The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-07-05
THE DUTCH IN KANSAS.

Noble Prentis in X. c. Star.
Journeying by the Rock Island toward
Topeka, you cross the high praires of
Morris county, their character being well
described by the name of the station,
Alta Vista. and descend into the valley
of Mill creek through which the road
passes during a large portion of its way
through Wabaunsee county.
For miles before reaching and after
passing VOlland, the scene is un-Kansan
and is some un-American. Instead of
the vast prairie Is a narrow valley shut
in on one side by rocky and percipitous
hills, frequently crowned by cedars, the
opposite side of the valley smoother in
its ascent but conveying a sense of rising
to higher elevations. Between the hills
winds a swift brown stream, its narrow
shores covered with heavy growth of
wood, sheltered as it is from wind and
fire by the rude protection of the high
shouldered bluffs. Frequently oaks are
seen worthy of the parks of old England.
At close intervals along the valley and
the stream are farm houses, heavy, solid
affairs built of stone, seeming a part of
the hills themselves from which the ma
terials of their structure are taken.
Their big chimneys look as if intended
to outlast the earth. With the houses
are innumerable Outbuildings, all of
stone. Every bit of ground in the val
ley is improved. Orchards climb the
slope, gardens surround the houses.
small vineyards find room on the rocky
terrace; narrow corn fields and wheat
fields stretch along between the railroad
and the creek and fill all the bends.
| have said that the general air of the
landscape is un-Kansan and un-Ameri-
can. There Is reason for it. These
houses and farms belong to the German
farmers of Wabaunsee, who came into
the country in the SOS, when the battle
of the Alma in the Crimea was fresh in
the mind of the world, and so named
their county town in its honor. In this
valley they have lived and built houses
according to the ideas that prevail along
the Rhine, and from this valley they
have not departed. No boom has at
tracted them TO town to 60 into the real
estate and loan business; no drouth nor
graSshopper nor any such thing has
driven them out of their valley. and it
does not require a prophet TO say that
their descendants will hold these orchards
and gardens and vineyards and fields
while time endures.
These are not the only farm houses in
Kansas built of stone. but there Is some
thing about the surroundings that dis
tinguishes them from the American
western Kansas farm houses in the
multiplicity of outbuildings that make
small village. Beside the barn there Is
other shelter for everything that lives.
Every pig. every duck has Its house.
Farm machinery even Is not turned cut
to grass. II l. evident that the farmer
and his wife look after al their Posses
siOns. small and great, and never sleep
until every beast and fowl Is safe and
sound in pen or fold
presume that these people are called
slow, unprogresSive and possibly ignor
ant. Yet they prosper and wax fat IN
their valley. There Is a tradition | BE-
lieve. that an insurance wild cat once
got loose in the valley and did some dam
age, but that calamity i not likely 10
happen again. Probably Kansas cannot
show a community which has less Of
what il Is a fool habit to call enterprise
and more real good fortune
The Kansas world outside Of this val
lev presents some curious contrasts. Tie
house Of the German farmer l. built 81
stone from the side Of the hll which
shelters x: the house OF the American 1
farmer out on the prairie i built Of pine
boards brought hundreds OF miles from
Wisconsin and Michigan, and on hun
dreds and thousands Of farms il l. the 4.