Where in Elk County Am I?

[W. Gray]

From time to time during some researching, I have come across something called the Durbin Archeological Site that is supposed to be in Moline but I do not have a clue as to where it might actually be.

I don't know that I have read anything on what was discovered there.

[flintauqua]

Yes, there is a Durbin Archeological Site.  Named Durbin simply because it was found on land owned by my great-uncle Jack Durbin.  A bulldozer operator happened to see the hearth he unearthed as he was digging out the "core" of the watershed lake dam on the South Fork Wildcat Creek, south of the Martin Marietta quarry.  Now the Durbin (or Harshman) quarry is even closer to the site.

I thought I had a copy of the archeological findings from the dig that was conducted by either KU or KSU with emergency funding so that the construction of the dam could continue.  Nowadays, they would probably force the dam to be built somewhere else.  When I find the document I will post more info on this site which is the first of only four sites in Elk County that is on the National Register of Historic Places.

http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/KS/Elk/state.html

For now I'm using the point where the dam crosses the old channel of the South Fork of Wildcat Creek as the location of the site.  This may not be exactly correct, but it can't be far off; N37.35488 W96.26006.

Waldo, you're up, unless you would like to defer to Dan, whom even though there was no collusion between him and I , he did still have a slight advantage over everyone else.

Charles

P.S. To see just how much the Durbin/Harshman quarry has grown in about fifteen years, toggle between satellite and DOQ on the acme map site.

[W. Gray]

I officially disappeared from Elk County on April 2, 1949, under the signature of the governor of Kansas, but sixty years later I can still be found on some geographic diagrams.

There are rumors that no one ever died within my realm because of the supposed medicinal properties of the liquid piped directly into each of the rooms of my lodge.

When people began questioning the value of what was actually being piped into those rooms, I went downhill fast, but did not officially go away until the governor declared so.

I have a Globe connection.

Who am I and where am I located?

[flintauqua]

I don't get the Globe connection.

But I believe there is reference in a book of Daniel.

[W. Gray]

You know him too, huh?

Daniel did not mention the Globe connection.

[W. Gray]

The answer is Cave Springs at 37.5333 96.12222.

I thought, though, that the east-west road it is near was inaccessible, vacated, or closed by a gate with a sign warning to stay out. At least that is what I came across. But, maybe I was lost. Does any forum member live near the old site of Cave Springs?

Cave Springs became a major health center after the spring water from the cave springs was piped to a local hotel on Broadway Street. The hotel of 22 rooms, complete with dining facility, was owned and run by a doctor and the water advertised as having healing and restorative properties.

The hotel was well patronized by patients when the town got its start in 1875 and for several years thereafter. In fact, the doctor owned the whole town of sixty-four blocks but did sell the majority of the blocks to others. Stagecoach service came sixty miles from Humboldt, Kansas, bringing well-to-do patients to the hotel.

After things turned sour, the doctor was supposed to have tricked a local rancher out of his cattle in exchange for some land in Mississippi, which turned out to be worthless swamp land. He sold the cattle and then split. Another doctor came in but was not able to make a go of it.

I do not know the mechanics of vacating town land, but when Elk Falls vacated its public square, the town company had to get approval from the state legislature via a law before the lots could be sold.

In the Cave Springs case the governor signed an act into law in 1949 vacating "the original townsite of Cave Springs in Elk County, Kansas, and the streets and alleys of such townsite." I don't have a clue as to who might have sold the land after the state approved vacating. In the Elk Falls case, it was the Town Company.

It must have taken a long time to start the process of vacating because Cave Springs started going south beginning with the panic of 1893 and was essentially gone early in the 20th century. The post office closed in 1903.

The Cave Springs Globe was the only Elk County newspaper published other than in Longton, Elk Falls, Howard, Moline, and Grenola. However, it lasted only for one month in 1882.

[sixdogsmom]

This is a neat thread! There could be a book in here somewhere?

[flintauqua]

Many moons ago (about 20 years, give or take) I and some other youngins from Moline took a little trip to Cave Springs.  At that time there was a very old walk-thru gate (the kind that would be chain link now) about a block, maybe two, north of the crossroads, opening to a barely discernable path down the hill and back to the south to the "spring".  A seep at the bottom of a small rock overhang would be a better discription.  It was the middle of summer though.  There were still very prominent concrete foundations, footings, and other rubble along with jumbled up pipes.  Nothing actually hooked up to the spring, but easy to determine how it once was.

Since then, I recall a change in ownership or generational transfer of the land and talk of the new owner eliminating the little walk through gate, which was the only thing marking where the path started.

Okay Waldo, who goes next?

Charles

[flintauqua]

BTW

"book of Daniel" refers to:

Fitzgerald, Daniel C. Ghost Towns of Kansas, A Traveler's Guide. Lawrence:  University of Kansas Press, 1988.

Mr. Fitzgerald worked for the Kansas State Historical Society until semi-retiring to Florida.

He maintains an interesting website at:  http://www.danielcfitzgerald.com/kansas_rogue_in_florida.html

[W. Gray]

Dan, jump in or I have another one.