The Homestead Act and New Trails across Kansas

Imagine reading flyers posted outside the local mercantile that promised affordable land with rich soil, a healthful climate, and railroad access. President Lincoln’s signature on The Homestead Act of 1862 led thousands to respond to these booster mantras. In addition, railroads promoted and profited from newly acquired government lands. As a result, schemers and developers publicized the region labeled “The Great American Desert” on maps as a way to live the good life and get rich at the same time. Man and machine-made trails soon riddled a country once traveled only by game, indigenous peoples, and a few hardy trappers and explorers passing through.

Dreamers and the downtrodden looking for opportunity headed west. W.R. Hill, a developer, joined with African American minister Reverend W. H. Smith to form the Nicodemus Land Company. They promoted a town site and farmsteads along the South Solomon River in western Kansas. One group interested in promises of country filled with plenty of wild game and affordable land included slaves emancipated from former Vice-President Richard Johnson’s estate in Kentucky. This group and others gathered what they imagined they needed to farm their own acres and bought Union Pacific tickets to the Promised Land.

After a long journey, these first immigrants arrived in Ellis in June of 1877. They discovered this was not the end of their travels. They still had a journey of about 35 miles to their new homes. This humble group that began an historic Kansas community walked behind a wagon filled with their meager belongings to begin the Ellis/Nicodemus trail, a route they and other newcomers would travel to and fro many times during the following months and years.

Keep in mind these fresh arrivals were from the South, a well-watered land with established agriculture. They arrived on the high plains at the beginning of summer so they would’ve scanned acres covered with still-green buffalo grass and emerging blue stem rather than thriving farmland. Used to seeing groves of hardwood trees, they’d have wondered at the scarcity of such on the plains and at the lack of variety they’d used to build and warm their former homes. Rivers where they came from were wide and deep, so their first jaunt across Big Creek in Ellis would have triggered some mumbles. What they say when they first saw the Saline and South Solomon?

For the next few years, the Ellis/ Nicodemus Trail became the standard route between the two communities. According to old Ellis Headlight and Nicodemus news articles, these newly minted agriculturists and businessmen brought grain to the mill, broken tools to the blacksmith, and their sick and injured to the company doctor available in the thriving railroad community of Ellis. One report described the excellent quality and quantity of broomcorn delivered by Nicodemus farmers. Another detailed how the railroad doctor set a Nicodemus man’s badly broken leg.

Today, that trail is a memory and a few references in old newspapers. If local historian Angela Bates has anything to say about it, this route will once again be marked and affiliated with the Nicodemus Historic Site. This path offers evidence that peoples of the prairie didn’t live isolated lives. It indicates connections between rural communities that still exist even if the roads between them are different.

Bohemian Halls in Kansas

I’ve grown up hearing America called the melting pot of the world. If you spend time traveling Kansas, then you understand the Sunflower State is the biggest bubble in that boiling mess. In a few hours’ time, travelers can visit Lebanon, Denmark, Norway, and Cuba. During that journey, drivers can drop south to Glasco, named for Glasgow, Scotland. Kansas is a state of many cultures, evidenced not only by town names but also by buildings designed to honor old-country customs.

It’s interesting to cruise our state checking out churches, schools, barns, old homes, and main streets of ethnic communities. It doesn’t take long to realize our ancestors brought their building styles from their homelands and recreated them in a region with little moisture and few trees. One of my favorite discoveries includes local Bohemian Halls. Once I spot one, I think immediately of either my favorite American writer Willa Cather or of singer Chuck Suchy and his tales of transplanted Bohemian culture.

For years I thought the Wilson, Kansas, area was the main destination for immigrant Czechs. Since then, I’ve discovered that Bohemians settled many regions of our state. One is Cuba, Kansas, off Highway 36. It has a wonderful ethnic hall where families gathered on Friday or Saturday nights to socialize and dance. It would have been a place to speak and hear a longed-for native language, evidenced by Ćeska Narodin Sin written above the entry. Not only is Cuba home to this Czechoslovakian National Hall, it also has a Czechoslovakian National Cemetery with Czech inscribed tombstones. 

A short distance south, sightseers can find another such site in the countryside near Delphos. Again, the closest town’s name misleads one to think of Aegean, not Czech, culture. Despite the confusing designation, this area welcomed many Bohemian settlers who cooperatively built this structure for common use. Current area residents maintain the building and grounds, continuing a longstanding tradition for surrounding communities.

Bull City Café in Alton is close enough to visit in the same day. What does that have to do with Bohemian Halls, you ask? In a former incarnation, the building was a Czech cultural center near Claudell. At some point, townspeople moved this edifice into Alton to serve as the local cafe. Once inside, you can view a Czech exhibit that explains this structure’s history. In addition, current operators have kept the old stage in place so diners can see where musicians of old would have stood to play and sing.

These are only a few of the Bohemian communities in our state. Interested folks can spend the rest of their lives cruising blue highways. Along the way, they’ll discover scores of tiny towns settled by people who left brought their culture and their halls to a new country. If walls could talk in these old buildings, I wouldn’t understand a word. I would, however, recognize festive rhythms of polkas and other folk dances and the shooshings all mothers use to soothe tired little ones. After decades of teaching high school, I’d also quickly identify the laughter of flirting couples. Some forms of communication are universal.

I hope these small towns find resources to preserve these remnants of their not so distant past. Such structures tell part of the story of dreamers who came to our state seeking a good life on the prairie.