When we there, I saw a lot of grass. Then, we saw more grass. And guess what else? MORE GRASS. It was very different from our home on east coast where there were trees everywhere. In this area, there were only trees where there were streams that would provide water. It was neat because they grew in lines that followed the streams. They looked like lines of soldiers guarding the water!
Mrs. Fleenor taught me a little about prairie history.We visited a place called Old Prairie Town. Old Prairie Town is a park where humans have moved historic buildings to form what would have looked like a town back in the middle 1850's, over 150 years ago!
Here is a picture of me in front of a small building. When I first saw it, I thought that it was a church because it had a steeple. Mrs. Fleenor made me walk all the way up to the building so I could realize that it was not a steeple, but a bell tower. It was a bell for a school so that it could ring when classes were about to begin. This way the town new to drop their kids off!
Next we went to an old blacksmith shop. A blacksmith was someone who made iron tools for people to use. He would make items like hammers, axes, hoes, and horseshoes! He would even make metal parts for wooden carts, nails, and chains! When we visited, he had a bright red sled. Even though it was spring time, it was still a little warm out. Then I realized that Kansas must have all the seasons like Virginia does! Mr. blacksmith probably needed that sled on a few cold winter days.
They also had a railroad crossing section in this town. Mrs. Fleenor reminded me that people could not take a plane nor drive a car to get from Virginia to Kansas like we did. Instead, they had to ride a train or take a wagon. The thought of being on a wagon with oxen for months just to get to this crazy land where there is only grass, makes me a little faint. I would take the train. The train that would run on this railroad was headed to Santa Fe. Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico, a state in the USA, not to be confused with Mexico the country. Back then, Santa Fe was a big booming city. People wanted to go to the new place to fulfill their hopes and dreams!
Nowadays we have faucets for water. Then, they had wells, streams, and lakes. People would have to drop a bucket into the well and reel it up just to get water. I bet that my Grampy had to do that.
A little later in time, people began building windmills in Kansas for power in hopes to providing power to push small amounts of water. They were sometimes also used to provided power for milling grain. The Great Plains was a large producer of grains. This is easy to remember because grains rhyme with plains! To mill the grains, the windmills spun around by the power of the wind, which in turn would push other gears around it. It is not strong like the power we have today, but it was better than nothing!
In order to find out more about Old Prairie Town, please check out the Shawnee County Park website at: http://parks.snco.us/Facilities.aspx?Page=detail&RID=28
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