News, Events & County History

On the morning of June 25^th, 1949, Garden City law enforcement discovered a blood-covered scene in the rest room at the Stevens Park bandshell. They were told that a person had been carried from there to a car and concluded that a scuffle had taken place; however, a check with area hospitals revealed that no fight victims had been treated. Then Garden City Police Chief Lee Richardson received a tip that a murder had been committed.

Officers questioned persons who had been in the vicinity of the bandshell the night of June 24, and this led to the July 2 arrest of 22-year-old William Stebens at the Garden City Experiment Station where he worked. William told law enforcement that his younger brother, Wilmer, had forced him to help bury 40-year-old John Walter Mooney, and then William took them to a site on the edge of a wheat field north of the Experiment Station to retrieve the body. Only freshly turned earth was found upon their arrival. The body was gone.

The following day, Wilmer Lee Stebens was apprehended at Lamar, Co. He told officers that he had reburied the body on the afternoon of June 26 because of his brother’s involvement with the first burial. Wilmer led authorities to the second grave, marked crudely with the lid of an empty can, in a summer fallow field 14 miles north and two miles east of Garden City. Officers probed the ground with two shovels and within a couple of minutes, they located Mooney buried only inches below the surface. The corpse was badly decomposed, and the left arm had been severed apparently by a plow as the field had been plowed since the grave had been dug.

Wilmer was charged with second-degree murder and William with accessary after the fact. Neither of the Stebens brothers could post bond, and both were committed to the Finney County jail. While awaiting trial, Texas authorities arrived on the scene trying to link 20-year-old Wilmer to the murder of Tex Thornton in Amarillo on June 22. Although the out-of-work old field worker admitted to making a long trip through oil fields of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to find work, Wilmer said he could produce witnesses to prove that he was not in Amarillo at the time of Thornton’s murder. That investigation into Wilmer “fizzled” out according to newspaper reports.

The Mooney murder charges, however, stuck. According to Wilmer, he and some other men had had a few beers at a tavern north of Stevens Park on June 24, and they bought a beer for Mooney, a 40-year-old transient farm worker from North Carolina. Mooney said he had hid a bottle in a bush at the park so they went to the park to look for it. Unable to locate the bottle, Mooney and Wilmer went to the bandshell where Mooney reportedly pulled a knife on Stebens and threatened to sexually assault him.

Stebens told officers he hit Mooney with his fist and knocked him down the stairs into the women’s rest room. When Mooney rose, Stebens hit him again and seized his knife, throwing it as far as he could.  Stebens said he thought that Mooney was only stunned so he left the bandshell, but then he returned an hour later and found Mooney’s cold body. Stebens panicked and forced his brother William to help bury Mooney.

Stebens’ mother told authorities that Wilmer told her he held Mooney’s head under water in the band shell toilet for 45 minutes and tried repeatedly to crush his skull against the concrete floor of the restroom. Charges were changed to first-degree murder as the investigation “gave reason to believe that robbery was the main motive.” Wilmer was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Charges against William were dropped in exchange for testifying against his brother.

Wilmer was taken to the state penitentiary, but in the fall 1950, he was transferred to the Larned State Hospital to be treated for a hyperthyroid condition. On November 4, he and another inmate jumped a guard and escaped then stole a car. They were picked up near Inverness, Fla., a week later after a nation-wide manhunt, and Wilmer was returned to the state pen in Lansing.

In September of 1951, papers reported that Stebens had confessed to the slaying of George Seahorn who was found deceased in his car near Lakin in March of 1948 with a wound in his left leg. At the time, no foul play was suspected, and the Kearny County coroner ruled that Seahorn had probably died as a result of exposure. The 56-year-old Kearny County landowner had also reportedly been suffering with heart attacks. It was believed that Seahorn had used his leg to break out a window in his car which was found in a snow-filled ditch south of the tracks near the stockyards.

Stebens saw Seahorn’s unattended death as an opportunity and made up an elaborate story as to how the murder took place. Wilmer later admitted that he concocted the tale in order to be brought back to Southwest Kansas where two former prison buddies were going to help him escape the night before his hearing. Those buddies failed to show, and Stebens went on to plead innocent. Suspecting foul play on the day of his arraignment, security at the Kearny County court house was beefed up with peace officers from seven neighboring counties, the highway patrol and Lakin police. Wilmer was later subjected to a four-hour lie detector test which cleared him of the Seahorn murder charge, but that was not the end of Wilmer’s shenanigans.

In October of 1969, Stebens escaped from the Kansas penitentiary and abducted a female student at the Kansas Medical Center. The 21-year-old woman told police she had just parked her car when a man approached her, pulled a knife and told her to start driving. Stebens did not hurt the girl but forced her to drive to Clinton, Mo., and then back to Kansas City, Kans., where he released her. Wilmer was captured near Greensburg following a chase three days later. He was given an additional 20 years in prison for kidnapping.

According to newspaper articles, Wilmer Stebens was rated as one of the toughest young men ever to go to the state penitentiary. He was 73 years old when he died at Kansas City, MO, in December of 2002, having outlived his brother William, ex-wife and a daughter.

 

SOURCES: Ancestry.com and archives of the Lakin Independent, Hutchinson News, Garden City Telegram, Emporia Gazette, Jefferson City, MO Daily Capital News, Jefferson City, MO Post Tribune and Evening Eagle.

As promised last week, this week’s column covers the childhood home of Dorothy Thorpe Weber. Dorothy’s father, Thornton Clarence Thorpe, was the eldest child of E.R. and Irene Zink Thorpe. Born in Medicine Lodge, he came with his parents to a sod hut just south of Lakin in 1888. After graduation, he went to California and attended Stanford University in the fall. In 1907, he married Ella Wright, also a Lakin native, while still at the university. They moved back to Lakin shortly afterwards. What follows are excerpts from a story written by Dorothy in 1984.

“At the time my Dad came back to Lakin from California, my Grandfather had started investing in cattle, as well as farm land. My Dad took over the cattle business for him. He liked it, except that the ranch where the cattle were (was) several miles from Lakin where his family was. After the ranch was making a good profit, my Dad decided to build a home out there for us and in 1918, we moved into the new ranch house. The name of our ranch was the T Lazy T.” This ranch was located six miles west of Lakin.

“We only lived in the ranch house about two and a half years. My Mother had the flu just after my youngest brother, Thornton, was born in 1918, and she was never very strong after that. In 1920, my Dad decided we should move back to Lakin so she would be closer to a doctor and be nearer to her folks, and in October 1920 we moved back into town. Our new house in Lakin was built from the same floor plan as the one used for the ranch house. The only difference was that the ranch house had a side porch, and our house in town didn’t.

“I don’t remember my Mother being up very much after we moved back to Lakin. We were always welcome to go into her room any time, and she was always glad to see us and talk. We had only lived in our new house a year and half when my Mother died on April 8, 1921. She was not quite 36 years old.

“About a year after Mother died, Dad married again. He married Ione Enslow. She was a nurse, and she had taken care of all of us when the whole family had the flu in 1918. Just a few weeks after they got married, I had a very bad case of scarlet fever and our house was put under quarantine. My brothers and sisters and Dad had to go stay with Grandmother Thorpe and not even my Dad was allowed to come into the house with me and my stepmother. My Dad would come by every evening and talk to us through the window, and sometimes he would leave me a present on the porch. I remember especially a doll with a china face and arms and feet and bright red cloth body. I thought she was beautiful. After I got well, that doll and all the things I had played with had to be burned up, and our house was fumigated.

“I loved our house in Lakin. There were three bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms downstairs. Margaret and Edith and I shared a big room upstairs, and Edgar and Thornton shared one. The other room upstairs was the guest room. Downstairs there was a living room with a big fireplace, a dining room with a built-in china cabinet with glass doors, a den for my Dad, a big kitchen and bathroom and the master bedroom and a smaller bedroom.

“Our house had a big front porch with a door into the house at each end of the porch. One front door went into the living room and the other went into a hallway with three openings, one led up the stairway, one into the den and the other into the dining room. There was a big porch across the back of the house too. The house was heated with a central coal-burning furnace. There was a big floor grill opening in the dining room which was really the center of the house and then there were floor grills in each of the bedrooms upstairs to let the heat up there. One of the nice things about it was that we could look down through the grill from upstairs in the bedrooms and watch what was going on downstairs in the living room and dining room. This was especially nice at Christmas when we could watch and see what presents were being put under the Christmas tree and in the sock hanging from the fireplace.”

Dorothy’s father, stepmother and younger brothers left for California when she was 12, and she moved in with her Thorpe grandparents. Her childhood home has had multiple owners over the years but still stands at 403 N. Hamilton Street.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOURCES: Dorothy Thorpe Weber; History of Kearny County Vol. I; Archives of Kearny County Advocate and Lakin Independent; and Museum archives with special thanks to James Clyde (Jerry) Thorpe, son of Edgar Wright Thorpe.

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Jerry Thorpe and his beautiful wife, JoAnn, of Eagle, Idaho. Jerry is the great-grandson of E.R. Thorpe, a Kearny county pioneer who invested greatly in the development of this county. Jerry graciously shared with me some photographs and information about the Thorpe family. Some of these photographs are a perfect complement to a story written in 1984 by Jerry’s aunt, Dorothy Thorpe Weber. Dorothy’s story, nine pages in length, is a bit long to share in its entirety; however, I have picked out some excerpts that I think our readers, especially those who live in Lakin, will find interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edgar Robinson Thorpe was born in 1861 and grew up in Ross County, Ohio. On April 4, 1881, he married Irene Zink at Hillsboro, OH. Not long after their wedding, E.R.’s parents decided to move west to Kansas, and they invited the young newlyweds to go with them. The Thorpe family first settled in south central Kansas. E.R. and his bride lived on a cattle ranch not far from Medicine Lodge where he worked as a superintendent of the ranch and where Dorothy’s father, Thornton Clarence Thorpe, was born in 1886. In 1888, an opportunity came to move further west, and E.R. and Irene moved into a sod hut on land in Kearny County just south of Lakin.

“In every family I think there is usually one very strong character who stands out from all the others. In the Thorpe family it was my grandfather, Edgar Robinson Thorpe,” wrote Dorothy. “Although my Grandfather Thorpe had only a high school education, he had a burning ambition to become an attorney. My Grandmother used to tell us stories about how he studied law at night after the farm work was done and the cattle taken care of. There was no electricity so they studied by lamp light. Sometimes my Grandmother read the books to him; sometimes he studied by himself. Finally, all the hard work and determination paid off, and he passed the Kansas Bar Examination and was admitted to the Kansas Bar Association. He opened his own Law Office in Lakin and specialized in searching land titles and preparing Abstracts of Title. There was a great demand for this work, from the government as well as from private firms and individuals. All the money that Grandfather could spare was put back into more land, or the purchase of mineral rights.”

Eventually, E.R. and Irene moved their family to town into a house on the northwest corner of Lincoln Avenue and Main Street. “The house started small. There were just four rooms in 1890 when they moved in. Two more bedrooms were added after my Aunt Georgia and Uncle Glen were born. Then a few years later, there were some major changes and a library was added on the south end of the house and a billiard room was added at the north side of the house. A wide concrete porch ran across the entire front of the house for easy access to any part of the house. A small bedroom, utility room and porch were added off the kitchen on the west. The small bedroom was used by the girls who came to live with my grandparents while they attended high school in Lakin. In return for board and room and a small salary, each girl would help my grandmother with the housework and laundry.

“Grandmother’s sewing room had a big picture window that looked out on Main Street, and every afternoon she would sit in the wicker rocker by that window and sew and watch for my Grandfather to come home from his office. He always walked. I can remember how he looked – very tall and slim and a little bit stooped. When I was in High School, and the year after I was at Chillicothe Business College, I worked in his office and we would walk to work and back home together. Through most of those years, I lived with my grandparents.

“My Grandfather had had cataracts removed from both eyes and his glasses had very thick lens. He had the kindest blue eyes I ever saw. He was always there when we needed him. My Grandmother had very thin hair, and she wore a “transformation”. It was a hairpiece that pinned into her own hair. She used to curl her hair, around the front of the hairpiece, every morning right after breakfast. She wore a little white cap with lace around it until she had her hairpiece on. I still remember the good smell in her bedroom when I would go in and sit beside her while she fixed her hair. The smell was a combination of the coal-oil lamp that heated the old-fashioned curling iron, and the cold cream that she used on her face, and her powder.

“My grandparents’ home in Lakin played an important part in my life. It was a kind of security blanket,” Dorothy recalled.

This fondly remembered home is still a part of the Lakin landscape. In the spring of 1947, the structure was moved in three parts to Campbell Street and used as apartments. Originally known as Clements Apartments, they were managed by Dorothy’s sister and brother-in-law, Edith and John Clements. In next week’s article, learn about Dorothy’s childhood home.

SOURCES: Dorothy Thorpe Weber; History of Kearny County Vol. I; Ancestry.com; Archives of The Lakin Independent; and Museum archives with special thanks to James Clyde (Jerry) Thorpe, son of Edgar Wright Thorpe.

 

Kearny County is an agricultural community, but we have been growing more than crops here in Southwest Kansas. Max Harry Hillyard was one of many talented artists that Kearny County has produced over the years. The son of J. Max and Jean Rardon Hillyard, this homegrown boy grew up to be deeply respected as an illustrator and Western and Native American artist. Throughout his life, Max received numerous awards for his paintings and sculptures, but he was equally adept with his pen and ink renderings.

A 1948 graduate of Lakin High School, Max studied art at the University of New Mexico. While there, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served from 1950 to 1953 during the Korean Conflict. He later studied in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona where he was the art editor on the school’s yearbook and president of Alpha Rho Tau art honorary. While still a student, Max was employed as the art director for KDWI-TV, later known as KGUN-TV.

Hillyard was hired as the art director at the Arizona Daily Star/Citizen around 1957. In addition to creating charts and drawing cartoons, Max’s pen and ink drawings of Native Americans regularly appeared in his columns entitled, “hillyard’s corner” and “hillyard’s sketchbook.” While with the Star/Citizen, he was put in charge of the Newspaper in the Classroom program. He also spent time as an illustrator for a U.S. defense contractor providing technical artist renderings for missile systems and satellite surveillance equipment, and in 1973, he opened his own art studio in Tucson.

In 1977, Max moved his family to the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in east central Arizona where his wife, Myrna, was the elementary school’s principal. He then started working as a full-time freelance illustrator and artist. Max was commissioned by the White Mountain Apache Tribe to design their official tribal seal which is still used today. He also created much of the original artwork displayed in the Whiteriver Indian Hospital.

Max’s work gained widespread national distribution through his unique 1973 collection entitled, “A Portfolio of White Mountain Apaches.” The portfolio includes six meticulously detailed pen and ink drawings which capture tribal elders, historical leaders and daily tasks of the White Mountain Apache Tribe. The Kearny County Museum is very fortunate indeed to own a set of these limited-edition prints.

In 1998, Max and Myrna retired to Oak Creek valley, AZ, where he continued to paint. It was there that Max passed away on November 3, 2002 at the age of 72. Still today, Hillyard’s works are highly sought after by collectors of Western and Native American historical art.

 

SOURCES: History of Kearny County Vols. I & II; archives of The Lakin Independent and Arizona Daily Star; Museum archives; Ancestry.com; Ebay; Invaluable.com; Etsy and Bidsquare.

 

The entire nation was in celebration mode in 1976 as Americans came together to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States as an independent republic. Patriotism was so popular, in fact, that both people and inanimate objects were decked out in red, white and blue – including the fire hydrants on Lakin’s Main Street which were painted by members of the Moonlight Chicks Extension Homemaker Unit. Kearny County citizens were asked to fly their flags year-round but especially on the days when special events had been planned.

The Booster Club and the Bicentennial Committee, a long list of locals ready and eager to pull off one of the best celebrations ever seen in the county, put together a big birthday bash Thursday, June 3, through Saturday, June 5. The big shindig got underway on Thursday with a black powder muzzle-loading turkey shoot at Beymer sandpit south of Lakin. Friday and Saturday events included a carnival in the first block of West Lincoln that delighted the kiddos, bake and sidewalk sales, special displays at the Veterans Memorial Building, and the selling of Bicentennial souvenirs. The VFW Auxiliary ladies cooked up a storm and dished up sloppy joes, barbecue beef, coneys, homemade pies and chef salads for lunch both Friday and Saturday. On Friday evening, they served a chicken and noodle meal for the Kearny County Historical Society’s Annual Meeting, and they offered ham and beans with all the fixings for the Saturday evening meal.

The KCHS’s annual meeting featured guest speaker Bob Greer, Garden City newspaperman, who gave a rapid-fire description of people, places and things in Southwest Kansas history. Senator Don Christy presented the Bicentennial flag to Frances Bostrom, chairman of the Bicentennial Committee, and Jack Pepper played his guitar and sang several oldies for the audience. Gale Wolfe played the keyboard, officers were elected, and the Bicentennial King and Queen were selected by combining the ages of the oldest married couple in Kearny County. The royal honor went to Mr. and Mrs. C.E. Beymer who celebrated their 63^rd wedding anniversary a week later.

Several hundred people took part in Saturday’s parade with hundreds more lining the streets to watch. The theme was “American Spirit In Action,” and nearly 20 former local government officials were present to ride in a place of honor. They included Kearny County commissioners along with mayors and city councilmen from Deerfield and Lakin. Joe Eves, a former state representative who was the only one to serve the old 116th district still living, was also honored. The mile-long parade included 17 floats plus other entries, and free train rides on a miniature train were offered to children afterwards. An old-fashioned songfest took place that evening followed by a dance which concluded the weekend’s festivities.

The big June bash was just the tip of the iceberg for Bicentennial activities in Kearny County. The 1975 Christmas parade was dubbed as the Bicentennial Christmas Parade, and Pete Kiistner served as the Grand Marshal. Of course, the arrival of the Bicentennial wagon train in April 1976 was a highly anticipated and symbolic event. The wagons in the coast-to-coast trek rolled into Kearny County shortly before noon on April 7. In conjunction with this event, local “Pony Express” riders presented scrolls bearing the names of Deerfield and Wichita and Grant county residents to the wagon master. These scrolls, Pledges of Rededication reaffirming the people’s belief in American principles, had been relayed from rider to rider.

Other events included a Boy Scout Bicentennial Camporee at Lake McKinney April 30 thru May 2, and a county-wide July 4th picnic basket dinner which preceded a jackpot rodeo and huge fireworks display.  An “Almost Anything Goes” competition based off the popular TV show of the same name took place at the end of July with an estimated crowd of nearly 1,000 people lining the baseball diamond at Loucks Park to witness competitors strut their stuff. Then a Bicentennial Trail Ride along part of the old Santa Fe Trail was set for the end of September. Sponsored by the Kearny County Saddle Club, the ride began about a mile northwest of Hartland and concluded with a basket dinner at the fair building.

The cherry on top of all the fun and festivities was that the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration named Kearny County an official Bicentennial Community. The Certificate of Official Recognition and Bicentennial flag are on display in the Museum Annex.

SOURCES: Archives of The Lakin Independent and Museum archives

 

Chances are John Danzer never saw a yucca plant until he immigrated to the United States. The German-born bachelor was in his early 20s when he came to Kearny County in the 1880s and settled north of Lakin near Onaica. A school board member and Hibbard Township clerk, Danzer was dubbed, “John, the Well Digger,” but he was best known for the baskets he made using native prairie grasses and the yucca plant commonly known as soapweed. According to the late Maybelle James Gropp, the Danzer baskets had a wide-spread circulation from coast to coast. Most local folk came to know of these baskets, and when they had company from afar, they took them to see (and purchase) Danzer’s wares. His highly useful baskets came in various sizes and shapes from pint-sized to bushel-sized hampers, lids included. John also made flat mats and rugs.

Danzer excelled at what was considered a Native American art form. For thousands of years, Native American tribes of the Plains relied heavily on the yucca plant. They soaked the tough leaves of the yucca then pounded and stripped them to extract fibers and wove these resilient fibers into baskets, mats, sandals and cordage. The soapweed was vital to indigenous tribes not just for its fibers but also for medicinal and other properties. Roots and leaves were traditionally used to treat skin ailments, stomach aches, dandruff and lice. Yucca roots contain saponins which make an excellent natural lather. Native Americans used the roots for soap, shampoo and ceremonial cleansing. The young stalks of the soapweed were roasted over an open fire and then peeled to eat the soft interior. The flowers were eaten after boiling them to remove their bitter flavor or removing the flower pistil, the most bitter part.

Pioneers like John Danzer didn’t take long to learn the value of prairie yucca. Early settlers also used the soapweed for making soap, but the process was intensive. According to High Plains Radio, the sticky green roots were dug up and then pounded on a wooden board until they were softened. “The resulting pulpy mass was put into water to soak. The juice and water mixture that was drained off became soap in a community where store bought goods were rare and costly.” Frontier families also fashioned the sharp, sword-like leaves into emergency needle and thread. In addition, the leaves made good thatching material for dugout roofs.

“Several have used soapweeds in making their barns, while others are using them for fuel, but the latest use is mulching an onion patch with them. What next?” asked the Kearny County Advocate in an April 1917 issue. The soapweed reportedly made a good, hot fire, and some homesteaders were using them to save on coal bills.

When the wheat crop was stunted and short during dry seasons, farmers fastened yucca leaves along the edge of the combine’s header platform. The first turn of the reel cut the points of the yucca fronds and frayed them, forming a soapweed ‘broom’ that swept the short wheat up on the platform and pushed it against the reel.

Yucca also became a cash crop, but only the blades were used. Once gathered, they were laid out to dry before broomcorn balers formed them into bales. “Soap weed crop in this county is being harvested and finds a ready market in St. Louis,” reported the May 1, 1914 Kearny County Advocate. “Three cars have been shipped out thus far this season.” It took 10 tons of product to fill a rail car, and manufacturers were paying $8 a ton. A 1914 U.S. Department of Agriculture report in The Advocate stated that it cost roughly $5 to $6 per ton to cut, bale and haul the product to the nearest rail station for shipment. Manufacturers fashioned the fibrous strands into rope, binder twine and even straw hats. Still today, yucca fibers are used in fishing nets, combs, sandals, mats, blankets, sewing and in making paintbrushes.

The perennial soapweed also remains important to prairie biodiversity. Native yucca plants act as ecological anchors in the Great Plains, supporting specialized pollinators and providing essential shelter and forage in the prairie ecosystem. The yucca and yucca moth share an obligate mutualism where neither species can survive without the other. The moth is the plant’s exclusive pollinator while the yucca provides a safe nursery and food for the moth’s larvae. This highly specialized partnership guarantees reproduction for both. Cattle and deer also eat the flowers and immature fruits of the yucca, and cattle ranchers often view the plant’s pods as a natural dewormer. Bison will uproot plants and consume the roots. During the Dust Bowl days, often the only grass that was available to the cattle was found in the shadow of a yucca. Snow piles up behind soapweed, and that little bit of moisture can be invaluable to grasses and wildflowers downwind.

Speaking of flowers, no longer are yuccas seen solely in the stretch of open prairies. They are now being incorporated into landscapes. Their expansive and deep taproots anchor the soil, making them perfect for planting on slopes, hillsides or in rock gardens to prevent soil erosion. The relatively long-lived plants need full sun and well-drained soil. Soapweed transplanting can technically be done at any time of the year, but professional gardeners recommend early spring or late fall when the plant is more or less dormant. An extra hand or two may be needed when transplanting the plants due to their sharp leaves and cumbersome size. Though a bit of transplant shock may occur, the hardy prairie yucca typically bounces back within a week.

SOURCES: Diggin’ Up Bones; High Plains History, a production of High Plains Public Radio; US Forestry Service; National Institute of Health; Audubon of Kansas; Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses; Wikipedia; gardeningknowhow.com; Museum archives and archives of The Kearny County Advocate.

Lakin’s community pride is in full bloom with beautiful locally made barn quilts adorning our downtown. Due to the Hwy 25/Main Street construction project, the Lakin Community Empowerment Group opted to forego planting flowers in the pots that line Main Street because they knew they would not be able to get their watering tank up and down the street. Instead, the group came up with the idea of displaying barn quilts painted by talented senior citizens in our community. The beautiful assortment of homemade art brings a little extra color and charm to Lakin.

Barn quilts are a unique form of American folk art that pieces together history, identity and community pride. Unlike traditional quilts made of fabric, barn quilts are usually painted on large wooden squares, but canvas, metal and vinyl/pvc products are also used. Barn quilts typically feature familiar quilt patterns, but their meanings can go far beyond appearances. For many, these symbols represent cherished heirlooms, ancestral stories, or local heritage passed down through generations.

The tradition’s roots in America date back nearly 300 years to European immigrants from countries like Germany, Austria and the Netherlands who brought folk art customs like painting symbols on homes and barns to the New World. These “painted prayers” were meant to bring good luck or denote family farms, and early designs were replicas of popular quilt designs at the time thought to protect livestock and bless the harvest. Each distinctive quilt pattern served another purpose – navigation. Travelers could identify different households or farms by recognizing unique patchwork designs painted on local barns.

According to Folk Art History of Barn Quilts, “As these settlers made homes in the American colonies, particularly Pennsylvania, they carried on this visual language using stars, pinwheels, and bright, symbolic patterns.”

A theory that quilts and barn quilts were used as part of the Underground Railroad as signals pointing runaway slaves to safety is a fascinating concept that has captured the public imagination and appeared in many children’s books, school curricula and museums. According to the B&O Railroad Museum, the ‘Quilt Code’ was “used to help freedom seekers memorize directions and activities they may have needed for escape. While there were 10 different quilts used to guide enslaved people to safety in free territory, one was employed at a time. In order to memorize the code, sampler quilts would be constructed with one pattern next to the other. When the time came, the first of the ten quilts would be laid out either in the window or on a clothesline. Blocks like the Log Cabin, North Star, Flying Geese, Monkey Wrench, Bow Tie, Bear’s Paw, Crossroads, and Wagon Wheel are said to have carried specific meanings – ranging from instructions to gather supplies or change clothing, to cues about following animal trails, heading toward major junctions, or navigating northward. Each quilt served as a silent signal in a larger sequence, guiding freedom seekers from one stage of preparation to the next.”

The ‘Quilt Code’ narrative first gained widespread attention in the 1999 book Hidden in Plain View by Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard; however, most historians, Underground Railroad researchers, and textile scholars view the ‘Quilt Code’ as a modern myth rather than historical fact. Historians have scoured 19^th Century slave narratives, diaries, abolitionist journals, plantation records, oral testimonies taken in the 1930s from former slaves, and government records. They have found no mention of quilts being used for coded communication, and some argue that hanging multiple, intricate quilts in specific sequences in public view would have been a dangerous practice as it may have drawn attention and suspicion that those escaping slavery were trying to avoid. Furthermore, the specific geometric patterns like the Log Cabin and Monkey Wrench were reportedly either not invented yet or did not have those specific meanings during the era of the Underground Railroad.

Giles R. Wright, director of the Afro-American History Program at the New Jersey Historical Commission, opined that the authors of Hidden in Plain View have taken folklore and attempted to turn it into historical fact without providing evidence or documentation. “I know of no historian who supports this idea, and it’s extremely rare to get that kind of consensus.”

Tobin said she and Dobard made it clear that Hidden in Plain View was based on an oral account given by Ozella McDaniel Williams, an African-American quilter and retired educator. From one generation to the next, Williams’ family had passed down the story connecting quilts to the Underground Railroad. Tobin commented that such codes could have been used in this way but perhaps only on one particular plantation. US News & World Report quoted Tobin as saying, “We’re not talking about hundreds or thousands of folks using this code. The story has grown in ways that we had not intended.”

Beyond deciphering whether or not barn quilts (or fabric quilts for that matter) were actually integral to the Underground Railroad, the fact remains that barn quilts have become colorful and symbolic emblems in the modern American landscape. The folk-art medium experienced a resurgence in the early 2000s when Donna Sue Groves of Adams County, Ohio created the concept of barn quilt trails. Wanting to honor her mother’s quilting heritage, she persuaded her neighbors to hang painted wooden squares that resembled quilt blocks on their barns.

Groves’ idea sparked a nationwide revival and one of the fastest-growing grassroots public arts movements in the United States and Canada. Barn quilt trails can now be found in almost all 50 states and in parts of Canada promoting regional tourism, supporting artisans, and preserving old barns. Outside of the coordinated trails, thousands of crafters have created barn quilts for their homes, businesses, and communities simply because they love the colorful pieces of art.

You can check out some of the beautiful barn quilts displayed on Lakin’s Main Street at https://www.facebook.com/LakinPRIDE.

SOURCES: Clark County Iowa Public Library; Primitive Star Quilt Shop; Lafferty Funeral Home; Barn Quilt Addicts on Facebook; National Geographic; US News & World Report; historiccamdencounty.com; Lakin Community Empowerment Group; and Heroes, Heroines & History.