Off the Fast Track
One gets tired of the endless miles on Interstate 70 in western Kansas. This was once the land of the Lakota, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Arapaho, Osage, Kansa and other tribes who hunted buffalo.
Leaving the four lane highway at Hays, head south on US 183. It is a quiet peaceful drive where buffalo once roamed through rolling farmland. Wheat, sorghum, and corn are the usual crops. For a few short years, Texas cattle found their way to the Union Pacific railhead in Hays. The two lane highway takes you past tiny Schoenchen and Liebenthal to LaCrosse. The way leads on to nearby Rush Center and Great Bend.
If, as a child, you watched Gunsmoke, then you often heard Marshall Matt Dillon speak of taking a prisoner from Dodge to Hays. This is the route he would take. And Lt. Dunbar, Kevin Costner’s character in Dances with Wolves left Ft. Hays heading west to Ft. Sedgwick.
At LaCrosse stop at the Grass Park where the Rush County Historical Association maintains several historical buildings.
One Room School
Pleasant Point #24 one-room school opened in 1907 and closed in 1957. In 2015, it was moved from its very rural Union Township location 6½ miles south of Nekoma to La Crosse. There were once over 80 school districts in Rush County. In 1880, the population was 5,000. When small towns and family farms thrived the population peaked at 10,000. Today there are less than 3,000 people.
Kansas One Room Schools 