With Arkalon the railroad givith and the railroad takeith away. Flooding had been problematic for the railroad bridge, so as soon as the railroad commited to building a new high bridge on a direct line from Kizmet to Liberal that was fin for Arkalon. At about the 8.20 mark the old railroad formation is visible top left, curving towards the river bed.
I love Western Kansas, used to go there weekly, hauling cattle in to different feed lots. Also have friends that live close to Scott City. Very interesting history, thanks for the tour.
I used to live at Dighton,there were two towns called Ravanna and Eminence,they also had scuffles over county seat,now It is just all in Finney county.
@@TravelwithaWiseguy I will bet it doesn't get many visitors. I actually enjoy walking through old cemeteries. I like reading the headstones, seeing the names, seeing the dates of birth and death and knowing these people all existed at one time. I kind of feel like when I read their names, now I know they existed and they are not forgotten if in general they are forgotten.
Yes!, Yes! I remember the Stefan family living in the old schoohouse as Deborah Weilert mentioned. Also the foundation your drone showed in the middle of the pasture, I was told by Becky Barr (now Becky Catlin), was the foundation of the Arkalon Bank. Her family owned and my still own that pasture.
Nescatunga has a cemetery my grandfather and I seined there on some of our fishing trips. We used to drive by Lexington a few times! Now I am in my sixties! You should check out the bank robbery stories during the depression including Bonnie and Clyde! You also has the Southern Cheyenne fleeing through the area out of Oklahoma to get back to Northern Bands! In the southwest and south central regions.
The story of the feud between Springfield and Fargo Springs reminds me of the feud between Pawnee and Eagleton, Indiana in the show "Parks & Recreation". lol
7:52 Takes u back in time---- ahhh I love this extra outing with the drone on this long ago used road . Really nice drone footages. I'm not sure if u got the latest Kansas Gazetteer as it's reloaded every town that ever existed*
Thank you very much! I recently bought a Kansas Gazetteer so I think I have the most recent one. There are lots of little dots on there that aren’t there now! I’m so appreciative of their work!
@@TravelwithaWiseguy It may take 10 years to get to all of em haha. I just love these true lost into the grass type towns-- there just way cool even with there itibiti remnants
My great grandpa helped build the cimarron train bridge.. & ran the train tracks in kismet. There was a fire there and he lost a leg.. my grandma grew up in kismet. We visited arkalon several times.. woods is very remote! Thanks wise guy!
According to KCC records, the Kansas & Oklahoma RR was built from Liberal to Woods in 1922 (14.4 miles) and it was abandoned in 1937. Amazing that elevator is still there. Couldn't find an atlas showing the railroad. Arkalon was on the portion of the Rock Island that was rerouted when the new bridge was built over the Cimarron River. Google Earth shows the schoolhouse still there but your video has just the foundation...sad
Fascinating history about the railroad! I noticed that about Google Earth too so I was disappointed when there wasn’t more left. But that’s the way it goes - and soon there won’t be any trace left! Appreciate the info!
ATTACK!!! OMG!! That was pretty funny about the two towns going to attack one another and it never happened. It's said that how a railroad can make it break a town back in the day. I know when the railroad pulled out of Eskridge, KS in 1971 I believe, the town still survived and prospered for many years afterwords. But when they consolidated the K-8th grade with the high school, everything just kinda went down hill. I mean we still have a bank, lawyers office, post office, lumber yard, small mechanic shop, cafe, senior center, library, thrift store and gas station and one church. We use d to have 5 churches when I was growing up. Now just a Baptist Church is the only one in use. I wouldn't trade where I grew up at for the world. Had a great time growing up there. Anyways.... awesome video as always John!! Keep up the great content as you do!!!
Thank you! Yeah that’s some crazy stuff that was happening out in SW Kansas. Certainly the Wild West! I think back in the 1890’s the roads weren’t very good so the railroad was a must. I think towns could survive post 1950 without one as roads got better. Growing up in a small town was great for me too - awesome memories!
One of the Arkalon (R Kay Lon) cemetery markers was Stefan…they used to live in the old school house until their passing. Springfield has a neat cemetery…you can find the listing of markers on the internet. The list has notes regarding cause of death which was rather fascinating. Thank you for visiting SW Kansas and our enjoyable wind. 😂
There were a lot of interesting markers in that cemetery. More than I would’ve imagined! And yes I enjoyed the wind very much as is apparent on the last part of the video haha 😂
@@TravelwithaWiseguy There’s a great book titled Ballot and Bullets: The Bloody County Seat Wars of Kansas by Robert K DeArment. Interesting read on Kansas history.
If these towns that were bypassed by the railroad were anything like the ones I've heard about, they had a tendency to move entire buildings to the town where the railroad was.
oh, and that's the railroad that is still there that goes through Liberal and south into the Oklahoma Panhandle. Guymon, Optima, Hooker, Tyrone, Texhoma, Liberal, all of these towns are 10 miles apart because of them being railroad stops. That is interesting, though I wonder what made them decide to run everything through Liberal.
I see, the railroad story is part of your general ghost town series, I thought it was going to be separate in depth video just telling that story. The general store in Woods, can you imagine somebody built that. Somebody invested in that, somebody put their lives into that store and now it's gone.
The story is probably worth a separate video, but unfortunately there isn’t anything left there to see. I don’t think people just want to see me talk for 10 minutes 😂😂
@@TravelwithaWiseguy I guess it depends on how much time you want to invest in it. This is just a hobby for you so you probably don't want to put that much time into it, you have other things you need to do. However I also had a thought that maybe after your film festival experience maybe you wanted take it more seriously. When I say "depends on how much time you want to invest" You might be able to do a Ken Burns type of thing where you have still photos of the area zooming in and out of each photo while you talk. Maybe there is a historical society around the area you can interview about it. But that, again, would take more time than you probably want or even should invest.
I would love to do it on a more serious level, but right now I have to focus on my full time job most of the time. The revenue from RUclips right now isn’t very much. Hopefully the channel continues to grow and in a few years I could maybe take it more serious. Right now I’m enjoying doing it in my free time and sharing it with others without worrying about making it a career.
@@TravelwithaWiseguy Oh I totally understand that. Like I said, depends on how much time you want to invest. You don' want it be anymore than fun. If it's not fun then you won't want to do it anymore. I really enjoy learning about the ghost towns and enjoy watching your videos
I just subscribed to your channel. Have you tried vesting into a wind sock for your mic? They keep the wind noise out. You do GREAT videos!! I love OLD Towns from back-in-the-day.😁👍🏻 I can visualize the history; like stepping back in time.😁👍🏻A BIG SHOUT OUT for the AWESOME work you put into each video! 😁😁😁👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you so much for watching and subscribing! I’m experimenting with something for the wind, but I hadn’t done it with these videos unfortunately. Hoping future videos are a little better! I appreciate your nice comments about my video! 😊
I've mentioned the importance of holding the Seat for a town on my vlogs as well. It's no guarantee, I think of Nye County NV, who had Ione and Belmont as the seat, until moving to Tonopah. I'm surprised the seat hasn't move to Pahrump, where the majority of people in Nye County live. As always, love your content
It’s fascinating the political maneuvering that was happening even back in the day with these county seats. Always fun to learn the back story of what happened to these towns. Thanks for watching!
@9:03 Frank and Mabel Stefan are my great grand parents. until a few years ago the last remaining building was the old school house that we owned, but vagrants burned it down. that foundation you seen is all that remains.
It’s from a water tower in Kentucky that has a funny history. It’s next to the Florence Mall so originally that’s what it said, but because of some legal stuff they couldn’t put Mall on there and changed it to y’all. It’s kind of a famous thing in Northern Kentucky. It’s at the end of my last water tower video.
appreciate u and ur vids! i’m a photographer and i like to search up vids & see if i can find places i would be interested to photograph & u are much help!
Thank you. I have used a new mic in the more recent videos. Sometimes even with a noise reducing microphone it’s still very windy in Kansas! I’ll keep trying to do better.
What a horrible place. I've often thought about how mad I would've been, had I been a settler coming from back east, and ended up in an armpit of a place like that.
I truly love this part of KS. I traveled the triangle of Liberal, Garden City and Dodge every two weeks for about five years with many side trips.
Veyr interesting part of the state that not many people really know about!
With Arkalon the railroad givith and the railroad takeith away.
Flooding had been problematic for the railroad bridge, so as soon as the railroad commited to building a new high bridge on a direct line from Kizmet to Liberal that was fin for Arkalon.
At about the 8.20 mark the old railroad formation is visible top left, curving towards the river bed.
Great info and explanation!
Those were all actual ghost towns. No human population whatsoever, but evidence of its history due to the cemeteries you found. Fascinating!
Very fun little trip! Interesting histories!
I love Western Kansas, used to go there weekly, hauling cattle in to different feed lots. Also have friends that live close to Scott City. Very interesting history, thanks for the tour.
Western Kansas is a unique and very interesting place for me to explore too! I appreciate you watching! Hopefully I can get back out there again soon!
I used to live at Dighton,there were two towns called Ravanna and Eminence,they also had scuffles over county seat,now It is just all in Finney county.
Appreciate you, Sir. Thanks!
😊
Wow, Arkalon Cemetery still exists! I would love to walk through that. Fascinating history
Those old pioneer cemeteries are really interesting!
@@TravelwithaWiseguy I will bet it doesn't get many visitors. I actually enjoy walking through old cemeteries. I like reading the headstones, seeing the names, seeing the dates of birth and death and knowing these people all existed at one time. I kind of feel like when I read their names, now I know they existed and they are not forgotten if in general they are forgotten.
Amazing the old store still standing being so open to full force of the areas weather changes. Interesting video and drone shots. 😊
It's hard to believe these building survive this long, like you said because of weather. Impressive!
Great to see photos of Seward County. I was born and raised on a farm east of Liberal. Are-KAY-lun is the proper pronunciation 😊
Thank you!
Yes!, Yes! I remember the Stefan family living in the old schoohouse as Deborah Weilert mentioned. Also the foundation your drone showed in the middle of the pasture, I was told by Becky Barr (now Becky Catlin), was the foundation of the Arkalon Bank. Her family owned and my still own that pasture.
Awesome! Do you know when the bank was torn down? Would’ve loved to have seen it in its original form. Thanks for the info!
Nescatunga has a cemetery my grandfather and I seined there on some of our fishing trips. We used to drive by Lexington a few times! Now I am in my sixties! You should check out the bank robbery stories during the depression including Bonnie and Clyde! You also has the Southern Cheyenne fleeing through the area out of Oklahoma to get back to Northern Bands! In the southwest and south central regions.
Thanks for the message! I don’t know a lot about SW Kansas but I’m enjoying learning. Definitely some wild times back in the day!
The story of the feud between Springfield and Fargo Springs reminds me of the feud between Pawnee and Eagleton, Indiana in the show "Parks & Recreation". lol
😂😂 never saw that one
The Bixler Cemetary is also around not far south of Arkalon. A few Civil War Era gravesites to visit there.
Good to know - thanks!
Great video! TFS
Thank you! I really enjoyed this one!
7:52 Takes u back in time---- ahhh I love this extra outing with the drone on this long ago used road . Really nice drone footages. I'm not sure if u got the latest Kansas Gazetteer as it's reloaded every town that ever existed*
Thank you very much! I recently bought a Kansas Gazetteer so I think I have the most recent one. There are lots of little dots on there that aren’t there now! I’m so appreciative of their work!
@@TravelwithaWiseguy It may take 10 years to get to all of em haha. I just love these true lost into the grass type towns-- there just way cool even with there itibiti remnants
Absolutely agree with that! I have a map with lots and lots of sticky notes of places I want to visit. So many in Kansas!
My great grandpa helped build the cimarron train bridge.. & ran the train tracks in kismet. There was a fire there and he lost a leg.. my grandma grew up in kismet. We visited arkalon several times.. woods is very remote! Thanks wise guy!
Oh wow that’s a very cool part of history! I drove through Kismet while I was there too! Thank you!
According to KCC records, the Kansas & Oklahoma RR was built from Liberal to Woods in 1922 (14.4 miles) and it was abandoned in 1937. Amazing that elevator is still there. Couldn't find an atlas showing the railroad. Arkalon was on the portion of the Rock Island that was rerouted when the new bridge was built over the Cimarron River. Google Earth shows the schoolhouse still there but your video has just the foundation...sad
Fascinating history about the railroad! I noticed that about Google Earth too so I was disappointed when there wasn’t more left. But that’s the way it goes - and soon there won’t be any trace left! Appreciate the info!
ATTACK!!! OMG!! That was pretty funny about the two towns going to attack one another and it never happened. It's said that how a railroad can make it break a town back in the day. I know when the railroad pulled out of Eskridge, KS in 1971 I believe, the town still survived and prospered for many years afterwords. But when they consolidated the K-8th grade with the high school, everything just kinda went down hill. I mean we still have a bank, lawyers office, post office, lumber yard, small mechanic shop, cafe, senior center, library, thrift store and gas station and one church. We use d to have 5 churches when I was growing up. Now just a Baptist Church is the only one in use. I wouldn't trade where I grew up at for the world. Had a great time growing up there. Anyways.... awesome video as always John!! Keep up the great content as you do!!!
Thank you! Yeah that’s some crazy stuff that was happening out in SW Kansas. Certainly the Wild West! I think back in the 1890’s the roads weren’t very good so the railroad was a must. I think towns could survive post 1950 without one as roads got better. Growing up in a small town was great for me too - awesome memories!
Mamaw and papaw used to be the camp hosts for Arkalon Park!
👍 great vid!
Thanks you! It was fun to make!
One of the Arkalon (R Kay Lon) cemetery markers was Stefan…they used to live in the old school house until their passing. Springfield has a neat cemetery…you can find the listing of markers on the internet. The list has notes regarding cause of death which was rather fascinating. Thank you for visiting SW Kansas and our enjoyable wind. 😂
There were a lot of interesting markers in that cemetery. More than I would’ve imagined! And yes I enjoyed the wind very much as is apparent on the last part of the video haha 😂
@@TravelwithaWiseguy There’s a great book titled Ballot and Bullets: The Bloody County Seat Wars of Kansas by Robert K DeArment. Interesting read on Kansas history.
@@deborahweilert9423 Thanks I'll have to try and find that one!
If these towns that were bypassed by the railroad were anything like the ones I've heard about, they had a tendency to move entire buildings to the town where the railroad was.
Very true! The only way the town could survive back in the day!
oh, and that's the railroad that is still there that goes through Liberal and south into the Oklahoma Panhandle. Guymon, Optima, Hooker, Tyrone, Texhoma, Liberal, all of these towns are 10 miles apart because of them being railroad stops. That is interesting, though I wonder what made them decide to run everything through Liberal.
I see, the railroad story is part of your general ghost town series, I thought it was going to be separate in depth video just telling that story. The general store in Woods, can you imagine somebody built that. Somebody invested in that, somebody put their lives into that store and now it's gone.
The story is probably worth a separate video, but unfortunately there isn’t anything left there to see. I don’t think people just want to see me talk for 10 minutes 😂😂
@@TravelwithaWiseguy I guess it depends on how much time you want to invest in it. This is just a hobby for you so you probably don't want to put that much time into it, you have other things you need to do. However I also had a thought that maybe after your film festival experience maybe you wanted take it more seriously. When I say "depends on how much time you want to invest" You might be able to do a Ken Burns type of thing where you have still photos of the area zooming in and out of each photo while you talk. Maybe there is a historical society around the area you can interview about it. But that, again, would take more time than you probably want or even should invest.
I would love to do it on a more serious level, but right now I have to focus on my full time job most of the time. The revenue from RUclips right now isn’t very much. Hopefully the channel continues to grow and in a few years I could maybe take it more serious. Right now I’m enjoying doing it in my free time and sharing it with others without worrying about making it a career.
@@TravelwithaWiseguy Oh I totally understand that. Like I said, depends on how much time you want to invest. You don' want it be anymore than fun. If it's not fun then you won't want to do it anymore. I really enjoy learning about the ghost towns and enjoy watching your videos
I just subscribed to your channel. Have you tried vesting into a wind sock for your mic? They keep the wind noise out. You do GREAT videos!! I love OLD Towns from back-in-the-day.😁👍🏻 I can visualize the history; like stepping back in time.😁👍🏻A BIG SHOUT OUT for the AWESOME work you put into each video! 😁😁😁👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you so much for watching and subscribing! I’m experimenting with something for the wind, but I hadn’t done it with these videos unfortunately. Hoping future videos are a little better! I appreciate your nice comments about my video! 😊
I've mentioned the importance of holding the Seat for a town on my vlogs as well. It's no guarantee, I think of Nye County NV, who had Ione and Belmont as the seat, until moving to Tonopah. I'm surprised the seat hasn't move to Pahrump, where the majority of people in Nye County live.
As always, love your content
It’s fascinating the political maneuvering that was happening even back in the day with these county seats. Always fun to learn the back story of what happened to these towns. Thanks for watching!
Growing up near there, the pronunciation of Arkalon is Ar kay len
Thank you!
I drive a truck through those places every week
@9:03 Frank and Mabel Stefan are my great grand parents. until a few years ago the last remaining building was the old school house that we owned, but vagrants burned it down. that foundation you seen is all that remains.
Whats on your shirt??? It says florence yall. And your in Kansas but that's not Florence Kansas Tower?
It’s from a water tower in Kentucky that has a funny history. It’s next to the Florence Mall so originally that’s what it said, but because of some legal stuff they couldn’t put Mall on there and changed it to y’all. It’s kind of a famous thing in Northern Kentucky. It’s at the end of my last water tower video.
appreciate u and ur vids! i’m a photographer and i like to search up vids & see if i can find places i would be interested to photograph & u are much help!
Awesome! Thank you very much! Are you from Kansas?
@@TravelwithaWiseguy not at all, i’m actually in arkansas rn. similar names but different places hahah
Oh nice! I definitely need to do some Arkansas videos too!
You do nice videos guys but you really need to remedy the audio (wind) issue. It's bad enough to cause avoiding watching a full episode
Thank you. I have used a new mic in the more recent videos. Sometimes even with a noise reducing microphone it’s still very windy in Kansas! I’ll keep trying to do better.
What a horrible place. I've often thought about how mad I would've been, had I been a settler coming from back east, and ended up in an armpit of a place like that.