POtW: North First Street?

This is a picture of the sign located at Battery Place and North First Street in Lawrence. The funny thing about Lawrence is that Lawrence doesn't actually have a First Street, either a north one or any other one. Apparently the Westheffer Company, maker of fine agricultural sprayers, is located on North 1st Street but they are the only thing on North 1st Street so I just consider it a huge driveway.

What's interesting is where West 1st Street would be, it's not there. We start out at 2nd Street and go all the way to 34th Street but there is no 1st. By my calculations, 1st Street should be about here. What's even stranger is that the numbered streets didn't even start out numbered. They were changed in the early 20th Century which makes me think 1st Street used to exist before the town grew north.

POtW: South & Summit

My friend Randy and I tried to steal this sign. We worked hard on it but ultimately failed. I like these old signs in Baldwin because they are unique unlike the regular white on green that are replacing them.

There are very few of the white JCC signs left in Baldwin and I'm hoping I can get pictures of all of them before they are removed. By my count there are seven or eight of them left. I also wish that someone would be able to tell me who the "JCC" is that printed on the shield after the street name.

Update (3/27/2024): A few years ago, after some searching and sleuthing, I discovered what the JCC stands for. It stands for the United States Junior Chamber, or Jaycees. They are an organization for young people to become civically involved in their community. Their logo even has the shield seen on the sign.

POtW: Dead End

I had to spend a couple days in Garnett, Kansas for work a year ago and I thought Garnett looked like a very poor town. To back me up on this theory, at least every fourth house I had to visit was abandoned and they couldn't even afford modern "Dead End" signs.

POtW: Oakwood Cemetery Signs

I went to Oakwood Cemetery back over the summer and noticed something different about it. They had installed these street signs to mark the roads within the cemetery. I thought it was really weird because I wondered why they did it and then how they came up with the street names. Oakwood and Main are the two big roads leading across the cemetery, 4th Street is located roughly where 4th Street would be if the city had extended it further, and Counts, Hey, among others are the names of people buried near those sign's proximity. I can't remember the other names printed on the signs but I will probably go back at some point and get more pictures. I also like the design of the signs.

POtW: Kibbee Street

I've decided to do a theme of street signs. The pictures will just be of street signs I think are cool or odd in their own special way. First up is the Kibbee Street sign in Baldwin. Kibbee is a short street in north Baldwin between Wesley and Eisenhower and is little more than a gravel road. The sign stopped being effective years ago because it leaned forward and at an angle but the city allowed it to remain up. I recently went by the intersection and noticed that the sign has now been removed.

POtW: Fall Colored Hill

This is located in extreme northern Douglas County along North 2190 Road about half a mile south of the Kansas River and was taken during last fall when it so beautiful and all the trees were changing.

I'm thinking starting next week, I'm going to post some odd pictures I've taken of stuff no one but me seems to care about. Try to do that all through April if I can find or take enough pictures. Of course, the last two pictures kind of fit that theme.

POtW: Panda House

This house has been abandoned for a couple years of so now but since then, this stuffed panda has been keeping guard, like a sentry, making sure those blasted kids keep of his lawn. The bear has faded from dark black into a brownish-burnt sienna color.

POtW: The Trolley Tracks

With all the snow and ice that have happened this winter, potholes are abundant in Lawrence but with this pothole come old trolley tracks that used to go all over the town from the river to 23rd Street. It's good to know that instead of removing the bricks and tracks, the city just paves over them both.

POtW: Greenwood Valley School

The old Greenwood Valley School four and a half miles west of Lecompton. The school was built in 1896 and serviced District Number 24 until 1960 when it was consolidated to the Lecompton School District.

This school was recently vandalized by people claiming to be with the Sur 13 gang from Topeka but I think it was teenage wannabes from the nearby Shawnee Heights school district that did it because why would an urban gang tag a rural schoolhouse in another county?

POtW: The Kitchen Is Closed

I was originally going to have this house be today's Picture of the Week but I took the picture with my phone so it's not one of my best. But this house is on land owned by the same guy that owns the Miller house nearby. I'm currently doing research into who built this house and when.


Today's main picture is of the Miller house kitchen. Which seems doomed to remain in the 1970s forever.

POtW: Indianapolis School

The Indianapolis School located at the intersection of John Brown Highway and Indianapolis Road about three miles west of Osawatomie.

POtW: Abandoned Building in Topeka

An abandoned building in Topeka, Kansas near the Kansas Avenue Bridge over the Kansas River. I don't know what used to be here or why it has been allowed to deteriorate but I think it's a cool looking building.

POtW: Not Street Legal

This picture is of a couple abandoned things left at the Miller house near Baldwin City, Kansas. The house has been abandoned since the early 1970s so I am kind of amazing that this motorcycle hasn't been stolen (although I don't know what you would do with it). This stuff is located in the barn. Interesting story, when I went to view the property back in 2001 through a Realtor, the Realtor praised this modern barn which was built probably in the '70s. A couple years later, during a windstorm, half of the barn collapsed.

POtW: Four Schoolhouses

I am not a photographer nor do I ever make the claim that I am. I just like to take pictures of interesting things involving history or things that may not be around much longer. And it's because I take limited pictures of things and places is why I have to decided to reduce POtW's frequency. Instead of every week, it will now be whenever I have a picture worth sharing. I'm hoping as everything thaws out that I am able to get out and get more pictures and maybe return POtW to a weekly thing but for now it will become a occasional feature. For this week, I have selected four pictures of one-room schoolhouses that dot the Kansas landscape fairly routinely. Click on the image to enlarge. Going clockwise from the top left: Oak Grove School is located along the Scenic River Road in northern Douglas and central Shawnee County at N.E. 2nd Street and Shadden Road.The schoolhouse, built in 1871, is the oldest schoolhouse still standing in Shawnee County and is occasionally called the Kriepe School after a family that was prominent in the area. The school is currently not used. Dean School is located in northwest Franklin at Shawnee Terrace and Arkansas Road and was named for an early family in the area. This Dean School was built in 1913 replacing an older structure. Next to the school is the Dean Cemetery and the school is currently used as a residence but has been abandoned for several years. Emery Green School is also located in Franklin County near the intersection of K-68 and Ohio Terrace. It was closed in 1958 and remains abandoned. The last school is the Silkville School in Franklin County located at Douglas Road and Arkansas Road near Old Highway 50. Silkville was an experimental French commune founded by Ernest de Boissiere that produced silk. The colony was actually successful until de Boissiere left Silkville in the 1880s. The school remains abandoned but well-kept.

POtW: Burial Site of Wa-The-Nah

Somewhere on the hill beyond the wooden sign is the burial site of Chief Wa-The-Nah just to the south of Horton. Wa-The-Nah was a member of the Kickapoo Indian Tribe and is the namesake of Wathena, Kansas.

POtW: Walking Wounded

A "walking wounded" sign from World War I that is on display at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. Walking wounded, for those who don't know, are casualties that are not injured enough to interfere with their walking.

POtW: The Douglas-Franklin-Osage County Line

Today's picture is one I have been waiting to put up since I started this feature. The picture was taken in extreme southwestern Douglas County and is of the Douglas-Franklin-Osage County lines.

The sign on the far left is Osage County's indicating the intersection of East 181st Street and Woodring Road. The next sign is Douglas' marking the intersection of East 1 and North 1 Roads and the sign on the far right is Franklin's marking the intersection of Woodson and Alabama Roads.

When I first out to N1/E1, I found a lot of cool stuff including a couple cemeteries, some abandoned houses a couple old churches and that I liked to drive around and take note of what I pass by.

POtW: Topeka State Hospital

Today's picture is of the main building of the Topeka State Hospital. In operation from 1872 until 1997, the TSH was another example of a Kirkbride Asylum. The TSH housed mentally ill and insane patients who were unfit to mingle with society. The land is now owned by USD 501, the Topeka School District.

POtW: Volland General Store

The abandoned ruins of the Volland General Store in the now-ghost town of Volland. Volland is located on Old K-10 Road in Wabaunsee County between Alta Vista and Alma.

POtW: Big Metal Ball

What this hell is this? This giant metal ball is located near the Rhode Island entrance to the Lawrence Riverfront Plaza. What is it? It is a huge metal sphere used by the Lawrence Paper Company to make cardboard boxes. New people in town who see it wonder what it is and it doesn't help that the plaque explaining what it is was stolen.