No Pavement
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Day 4: October 5, 2024 No Pavement Comment via blog |
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Readers who have been paying close attention may recall that Fred Zander
had planned to share a motel room with me at
last month's SCA conference in Nashville
but didn't make it. Fred lives in Topeka, KS, which is close enough to the
PPOO that a meeting to pass along the conference "goody bag" and
other items was pretty easy to arrange. We met for breakfast at the
Paolucci's
Restaurant in Atchison, KS. Great old building plus good food,
service, and prices.
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The low morning sun made it impossible to capture much more than a
silhouette of Saint Joseph's pony express statue from the PPOO side. The
other side was considerably more photogenic.
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During their final years, the Jefferson Highway and Pike's Peak Ocean to
Ocean Highway combined management and used offices in a building that I
believe once stood where this parking lot is now. Saint Joseph had a very
legitimate claim to being the "Cross Roads of
the Nation". Both highways entered the intersection from the east
on Jules Street. The JH turned south here on 5t Street and the PPOO turned
south one block farther west on 4th Street.
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The Doniphan County courthouse in Troy, KS, is pretty cool looking but I
really came to see Peter Toth's "Tall
Oak" carving. Doniphan County not only took advantage of the 1950
Boy Scouts of America
Strengthe the Arm of Liberty program but built an
impressive pedestal for the donated statue and refurbished and rededicated
the installation in 2005.
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A couple of miles beyond Troy, I crossed the current US-36 and started on
what looked like an extremely pretty drive. There was even some almost new
asphalt along the way. I made it about ten miles but found the road closed
a little past Highland. I could have turned left but decided to go back to
Highland and drive south to US-36.
That road closure led to me entering Hiawatha from the south instead of from the east on KS-6/PPOO. So I backtracked on KS-6 for a bit so I could fake arriving in town as planned. That turned out to be almost directly in front of the Sunflower Motel where I stayed in 2011. |
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Once I had entered Hiawatha properly, I immediately headed to Mount Hope
Cemetery at the edge of town. I visited here in 2011 and, although nothing
has really changed at
"The Strange Grave of John Milburn Davis, it remains
strange and impressive. In almost any other cemetery, though, it might be
the shining Mary and a cluster of shining angels nearer the road that
would be drawing all the attention.
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Th Ag Museum and Windmill Lane is on the opposite side of the road from
the cemetery and a little closer to town. I don't recall it being here in
2011 although it probably was. I saw no sign of human life there today but
I did see a bunch of cool windmills.
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There's a nice ghost sign in Seneca, KS, although it is pretty tough to
get a decent shot of it from ground level. There is an operating
movie theater almost directly across the brick
paved street.
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Before it disbanded in the early 1930s, the PPOO Association proclaimed
that the highway was "paved from terminal to terminal, except for a
300-mile stretch in Kansas". I think I found part of that stretch,
which apparently never did get paved, just west of Beattie, past the
bullet riddled stop sign, and over the railroad tracks.
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Back on US-36, the brightly painted straw tractor is a nice attention
getter for the Vering Pumpkin Farm.
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In Marysville, KS, I found the trip's first independent motel that sounded
worth staying in. It was. My room at the
Marysville Surf Motel is
here. There was an ironing board but no surf
board. Go figure.
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