5/14/15 - Brown v. Board of Education NHS

Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site is the only national park named after a U.S. Supreme Court Case. It's in an old grade school and is harder to find than I expected. I didn't bother to plug in the address, but found the name in our GPS. We drove into Topeka and ended up at the Old Post Office. I ran inside and got directions. They know where everything is at the Post Office!


Turns out there was a valid reason the GPS got it wrong--the Supreme Court case was tried in the summer of 1951 in the courtroom of the Old Federal Building.  The Old Federal Building later became the Post Office--but now it's the Old Post Office because Topeka's built both a new Federal Building and a new Post Office. (BTW, the Old Post Office which used to be the Old Federal Building is for sale.  Do you see a pattern here? Or maybe an upcoming identify crisis? Even more confusion for the GPS?)  

Back in the truck, we drove to the Old Monroe Elementary School which now houses the Visitor Center. It's so nice to know that it's not just MY sense of direction that's fallible. (Ha! Stupid GPS!)  

Monroe was one of four segregated elementary schools for African American kids in Topeka. The state law said that schools could be "separate but equal".

The ranger there is really nice and answered all my questions. I don't think they get a lot of visitors.There's a movie. Actually, 5 movies in 5 minute segments that just play over and over in the old gym. 

There's either too much information or not enough space at this park. Several of the classrooms have been opened up, and displays put in to explain the history of Civil Rights. One side of the building has focuses on Education and Justice; the other side on the Legacy of the decision.

Five separate lawsuits about desegregation of schools were combined and argued in front of the US Supreme Court. Together they became known as Brown v. Board of Education. The landmark Supreme Court decision in 1954 brought an end to racial segregation in America's schools. Eventually...

There are timelines that show events going back 500 years, displays that show in pictures and video events as they happened, with some interactive bits scattered along the way.

Some of this stuff I remember from the news. Much of it was new to me. It's interesting to see things that were current events while I was growing up that have now become history considered so important they made a National Historic Site out of it.

They've recently set up a 1954 kindergarten room--representative of a classroom of that time, with a few modern twists. I've never seen one with a fireplace before! 

Administration offices are upstairs. Still looks like a school, doesn't it?

There are a few more pictures here:  Brown v Board of Ed

5/12/15 - Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum

I knew Abilene was a famous cow town. In fact, it was the first cow town of the old west. (I hope you know that I sometimes read this stuff while we're traveling, and didn't know it until after we get there.) I didn't know Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) was from Abilene--and that's where the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum* is located.

We didn't have time for the movie before the Eisenhower Home tour, so we wandered down the sidewalk to the house. It looks a lot bigger from the outside than the inside. Hard to believe that the Eisenhower family with six sons lived here!

The Eisenhowers lived in this house from 1898 until Ike's mother Ida died in 1946, and contains furniture and items left by Mrs. Eisenhower. We had to stay on the gray carpet runner and could only look into the rooms. Looks like a nice plain home from the early 20th century.

After the tour, we walked over to what I would have called a chapel, but they call "Place of Meditation".  Still looks like a chapel to me. Both President Eisenhower, 34th President of the US, his wife Mamie, and their first son, Doud, are buried here.

 

There's a bronze statue in the center of the park. It's actually bigger than it looks, but I liked the Presidential Seal tool.

Dwight Eisenhower is the first President I remember. (My Weekly Reader--stories about Camp David, Mamie's hats and Ike playing golf--surely there was more but that's what must have impressed me in 4th grade.) The Presidential Museum and the Presidential Library face each other, both huge buildings. I think they look alike but I don't have exact pictures of both, so if you really want to know, you'll need to go to Abilene.

There are big murals in the lobby. I checked them out while George was getting his passport stamps. I'm not sure if he noticed.

The museum is like a huge maze. You just follow the exhibits around from one section to another, moving deeper and deeper into the center of the building. (I have no idea what their plan is in case of tornados--we'd never be able to figure out which way to go.) We jumped right into WWII.

There's really a lot of stuff here! I told George that there may be people who work here that have never seen everything in all the exhibits. It would take months during lunch hours. It's interesting how in museums like this, people migrate to the exhibits that interest them. So you better believe that George and I didn't always stop at the same displays!

I can pretty much guarantee that he walked right past the Mamie Gallery because he's not much interested in her wedding dress or hats. This is a picture of Mamie in her wedding gown in 1916.

I did like the 1914 Rauch & Lang Electric Auto that belonged to Mamie's parents. I waylaid George to ask some questions I had. Like why did it have dual steering, brakes and controls so it could be driven from either the left front or left rear seats? He didn't know...

There are three cases of medals and decorations given to Ike from lots of different countries after WWII ended. Some of them are beautiful, some just interesting.

There's a section on what he did during his presidency. Lots of interesting things there. Did you know  Eisenhower championed the formation of the Interstate Highway System? Don't forget it was Cold War time, so it's official name is "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways". I don't suppose he had any idea that it would get as clogged up as it does.

His Presidential Desk is there. Some pretty exotic Gifts of State. They even have his golf clubs on display! 

 

 

The Library is across the way, geared more for research, although there are a few exhibits there. We decided we'd seen enough for one day.

Go here for more pictures: Eisenhower Center

* This is #2 on the list of 8 Wonders of Kansas. That makes five of the 8 Wonders that we've seen. #1 is shared by two wildlife refuges (Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira) and #6 is a church in Victoria, but those weren't very close to where we were. I asked George if he wanted to go to see the world's largest hand-dug well, but he wasn't interested. (sigh) It's #8 on the list. (Just FYI, he didn't want to check out the world's largest ball of twine either.)

5/11/15 - Tallgrass Prairie NP

There used to be 170 million acres (if you're not a farmer, that's 400,000 square miles!) of tallgrass prairie in North America. Now there's less than 4% remaining, most of it in the Flint Hills of Kansas--and most of that at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. It's another one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas, listed as #7 in my brochure.

I think the Visitor Center is a strange looking building, and could be confused with a storm shelter, a warehouse, a prison, a school. That's not barbed wire around the roof, it's a fence around the tallgrass growing on the roof. George thinks it was designed to match the landscape. You decide.

History Alert: Stephen & Louisa Jones came to Kansas in 1878 to build a stock ranch on 7,000 acres of prairie they called Spring Hill Ranch. He built a fancy limestone house for $25,000. The barn and outbuildings (also limestone) were another $15K. Then he had the entire ranch enclosed with 30 miles(!) of dry stone wall for his cattle. (I have no idea how much he paid for the fence.) Later other people owned the ranch, split it, added to it, and in 1955 it became the Z Bar Ranch. Now it's mostly owned by The Nature Conservancy and jointly managed by the Conservancy and NPS. Didn't know they did that.

As I may have mentioned, it's windy in Kansas. Today's not only very windy, but colder than it has been. Nevertheless, the only way to see the interesting stuff at this park is to walk. Outside. First stop, the barn. It's huge!

It was cold inside, with natural insulation because it was built into the hillside, but at least it wasn't windy inside. We wandered around both ground and the second floor, then went outside without going back downstairs. (I found another fly net! I think the fly net thing is sort of like when you get a new car--you never notice how many others just like it until you get one of your own.)

From the back the building looks completely different. The ramps were used to take hay up into the third story, which looks like the second story because the first story is underground.

Opposite the back of the barn were the chicken coop and the carriage house. You can probably figure out which was which.

The path continued to the house, built in the Second Empire style. Top picture is the back of the house, bottom is the front. Note the extra floor in front. Just like the barn, it was built into the hillside for insulation. Or, since this is Kansas, maybe just so it wouldn't blow over.

Other outbuildings included a Curing House and Outhouse near the house, and a Cistern and Ice House up the hill a bit. These pictures are of the very fancy outhouse. (The smaller one was for their little girl.) Not sure if there were monogrammed towels.

The trail continues out into the prairie, where it's called the "Southwind Nature Trail". Today the wind was coming from the west, bringing a cold memory of Colorado Rockies with it. Occasionally the trail would wander into the protection of a hill, and the temperature went up 15 degrees. That's the Lower Fox Creek School towards the north, up on a windy hill. The Joneses built the school, but apparently didn't want it in their front yard.

This area of Kansas is called the Flint Hills. There's a lot of limestone mixed in with the flint. Makes for nice houses--and lousy farmland.

The tallgrass isn't very tall this time of year, but by late summer it's high enough to hide grade school kids, which may or may not be a good idea. It's springtime, and wildflowers are blooming. This pretty little daisy is called Fleabane. It may or may not deter fleas, but I think it's pretty.

They have buffalo at the Preserve, but they've moved them to another pasture. We watched small brown dots move up and over a hill. If you really want to see them, I suggest binoculars or a really good imagination. 

More pictures here:  Tallgrass Prairie NP