It’s a tiny little town with a big heart, so big, that it straddles two counties — Sedgwick and Sumner. The Ninnescah flows nearby, a silent companion to the wheat fields and blue skies.
It’s got a community center and if you want to get there, here’s how you start. If everyone from Peck came together there you might get 162 souls, for that is what the 2020 census says.
I want to say, “I love [this small town] a bushel and a peck, A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck…”
Hard to say that, it being so small, so far out of the way, and in the shadow of the glitz and glamor of the Kansas Star Casino.
Like so many small towns, Peck got its start as a railroad stop. Two railroads crossed here. First, in 1877, came the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway, south out of Wichita, heading to Oklahoma Territory. The other line going east and west was, as far as I can figure out, the Santa Fe. Its tracks being pulled up in 1937. So we are left with one long lonesome whistle that never stops.
The post office was opened in 1887. It had a hotel, owned by George Peck, hence the name.
Sunflowers
As for today, if you are not heading to the casino, most people come to see the zinnias and sunflowers at the Red Barn Acres at 545 E 100th Ave N, Peck, Kansas. Though it has a Peck address, it’s on the other side of the Ninnescah River, and 7 miles south.
In 1865, the Union Pacific Railroad ran out of funds at Abilene, Kansas. Buffalo hunters who roamed the Great Plains in search of the herds brought their skins to the railroad to be shipped back East. After the Civil Way, Texas cattleman could bring their herds up the Chisholm Trail to be shipped to the hungry North. On September 5, 1867, Joseph G. McCoy shipped 20 cars of cattle to Chicago.
Trade and business means money. More money means more railroads. In 1871, the Santa Fe reached Newton. From there it raced on to Wichita and west to Dodge. By 1876, the Texas Pacific was shipping cattle out of Ft. Worth.
What replaced the cattle were the immigrants. They came, they like what they saw and bought. In June of 1879, the railroad came to Lindsborg. And what they bought in general stores, and the wheat and corn they grew, came and went on the railroad.
As all good things come to an end, many of the railroads left. So too the railroad from Salina through Assaria to Lindsborg. But you can still hear the endless cars whizz by heading south along the South Fork of the Cottonwood River from Strong City, through Matfield Green, and on to Newton. Yes, Abilene still has its railroad.
Bridgeport Somewhat south of Salina Past teeny Assaria Here where the river Bends and turns There is no bridge to speak of No port, no dock The railroad left, The road has moved, Hope departed And yet, One finds some houses here. And nearby, What remains Of an old Stuckeys Abandoned Right off The new highway — Bridgeport, Kansas
“If you lived in Assaria you’d be home now.” Sign on the highway near Assaria
A sign on the road on the way from Wichita to Salina and points west. Being Jack Reacher curious, I have always wanted to stop. To get off the highway, slow down, and discover what the town with the strangely foreign sounding name are all about.
“Will God help?” is a question we all ask now and then.
“Are not five sparrows sold for two assaria coins? Not one of them is forgotten by God.” — Matthew 10:29 and Luke 12:6
Assaria, not Assyria, the ancient Mesopotamian kingdom I thought it was.
Assaria, a biblical reference to Matthew 10:29 and Luke 12:6. “God will help.” The Greek assarion (ἀσσάριον) was a cheap copper coin whose value is one tenth of the silver denarius. An assarion could buy a small loaf of bread, a bunch of grapes, or 1-2 sparrows.
William Cutler in his History of the State of Kansas, Saline County, (1883) writes:
“Assaria … a small village on the McPherson branch of the Kansas Pacific Railway, about twelve miles south of Salina. It is surrounded by a fine farming country, which is occupied by thrifty farmers. The village was laid out … in June, 1879… The village contains one church, one schoolhouse, one hotel, two general merchandise stores, one drug store, two grain elevators, one lumber yard and a blacksmith shop. The population of the place does not exceed 125.”
It is growing. The population today tops 400 and there is still the same church.
The school closed in 1968, and the building was repurposed in the early 2000s as a fine dining establishment called the Renaissance Cafe.
“If you lived in Assaria you’d be home now.”
Assaria — not Assyria, we’re on our way to dinner, and discover what it is like and whether God cares.
The History of Assaria, from various sources
Swedish “settlers from Chicago bought a section of land for $3.50 an acre where Assaria now is. They first lived in a small, unheated wooden shed and brought water from a brook. Originally they belonged to the Salemsborg Lutheran congregation, but in 1875 they organized their Assaria “God will help” congregation. This name became the name of the town. The first church building was built in 1877.” The railroad from Salina to Lindsborg was laid in 1879, with a stop near the church. and so, a town site was laid out. Thanks to Highland Fairchild. Ft. Hays State University.
Elsewhere, the Salina Post reports, that the Scots arrived first, but found it not to their liking.
Among the first Swedes was Jonas Applequist and his wife who arrived speaking not a word of English. It was late October 1870, and cold and dreary. Needing shelter, Jonas spotted some smoke and, lo and behold, in cabin nearby lived a couple of Swedes from their hometown in Sweden.
That Spring, with a horse drawn one-bottom plow they plowed the land. From the limestone rock they cut blocks for a house and began to raise a family. Applequist Mfg.
There are Gunnersons too and a son who adopted the name Princell, but their stories can wait.
From Cassoday to Council Groves, a one-hour drive unless you stop. And stop you should. Things to see and do on the Flint Hills Scenic Byway.
Cassoday. The Cassoday Bike Run shut down in 2025 after 33 wonderful years. It is still worth getting off of I-35 and taking the Flint Hills Scenic Highway from Cassoday all the way to Council Groves. If you’re not in a hurry, take a side trip east along a gravel road to Teter Rock and view thousands of wild horses grazing on the grass. It is 13 miles, but twice the minutes because of the gravel road. The horses graze freely, keeping the flies at bay with their tails. And Teter Rock, well, it’s a big rock and impressive, a rock with a heck of a view. Once a pile of stones on top of the tallest hill, a trail marker to guide early settlers heading north looking for the South Fork of the Cottonwood River. (In time this route would become the Flint Hills Scenic Byway.)
Matfield Green. The first true stop on the Flint Hills Scenic Byway. Small, even tiny, a pretty cemetery, an old bank that operates now and then as a welcome center, an old school that once had goats. The Matfield Green Station LLC, where one can lodge for the night to hear the long, lonesome whistle of the Santa Fe RR, the nearby PrairyArt Path.
Pioneer Bluffs. Life pretty much as it was. A story that began in 1859 when Charles Rogler, a young Austrian immigrant, walked all the way from Iowa to Kansas to start a new life. He found himself a young wife, one Mary Miriam Satchell, and they raised five children on hard work and good values — a legacy honored today.
Bazaar. Not much of a town, but a pretty two-room school just off the highway. A cemetery that flies flags on the Forth of July. Memories of the vast herds of cattle that once gathered here at the end of the Chisholm Trail. And visions of the buffalo that preceded them.
Cottonwood Falls. Cottonwood Falls tops the list of prettiest towns in the Flint Hills — a brick street that leads up to the beautiful white limestone Chase County Courthouse (the oldest still in use in Kansas). Local art galleries, a western wear shop, a quaint hotel, several guest homes, and quiet are the hallmarks of this town whose size since the 1920 census has been slowly dwindling. It has now dipped below 900. Tall Grass National Preserve is a short ten minute drive north. Chase County Lake is also nearby.
Strong City. Cottonwood Falls Gemini twin. Strong City got the railroad, and for that reason might have eclipsed Cottonwood Falls, except Cottonwood Falls kept the courthouse. The old Santa Fe Railroad Depot.
Tall Grass National Prairie Preserve. Much to see, a beautiful limestone house called “Second Empire style of 19th century architecture with a mansard roof enclosing the upper story with dormers and projecting mansard gables, cornices, brackets, and stone quoins at the corners of the house.”
Lower Fox Creek Schoolhouse. A one-room schoolhouse on the hill. Occasionally open. Take a walk on the prairie down to the creek. Admire, but don’t pick, prairie flowers.
Council Groves. A quaint downtown and nearby lake. Memories of the Indians and the Santa Fe Trail. A great summer market. Several restaurants including the Hays House and friendly Trail Days Cafe that is ever so cute. Riverbank Brewing, 13 W. Main St.. Once it was all a dream, now it’s three years young. Rest a spell, try a pint, you’ll come back.
N. C. Wyeth, an Easterner, painted The Homesteaderas a full-color illustration for a story in the Ladies Home Journal, September 1930, by Wilbur Daniel Steele titled “Green Vigil: A Saga of the West.” The female figure represents Ivy, the main character, described by Steele as “strong and young, not above twenty-eight, with the shoulders and hands of a country girl, the dull, pretty face and large-calved legs of a Tom-show dancer, and the brain of a child.”
Stenhuset (Stone House) 134 S. Washington St., Lindsborg, Kansas
Not the first, but the oldest house still standing in Lindsborg, Kansas.
In 1877, two years before the city incorporated and the railroad came, Nils Magnus Jonasson Elmqvist, a watchmaker from Sweden, hired stonemasons to build a two-story home for his growing family. Large blocks of dark Dakota sandstone found in outcrops near the Coronado Heights were carefully carved, then mortared in place, creating 24-inch-thick walls made to withstand the coldest winters. The windows are 10-feet tall, each capped with a stone lintel. The lintels contain bible verses in old Swedish and floral carvings. At the front steps, a platform with a canopy is said to have been removed.
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,…” is inscribed in Old Swedish on the stone lintel over the front door.
Nils (born 15 Oct 1819) was born and raised in Hjälmaryd Asa, Smaland, Sweden (some say Gothenburg, but that could be the port of embarkation). He married Maja Stina Jonasdotter (born 17 Dec 1816). Their children were Johan Fredrick, Peter Magnus Efraim, Johan August, Carolina Sophia, and Charlotta Eugenia Maria (all born in Sweden).
They came to America as a family in 1868.
Of Politics and Life in Sweden
Twenty years before, the March Unrest, or the Marsoroligheterna, a series of riots took place in Stockholm in March 1848, due to news of a Second French Revolution (Les Miserables). In 1868, Prussia and France were on the brink of war. The year of 1866 was one of late, late snow, and in 1867 of drought and famine.
It is said of the one thousand or so people who lived in Asa, 700 left. The explanation was crop failures, poverty, and the availability of cheap land in the United States due to the Homestead Act. Swedish families were large. Many sons and daughters meant ever smaller farms.. Also large landowners (the nobility) and bankers dominated the Riksdag (parliament). Suffrage was limited to about 20% of the male population. Women had no right to vote in Sweden while in America, the idea was stirring.
The home is now a vacation home.
As to the stone, it is likely Nils quarried it himself. And that his oldest son Johan Fredrick followed him in this profession.
Of the watchmaker and his wife, little else is known other than this. Nils lived to the age of 89, dying in 1908. Maja died five months before him.
William G. Cutler’s History of the State of Kansas, first published in 1883 by A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL., gives an interesting account of the origin of names of the rivers and creeks of Morris County.
The Neosho River is the principal river of Morris County having is origin there. The Neosho was named by the Kaw Indians, Cutler supposing that a band of Kaw were traveling west from Missouri, most likely hunting buffalo out on the great plains. It was, one supposes, a hot summer, much like today. Water was scarce. Creeks were dry and rivers were few. The Indians, quite thirsty, stumbled across the river and shouted, “Ne-o-sho” meaning Ne, water; o sho stream-in, or in plain English, “Stream with water in it.” Modern scholars roughly agree. “Neosho,” the Kaw word ñí ožó (pronounced “nee-oh-zho”), meaning “clear water” or “abounding in water.” The subtle nuance of the word Neosho is lost as is most of the language. One only has to look to the Ninnescah, possibly also a Kaw word, or Osage, which also means “clear water.” The name is appropriate to both rivers as they flow through sandy stretches removing much of the dirt, rendering the water clear and sweet. Sweet water and clear water are also translations of Ninnescah. Compare the Kaw word for the Arkansas River, “Nízhuje,” which translates “Ní” = water and “”zhuje” = big. That is Big Water or something like that. Not until the two rivers flow east to Muskogee, Oklahoma, do the Neosho and Arkansas Rivers join forces.
The Neosho flows through scenic Council Groves and fills Council Groves Lake, a US Army Corps of Engineers’ reservoir.
If you are looking for other cities in Kansas to find the Neosho River, I suggest Emporia, Iola, and Chanute.
Should you wish to delve into the Kaw language I suggest the Kansa Reader. The Osage language translator I referenced gives us a similar sounding translation of water — 𐓁𐒻, sounds like “ni.”
There must be more to the Buckhorn Tavern/Saloon/Hotel than this short blurb from Cutler’s History of the State of Kansas, Sedgwick County.
“Henry Vigus ran the Buckhorn tavern, “where every class of frontiersmen, as well as border terror, had a home. A music-box was one of the features of the hotel, which was in itself enlivening, often engaging the motley assemblies into a dirt floor dance, until, on one occasion, it provoked the ire of John Ledford, while the Buckhorners were engaged at their evening repast, when he jerked a navy from his belt and silenced it forever.”
Buckhorn, from a buck, a male deer, whose horn was used as a knife handle – the knife tending to cause some mischief in a fight. Buckhorns were plentiful in Wichita on account of a deer population lived along the rivers and streams.
The Wichita Eagle’s newspaper account of Henry’s death gives us a little more insight into the life of this early settler of Wichita. He died at 7 o’clock in the evening a few hours after dining at the Texas Hotel. Henry came form Logansport, Indiana where he learned the trade of a harness maker and saddler, joining there the good fellows of the Odd Fellows, making life long friends. By 1854, he had made his way on foot, it is thought, to Westport in Missouri.
He laid no claim to piety, the obituary said, indeed, he expressed that ineffable fear of being thought a man of the cloth though he never hesitated to cater to the sick and the dying. One, may nevertheless, fear God, despising religion. Such was Henry.
Henry Wilford Vigus was born near Lynchburg, in beautiful rural Amhearst County, Virginia, on November 29th, in the year 1829.
At 17, he joined up with the army and quickly made sergeant. He was with General Winfield Scott in the campaign against Mexico, engaged in the battles of Cherubusco, Molino del Rey, and Conteras. At this point the Mexican army was thoroughly defeated, a cease fire was achieved, and finally, peace. During the War of Great Rebellion between the States he again served, this time with the 77th Missouri Militia, Company C, no doubt dealing with Quantrill’s Raiders and bushwhackers who festered along the Kansas Missouri border. Eventually, Sergeant Vigus was promoted to Captain.
It is said that he arrived in Sedgwick County in May of 1868. No doubt he was on a horse, for he brought along a wife, one Miss Harriet Tipton. She died in 1871. Despite his service in the Grand Army of the Republic, Henry was a lifelong Democrat. This stymied his wish to become marshal, the honor going to W. N. Walker, and later to the better known Michael Meagher. (Yes, Wyatt Earp served as Deputy Marshal for awhile. Operating a bawdy house and dealing Keno did not sit well with the city fathers and Earp moved on.)
In addition to his talents as a saddler, Henry opened an establishment he chose to call the Buckhorn. (Whether this was a tavern/saloon/ or hotel is a semantical question that has no one right answer.) This watering hole was popular, for it took advantage of the cattle and Texas cowboys that poured into Wichita beginning in 1871 and lasted until 1876 when the quarantine line was established to protect local ranchers. It was one such cowboy, Jack Ledford who emptied his pistol into Henry’s music box. The mischievous and troublesome Ledford would stay in Wichita and eventually he was killed in a shoot out with U.S. soldiers as he exited an outhouse.
In 1873, Henry married Miss Hattie Quarles with Kansas City connections. She died two years before Henry.
Henry left behind one son who was living at the time of his death in Prescott, Arizona.
In the words of Ecclesiastics, his friends “mourned,” wondering if the years of his life were “an idle dream, purposeless, fruitless and absurd.” “Nay,” it is proclaimed, Henry resides in the fertile valleys of a better land.” Thus, we who carry on must pay heed to the important duties of life.
If Henry Vigus had errors let them be written in sand and while we engrave his virtues on golden tablets so that we may learn to imitate them.
Notes.
The Buckhorn Saloon/Tavern/Inn, was one of Wichita’s earliest drinking establishments. It was located on the corner of Main Street and Douglas Avenue. It was likely on the northwest corner as the Southern Hotel was situated on the east side of North Main Street in the 100 block. The area was known as Keno corner for the popular card games.
The Texas Hotel where Henry Virgus dined and became ill was located at 612 E Douglas Avenue.
Information is subject to updates.
The Southern Hotel down the street from the Buckhorn Tavern/Saloon
William G. Cutler’s authoritative History of the State of Kansas (1883) begins its description of Rice County with the bland statement that Rice is, “the central county of Kansas, … created by the Legislature of 1867, and … organized August 18, 1871. Central, because it is seven counties between Missouri and Colorado, four from Nebraska, and three from Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The year, 1867 — because the Civil War was open and Kansas was open to Homesteading by Civil War veterans and others.
The Indians, of course, still lived here, the Kansa (Kaw), the Pawnee, and the Osage, hunting buffalo and farming, raising beans, corn, and squash. But then, the settlers came, the buffalo were killed and the land was fenced.
Lyons became the county seat, perhaps because it too was centrally located. Perhaps too because it was located on the ancient Santa Fe Trail, east of Cow Creek, and not too distant from the Arkansas River. The arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1876 clinched the deal and Lyons was made the county seat. It was named for Truman J. Lyons,* real estate dealer, who bought the site where the land was laid out. (An early story of Cow Creek Ranch)
Atlanta was the first county seat, but the railroad changed that. The new town of Lyons was a mile and a half closer. As with all towns, there was a general store or two, a pharmacy, a livery, eventually a bank. Doctors and lawyers and preachers ministered to the health and well-being of all.
The early years were hard. William Cutler retells the story of David Ahlberg. He was born in Sweden in 1834. He came to America at the age of 23, then in 1871, to Rice County with two horses and a wife, homesteading on 160 acres a mile and a half from Lyons.
The first winter, “one of his horses died, and the next spring, not being able to purchase another sold the remaining one for thirty acres breaking, paying $4 an acre.” To support his family the next summer he hired out. In 1873, he raised some spring wheat which was cradled (cut with a scythe with fingers). To get it ground into flour he had to take it some sixty miles to Salina. In 1874, the grasshoppers came after the Forth of July, and devoured his entire crop of corn, consisting of fifty acres, along with his young fruit trees. But the following year a large crop of fall wheat, which he sold in Ellsworth, put him back on his feet. In the spring of 1879, the weather turned again. A hail storm wiped out his eighty acres of wheat. Since then the weather was fair.
In 1882, he raised a bumper crop of 2,100 bushels corn on seventy acres. Cutler couldn’t have known but bad weather was always around the corner. Following a summer of steady crop failures, the autumn and early winter weather remained pleasant up to the morning of December 31, 1885. That’s when the Great Blizzard struck the western counties. Farming, businesses, railroads, and even the telegraph came to a stand-still as the snow fell. The winds howled, the mercury dropped below zero, and the cattle died. It is said that up to 100 people froze to death in the dugout cabins where they slept. God forbid, one was out on a horse on the plains.
*From Cutler’s History: “T. J. LYON, dealer in real estate, loans money and does collecting for other parties, etc. He came to Atlanta, Kan., now Lyons, February 24, 1876, and bought the land where the city of Lyons now stands, laid out the town in June, 1876, and donated the ground for a court house square and the public school grounds and various business lots in the new city…” Another source identifies Freeman J. Lyons as the town founder.
Lyons, Kansas in the 50s, photo, Library of Congress
Partridge, Salt Creek Township, Reno County, Kansas
I don’t remember a thing. I don’t remember taking a photograph of the post office. I don’t remember Partridge, Kansas at all, but the photo tells me I was there.
It is a typical small, tiny town. Like the Partridge website that says, it’s not the boundaries on a map that defines a town, but a “sense of shared values our residents hold dear.”
Partridge is a few miles southwest of Hutchinson. It was laid out in 1886. In 1887, the railroad arrived. It was incorporated as a city in 1906. Its name commemorates the partridge. The population in 1910 was 246. Today it is 209.
If you hunt online you’ll find the diary of Julia A. Hand.
She says her family was the first to arrive in the area. The year 1872. It was the month of November. That they hoped to be on the railroad, but missed the mark by two miles. That they had to carry water from Salt Creek. A trip of three miles made daily. The home is sod and timber. A fire to keep warm, but the buffalo chips have a smell. The well was finally dug, but December 25th was a cold and lonely Christmas. It is so cold that they have to bring a cow inside. And buffalo hunters stop by for warmth and a meal.
That summer, a heard of Texas cattle come by. The Hand’s cattle mix in and Mr. Hand has to follow and find them. In July, some Indians come by and Mrs. Hand feeds them meat and bread. It’s 94 degrees in the shade. Rattlesnakes lie in the grass.
Here come the grasshoppers. (Next year the grasshoppers are worse, and nothing remains but the stalk of the corn they planted.) By October, their neighbor sells his place after only six months and heads back to Missouri. Still settlers keep coming and a schoolhouse is built for the children.
Welcome to Partridge Kansas.
Note. An old county map shows a school house two miles north of Partridge (School District 5). Surely, this was the school for the Hand’s eleven children, and the children of the neighbors. The diary goes on to 1875. The diary of Julia Hand was transcribed by her son Joseph. The original copy is in the Partridge Library.
