Waterloo: Town has standout 'survivors'

Arboretum is family's inheritance from pioneer ancestor who had visions for prairie.  

By Amy Bickel - The Hutchinson News - abickel@hutchnews.com
WATERLOO - The government said the trees John Walter Riggs requested would never grow in Kansas.

Grandson and namesake John Riggs chuckles at this statement as he stood amid 10 acres of timber, gesturing to four sturdy Bald Cyprus trees that are well beyond 100 years in age - a few of the saplings the U.S. Department of Agriculture told him couldn't grow in a climate like that of Kansas.

Not that these naysayer theories weren't warrant. After all, when the elder Riggs, an Indiana native, first came to the small, Kingman County town of Waterloo in the 1880s, there was nothing around it but barren prairie.

The new Kansas pioneer, however, had visions for this vast sea of grass.

On a recent spring day, grandson Riggs, of Lindsborg, and his wife, Janie, walked through the trails crisscrossing 10 acres of what is known as Riggs Arboretum - proclaimed to be the oldest arboretum west of the Mississippi.

Thanks to his grandson and others, John Walter Riggs' legacy lives on in this little ghost town.

FYI The Riggs Arboretum is open by permission. For more information, call the Riggses at (785) 227-3858. The spring work weekend is April 15-16. All volunteers are welcome.

 

Waterloo, Kansas. A Kingman County Ghost Town in pictures

Riggs Arboretum

John Riggs and wife Janie, walk through his grandfather John Riggs' grove.

John Riggs' grandson John Riggs, of Lindsborg, and his wife, Janie, walked through the trails crisscrossing 10 acres of what is known as Riggs Arboretum - proclaimed to be the oldest arboretum west of the Mississippi. The elder Riggs built this when he settled her in the late 1800s.

Bald Cyprus, some of the older trees in the arboretum

Water pump at the baseball diamond, built in the 1950s.

The bases are still out at the diamond

St. Louis School- the Catholic school closed in the 1960s. These women still meet her to quilt.

Women quilt every Wednesday in the upper story of the old Catholic school.

A plat of the town.

The old diamond.

Former public school, now a home.

Cheney Sentinel, March 1, 1901
J.W. Riggs, of Waterloo, Kingman Co., was a business caller Tuesday. The Government has decided to establish an experimental forestry station at Waterloo and Mr. Riggs was appointed superintendent. The object is to determine by practical experimentation what kind of trees are best adapted to southern Kansas. About 80 varieties will be planted this spring and reports made form time to time of their growth.


"John W. Riggs, government forester, has a wonderful collection of trees and plants," reported the Kingman Journal in 1901. “Among them are cedars of Lebanon, Olive of Palestine, sequoia, magnolia, plants from Australia and the lotus form the Nile … He has succeeded in making a number of rare plants grow, some of which had never before been cultivated in this country.”

An early day description of the Waterloo vicinity, according to an April 19, 1888 issue of the Kingman Courier. 

“The town of Waterloo is a beautiful little villa situated on the astern bank of Smoot’s Creek, a rapid stream which runs the year round. The Town is surrounded by some of the most productive farms in the state … There is no part of the state of Kansas which enjoys a better water privilege on a soil as rich and deep as does the vicinity of Waterloo.

Ravanna Kansas, former county seat of Garfield County, now a Finney County ghost town.

RAVANNA – Driving is pickup on a dirt road sandwiched between two limestone ruins, 86-year-old Guy Reed noted there could be a rattler or two out on of the first warm days of March.

In the summers, at least, infestation of rattlesnakes is about all that makes up this area of Finney County – once populated with more than 700 residents. Even a few of the sons of the famed P.T. Barnum Siamese twins Eng and Chang once lived at this ghost town, he said, adding matter-of-factly he didn’t know how they fathered nearly a two dozen children.

Ravanna’s story, however, is deeper than rattlesnakes and the children of conjoined brothers. It’s about the bitter battle for the county seat of a now nonexistent county with nearby neighbor, Eminence.

Reed recalled attending his first year of school at Ravanna in 1930. Today, however, just five wall supports stand - the walls already crumbled to the ground from age and weather.

"I hate to see the building torn down," he said.

Guy Reed walks around the Ravanna Cemetery.

Ravanna Cemetery

Ravanna Courthouse. It was never used.

Ravanna school

Kansas/Colorado Ghost town: Trail City

Men whose business, or yearning for excitement, had taken them into many of the West's hooray towns, said the worst of them couldn't hold a candle to Trail City, the "Entertainment" town on the Colorado-Kansas border. It had been established to fleece the thirsty, women-eager men who choused cattle up from Texas and it lived up to its founders' greediest dreams. It was said there were more ways in Trail City to separate a man from his money than a prairie dog had ticks."
- Old Timers Wild West magazine, 1979


TRAIL CITY - It's against the law for a woman to ride naked on a horse through Coolidge.
Or, at least, that's the story Larue Lennen tells - a story passed down from her mother, a former mayor of Coolidge, which is just a few miles from the Kansas border. When a prostitute from the rough border town of Trail City came riding into Coolidge, residents decided they wanted to make sure it never happened again.
Trail City, after all, was the notorious stepchild of the area - a place of gambling and drinking, of womanizing and, on occasion, of murder. It was a town without a county or state, for that matter - a city located in what they called "No Man's Land."
So disorderly was this town that for years after its death locals wouldn't talk about it, maybe because their men sometimes sneaked over to visit.
Larue Lennen, however, along with her daughter, Lori, is on a mission to preserve the history - working on a document that tells the tale.
"Otherwise," Lennen said. "These stories will all be lost."

The old railroad bridge where cattle were tolled. Men whose business, or yearning for excitement, had taken them into many of the West's hooray towns, said the worst of them couldn't hold a candle to Trail City, the "Entertainment" town on the Colorado-Kansas border. It had been established to fleece the thirsty, women-eager men who choused cattle up from Texas and it lived up to its founders' greediest dreams. It was said there were more ways in Trail City to separate a man from his money than a prairie dog had ticks." - Old Timers Wild West, 1979

Lori Lennen wants to preserve the history of Trail City

 

Old foundations and remains of dugouts.

Martin Culvert's grave, the founder of Trail City and the National Cattle Trail

Martin Culvert's grave, the founder of Trail City and the National Cattle Trail

Martin Culvert's grave, the founder of Trail City and the National Cattle Trail

Photo of cowboys camped near Trail City

Photo of cowboys camped near Trail City

Cartoon drawing depicting Trail City

Map of Trail City's layout

To read the entire story of Trail City, click here