May 29th - Fairview, KA

We packed up camp and started driving northwest into Kansas toward the small town of Fairview. My goal was to see if I could find any traces of my grandfather Judson or his old photography studio in Fairview, Kansas. Altho I had some pictures that emanated from that studio so that I was certain it existed, my knowledge of the details was more in the way of family myth or rumor. I was guessing that Fairview was indeed the correct town and not Fairfield or some other variant, and I definitely wanted to go “Rootsing” around in our family’s history, so to speak.

Along our route we passed Hiawatha, Kansas, the county seat and I decided to stop at the county courthouse and see if the folks there could help me with any tax or census records from the 1900 period. The 1880 census records were available but not the 1900 ones, so that avenue proved fruitless, but they directed me across the street to the Brown County Geneological Society. This grandiose title was associated with a hole-in-the-wall of an old building with musty old county records piled to the ceiling, shelves of scrapbooks, and files with old newspapers on microfilm.

We set up the microfilm for the local paper and had not scanned more than 2 issues when we found an advertisement in the June, 1898 Courier for the Lotus Studio. It included a poem or, more accurately, doggerel that might have been penned by grandfather himself along with a list of recent upgrades to the studio. What it did not have was any mention of prices for photographic portraits or an address! At least we knew that Grandpa Judson had indeed operated the Lotus photographic studio in Fairview Kansas around 1900. The “poetry” on the ad ran:

We’ve no photos for a penny,
	No not any, any, any;
		But of things that’s new,
			We’ve many, many, many,
				And they cost us,
					Lots of money, money, money,
						Don’tcher know.

We had a good laugh over the wry sense of humor in that ad, and then the lady from the courthouse called over and said that she had found the records of the deed of sale of property to my grandfather and had made copies for us. We hustled back over to the courthouse and found the records of sale of 20 feet sections of lots A and B at 115 S. Main Street in Fairview to my grandfather in 1898. Thanks to the dilligence and persistence of the County Clerk, we finally had an address!

After thanking her, we drove west to Fairfield and found the spot where the studio had once stood, which was now a vacant lot converted into an outdoor garden beside a newer house. We chatted with the current owner of the newer house and her daughter for a bit, and they said the largish building next door was the old hotel that dated from the 1890s. It was still standing but currently unoccupied with a leaking roof and decaying floors, so I expect it will gradually also fall into ruin. They said the Cozy Café around the corner had old pictures of Fairview on the wall and the hotel and studio might be on one of them.

Following up this lead we went over to the Cozy Café and picked one of the booths on the wall with old-time pictures. We ordered lunch but I explained what I was doing to the waitress and asked permission to take pictures of the wall pictures. She was agreeable and while we waited for our meal we studied the wall pictures, finally finding one at the very top that had the old hotel on it and a building right beside it that must have been the Lotus studio. I stood up on the bench to be level with the picture to make a copy shot, and when I finished I turned around to find every face in the restaurant staring at me, of course. So I waved in a friendly manner and sat back down to wait for my meal, feeling very much successful and at the same time very much embarrassed.

After this familial interlude, we continued driving north to Omaha and found a campsite across the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The heat was oppressive. In some ways heat is harder to deal with than cold while camping. When cold you can build a fire, bundle together in a sleeping bag, or put on extra layers of clothes—that is, you have options. When hot, the only option is to find shade and sit there while trying not to move too much. The tent was baking in the sun, so laying down for a nap like I would have done at home was simply not an option. We sat for a while and then decided to drive in to Council Bluffs to check on the Volksmarch there—we ended up walking the Volksmarch that afternoon, albeit slowly to try not to overheat.

The Volksmarch in Council Bluffs is an irregular loop winding thru the rather small city. We first walked toward the downtown area and then up a hill to the “Dodge House”. The Dodge House has special exit signs on the interstate and must represent something rather important. But I could not find a clue in our instructions or at the house itself, which looked nice but not awe-inspiring. I took a picture anyway on general principles and we headed down the hill back to the heart of downtown.

The sidewalks in the downtown area had some pretty mosaics at the corner intersections. Passing by the Union Pacific Museum, which looked interesting but was closed for the day, we walked south along one of the main streets to the old Rock Island Line train depot.

Along the way we came to Patsy’s Laundry and Bar. This took me aback as I’ve never seen quite that combination before. Laundromats I’ve seen plenty and bars even more, but never the two together in one building. I couldn’t help but wonder how the owner had arrived at the business plan for her establishment. Did the Laundromat come first or the bar, and how did she decide to branch out? If the Laundromat came first, I could imagine Patsy sitting around watching the clothes being churned around in one of those front-loading washers with a little window and suddenly thinking to herself, “Well, the clothes are getting good and sloshed, so why not me too?” But maybe the bar came first and Patsy was sitting around nursing a beer and suddenly thought to herself, “Whoa, look at those suds. Jeez, that reminds me I’ve got laundry to do—well why not do it right here?” No matter the origin, I expect we have some guys in the neighborhood who are far more anxious to do laundry than they ever were before. I can see them saying, “Hey honey, I found a couple of dirty socks so I think I’ll just nip over to the Laundromat and wash ‘em—see you in an hour or two!” If I ever get back to Council Bluffs, I’d really like to stop in and ask Patsy the real story—it might be better than any I can make up. Musing about this unique business combination, I completed the leg out to the old train station.

The old Rock Island depot was a classic looking building in itself: fancy brick construction in a Victorian style complete with a turret on top. It now contains yet another railroad museum plus some fine examples of rolling stock on the tracks outside. We would have gone in but the last tour for the day was already over so we curled around and started walking back to the finish point.

The route back skirted the downtown area and led us up a hill to a monument to Abraham Lincoln’s visit to Council Bluffs in 1859. There is a great view of the Nebraska plains to the westward from that point and you could clearly see the skyscrapers in Omaha. But we also saw thunderstorms approaching from the north so we hustled back down the hill. Stopping only briefly for a richly deserved ice cream cone at TCBY we returned to the start finish. All in all we found Council Bluffs to be a pleasant walk and for railroad buffs this could be a great walk if you took time to see each of the railroad museums on the route.

We hopped in the car to drive back to camp, stopping off for groceries and a new cooler at Wal-Mart. In reading the directions for the new unit, I finally figured out how I had burned out the fans of the last two units—the battery charger was giving a pulsating direct current that would burn out the fan motors! That lack of knowledge has cost me about $70 for both of the ruined units. Oh well, live and learn. I certainly hope the new Coleman unit is more durable, but they at least offer replacement fan motors so I have some hope of being able to fix the thing if that happens again.