Warkentin House
The Warkentin House is a house in Newton, Kansas, United States. The home of Bernhard Warkentin and Wilhelmina Eisenmayer Warkentin, it was built between 1886 and 1887. It is listed on the Kansas Register of Historic Places and National Register of Historic Places as a splendid example of the Victorian period in American architecture and furnishings. The Victorian house offers a glimpse into the way the Warkentins lived, with 80 percent of the original furnishings remaining. History. Bernhard Warkentin was born in the village of Altonau of the Molotschna Mennonite settlement in the Ukraine on June 18, 1847 . In 1872, he arrived in the United States to study the country's agricultural, economic and political climate. Wilhelmina Eisenmayer was born November 1, 1852, in Horse Prairie, Illinois. She and Bernhard were married August 12, 1875. They had two children: Edna Wella, born September 24, 1876, and Carl Orlando, born January 3, 1880. Realizing the benefit the Mennonite farmers would be to the development of the Great Plains states, American railroad companies touted the advantages of settling in the midwestern United States. Between 1874 and 1884, about 15,000 Mennonites immigrated to America. The majority settled in Kansas. Bernhard Warkentin  encouraged the immigrants to bring with them Turkey Red hard winter wheat. In 1873, Warkentin settled in Halstead, Kansas, building Harvey County's first grist mill and his farmstead on the Little Arkansas River. In planning for his mill, Warkentin visited several milling operations throughout the Midwest; among them was Conrad Eisenmayer's mill in Summerfield, Illinois. It was there that he met Eisenmayer's daughter, Wilhelmina. In the fall of 1874, the Kansas countryside was first sown with Turkey Red wheat, the hardy, high-yield variety that gave Kansas its enormous productivity and made the region the breadbasket of  the world. Warkentin owned mills and elevators in Newton and Halstead, Kansas, and Blackwell, Oklahoma. He was instrumental in founding the Halstead State Bank, Kansas State Bank, Bethel Deaconess Hospital, and Bethel College. Warkentin died by accidental gunshot on a trip in the Holy Land in 1908. Wilhelmina Warkentin lived in their Newton home until her death in 1932. Following her death, Wilhelmina left the house to the Bethel Deaconesses, who used it until 1970. At this time, ownership was transferred to a group dedicated to restoring and maintaining the house, which was also added to the National Register of  Historic Places. The city assumed ownership in 1973, and continues to operate the museum and maintain the house.