Mar is a Valentine Diner. Arthur Valentine created the Valentine Lunch System in Wichita in the 1930s and sold these pre-fabricated metal structures across the state. Many of them are still standing; some, like the Lo-Mar, are still being used.

On River Street, I also came across the Copper Kettle, Gulick’s Garden Café and a few blocks away I found Eureka Greenhouses.

Downtown, not far from the old Carnegie building, I was nearly blinded by the bright sunshine which bounced off the tin roof of a new public library, which is only a couple years old.

I took photographs of the courthouse, a modern, low-flung building with a white gazebo on one corner of the square. Men were trimming trees around the building and I asked one of the workers where the bronze bust of Matt Samuels was; I had assumed it would be at the courthouse.

“It’s in the museum over there,” the man told me.

So, I stepped inside the museum which is north of the courthouse. In the vestibule is the bronze likeness of Sheriff Matt Samuels, created by sculptor Jim Brothers. Samuels is smiling and it looks as if he’s in the middle of a pleasant conversation.

I didn’t know Matt Samuels, but I wish I had. After his death, I read entries on the mortuary’s online guestbook, and page after page I found personal stories of how this family man had quietly helped others, how he had made a genuine difference in people’s lives.

I remember hearing the bits of information as they became known on January 19, 2005. Hearing the news reports sickened me. That day, as Sheriff Samuels and two deputies tired to serve a warrant at a residence near Virgil, Samuels was shot and killed. Samuels was 42 years old and had been in law enforcement for half of his life.

The life and death of Matt Samuels is part of Eureka’s story.

Another piece of the town’s story stands across the street from the courthouse. The Greenwood Hotel is a great-grandfather of a building. Constructed in 1883, it’s a three-story hotel designed by Emporia architect Charles Squires.

The Greenwood Hotel was a place where herds of cattlemen gathered in the old days, a place that oilmen frequented after wells began pumping in the region in 1915. Hopefully this old hotel will someday be restored.

I found a bit of humor and a hint that the hotel may still be a gathering place of sorts. Outside, along the south wall of the building is a long, green wooden bench. Painted along the top of the bench are these words: “Greenwood Whittle and Argue Club Summer Annex. People with high tempers please use dull knives.”

I didn’t get to spend much time in town, but was glad I went, to walk around a bit, to see and experience the non-fictional town of Eureka.

Copyright 2009 ~ Cheryl Unruh

Cheryl columns, Kansans, small towns