By UPDATE: I’ve added Ray Randolph’s comments about Bushton.
Yep, I visited BUSHTON!
Because … that’s one of the places that The Rice County Kid, Ray Randolph, used to live. Well, he lived near Bushton when he was a youngster, I believe.
Instead of driving straight west to Great Bend on US 56 like I always do, I went north at Little River and joined K-4 to see Geneseo, Frederick and Bushton.
Bushton’s population is 298.
Bushton City Offices.
It’s 10 years old, but looks brand new. Quivira Heights High School is on the south end of town.
From Ray Randolph: The limestone facade on the school building entrance is from the old high school, when it/they were the mighty Trojans (before consolidation and renaming). The little stream (wet or dry) that runs through the school yard near the street is Skeeter Creek, just a crick, really!
Part of the Hoelsher company building is on the site of an old ice plant that was obsolete when I was in Bushton. The north part of the building is on the site of Sam Kemper’s garage, which grew huge icicles every winter, and which was in business while I was in town.
If you stand a few feet north of the Hoelsher building and look west, you won’t see the little frame house (with no hot water and no toilet–outhouse out back) that was set back from the street and in which I lived from 1947 to 1951 when we moved to the apartment (with both hot water and a toilet!) above the post office, which was the first floor of the north half on today’s museum building.
The first floor of the south half of that building was Henry’s Drug Store. The stairway in between the two halves took you to the doctor’s office over the drugstore and the apartment over the post office.
We moved out to the cattle farm eight miles from town in December 1952 (I was in the middle of the fourth grade) and lived there until summer 1958 when we went to Hoisington, where I did the last three years of high school. I left home to go to college in 1962.
Hoelscher, Inc. manufactures farm equipment.
I looked around for Quinn-Craft and even asked some guy on the street – he knew nothing about Atom Pop Poppers that are/were supposedly made in Bushton. But, now I have an address and phone number and will try to check on them next time I pass through the area.
The Thunderbird is the school mascot.
Bushton Museum.
An old bank building, now a bar called The Bank.
A former gas station at the edge of town.
i see the SR 71 is gone from the water tower. i left bushton in 1972 to join the army. i was in the 8th grade till graduating from high school in 1971. i plan on visiting in may, taking in the sights and memories.