Skyscraper of the Plains

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

SKYSCRAPER OF THE PLAINS

When I left you last week, my father and I were traveling Kansas Highway 96 westbound, about to enter Ness City.

My dad and I were on a 5-hour tour one fine October day, driving west from Great Bend. This is not an area I get to often, so I was excited to see new things – well, new to me; most everything we saw has been here for decades, some for more than a century.

In Ness City we were greeted by fields of green – a large John Deere dealership is on the edge of town.

We drove past the Frigid Crème Drive-in and the Derrick Inn Motel, Restaurant and Lounge. Agriculture isn’t the only game around, a line of oil field businesses stand along U.S. 283.

Ness City has an active business district including a Duckwall’s. The Ness County Historical Museum fills a large post rock yellow limestone building downtown.

And then we saw it – up Main Street. Beyond the ordinary one- and two-story buildings stands a massive fortress of native stone: the Skyscraper of the Plains.

Not a skyscraper by New York standards, but when the four-story, 18,700-square foot Ness County Bank Building was constructed, it was considered “the finest and most imposing structure west of Topeka.”

This 1888 building reigns as one of the state’s Eight Wonders of Architecture as selected in a public vote sponsored by the Kansas Sampler Foundation.

Built for N. C. Merrill with arches galore, the skyscraper has handsome hand-carved details. “Merrill Trust Co.” and the dates (1885, established; 1888, incorporated) are carved in stone scrolls at the top of the building.

Around the corner is the 1917 Ness County Courthouse. I was still recovering from a broken foot, wasn’t able to walk well yet, but I did limp up the courthouse steps to look inside.

The floor was laid when people had time and patience. It’s covered with those one-inch, six-sided tile pieces. County history is displayed along the main floor; glass cases hold documents and pieces of the past.

Someone in the courthouse is a seasonal decorator – the hallway was brightened with pumpkins, scarecrows and potted mums.

As long as I was there, I stepped into the ladies’ room. Lace curtains hung over the window. The curtains softened the room and added a hominess not often found in government buildings.

In the restroom, a framed poem, “Courthouse Square,” sat on a shelf along with a vase of silk flowers. A woman’s straw hat was draped over the top corner of a mirror. You know, it really doesn’t cost much more to make things pleasant and pretty.

A bronze statue of Corporal Noah V. B. Ness in full uniform stands on the courthouse lawn. Ness, for whom the county is named, fought with the Seventh Kansas Calvary and was killed in 1864 at Abbeville, Miss.

Dad and I left Ness City and ventured back into the wilderness. On K-4 now, we cruised through the mostly-forgotten towns of Brownell and McCracken – not much commerce going on in either place.

Post Rock fence posts are plentiful out here. It was comforting to see again those limestone posts that were a familiar sight in my youth. Dad and I commented on the beautiful, straight lines in the milo fields. The milo grows in hues that corduroy often comes in, from tan to brown to the richest shades of rust.

By the time Dad and I reached La Crosse, we were starving and stopped at Four Corner Restaurant. We had hand-pattied hamburgers and onion rings. Excellent.

The Rush County Courthouse was built in 1888. On the town’s water tower, La Crosse, KS, is written inside of a cross shape – painted in gold and black, school colors. And La Crosse’s library, constructed of post rock limestone, is named after Howard Barnard, a pioneer educator.

Also in La Crosse you’ll find these museums on the south end of town: Post Rock, Barbed Wire, the Timken depot, and the 1916 Nekoma State Bank.

In Western Kansas the towns are fewer and farther between, but it’s a region that begs to be explored. I want to go back.

Copyright 2009 ~ Cheryl Unruh