Where are you from?
San Francisco.
What are you doing all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?!
This is not nowhere. You’ve got free town wifi and a park and this great pizza place.
And we are a town in between two lakes. You’ve got camping this way and camping that way—what could be better?!
Supersized bench at Marion Lake
A project to bike across Kansas is partly met with skepticism because many view the state as “out in the middle of nowhere.” But what is a nowhere? As the writer Philip Christman recently explained, a nowhere that is a somewhere is the paradox that long has powerfully shaped this land and its people.
Certainly, the little towns between the Land Institute outside Salina and Marion were filled with signs of life past and present. Mocking the idea that they are “small towns,” welcome signs describe streets as “exits.” Gypsum has 13.
It also has an annual pie festival!
And beauty. Created in the early morning by the tipping of sun over rooftops …
… and trees.
Founded in the late 19thcentury by German Templers—a Protestant sect with millennial beliefs—I was struck by the number of ‘public’ resources it still maintains.
A water fountain.
Restrooms and colorful public benches.
When I rode by, a woman was sweeping outside of them.
I did wonder how far the notion of public might reach in this town that as of 2010 was 94.6% white. As the historian of the Midwest Andrew R.L. Cayton once observed, “Midwesterners want to be left alone in worlds of their own making.” Public resources might be fine as long as the public remains local. The status of a Kansan -Californian biking through felt unclear.
These are worlds that make very public beliefs about who belongs.
I saw many such signs the last few days.
And then I came across this one.
The Kanza were forced out of Kansas in the 1870s to make way for the creation of a nowhere that could become this somewhere. The contemporary appropriation of the Kanza into local stories and symbols is something I do not yet understand.
The story of removal did not end with the Kanza. At the beginning of the 20th century, farmers made up 20% of the American workforce. By the end of the 20thcentury they made up 2%. Larger and larger machines enabled more and more land to be farmed by less and less people, forcing many farmers out of business. Populations sizes declined precipitously. Gypsum, for example, is only half as large as it was in the 1920s. Resources concentrated in cities.
Schools are a central part of this story. Most rural communities used to educate their own. In Kansas, a schoolhouse was built every 2 miles. Today, most of these rural schools are long gone. In some cases they are still remembered and loved.
While people left, cattle remain. They retain their curiosity about the few humans that still pass by amid the trucks and oversized farm equipment.
And while some towns are on the decline, others are returning. In the county seat of Marion, for example, the historic Elgin hotel has been impeccably restored.
This chandelier was most impressive.
And this little organ charming.
After 65 miles of biking against a stiff wind, the Elgin was a truly worthy place to recover.
While I might sleep in luxury, I worried there would be nowhere to eat. Dinner at War Bird Pizza in Marion, however, was to be the highlight of my day.
The War Bird is a classic Midwestern story of something from nothing. A fire burned the structure, forcing the previous owner to close their ice cream business. War Bird was built from these ashes. The owner grew up in Germany, and then came to Kansas on an athletic scholarship and never left. She is a fine cook and a consummate host. After asking me how I ended up in ‘nowhere,’ she sat down and joined in the conversation with two other women from towns nearby. While eating the best flat bread pizza and ice cream churned from milk ice from a dairy in Emporia, I learned about the rise and fall of the local dairy farms, and the honey processing plant.
As much as I was curious about their worlds, they were curious about mine. What did I do? When I mentioned that I taught Issues and Problems in American Society, they laughed. Then, to my surprise, they began to tell their own stories about the problems created by Trump’s immigration policies. Several members of their softball team got deported. “Can you believe,” one of them asked, “that they can’t come back for ten years?” This is a nation of immigrants, built on immigrant labor. Laws might need to be reformed so that breaking the law was not the norm, she argued, but reform should not mean tearing families apart. We nodded in ascent.
We talked into the afterhours. When finally I paid, the owner asked me if I would like a tour of the lake. I really did, but I also knew I had to get up at the crack of dawn, so asked for a rain check.
I will be coming back to this nowhere.