Russel, KS

Paying Tribute to Prairie Treasures

With each crank of the antique hand drill, David Reisig bores deeper into a limestone slab. A stone-cutting demonstration might be a yawner in some towns, but in Russell, Kan., these rocks and this process are revered.

The cut limestone pillars, called post rock, are a trademark of the Smoky Hills region of north-central Kansas and a tribute to the ingenuity of its pioneers—originally 60 families from Wisconsin who settled at Fossil Station, a water stop on the Union Pacific Railroad.

On the nearly treeless plains, settlers relied on the limestone to build fence posts, houses, barns, churches, bridges, and sidewalks. Even the 1936 water tower in nearby Paradise (pop. 64) is built from native limestone. Some 40,000 miles of post rock fencing, dating from the 1870s, stretch throughout the region.

In Russell (pop. 4,696), limestone buildings dress up downtown and neighborhoods. The historical society gives tours of three limestone jewels: the 1907 Fossil Station Museum, the 1879 Heym-Oliver House, and the 1872 Gernon House. The limestone courthouse, middle school, and several churches are still in use.

“This is our heritage. This is the only place in the United States or the world with this type of rock, greenhorn limestone,” says Duane Vonada, who still quarries the limestone at Vonada Stone Co. in nearby Sylvan Grove.

But limestone isn’t the only prairie treasure that built Russell. On Thanksgiving Day in 1923, the Lucky Seven Oil Co. struck “black gold” on the Oswald farm, about 17 miles northwest of town near Fairport.

“People all left church to go see it,” says Earl Homewood, who leads tours of the Oil Patch Museum in Russell. “It was a celebration.”

The well, dubbed the Carrie Oswald No. 1, soon was generating $10,000 in revenue a month and sparked an oil boom in Russell.

“Oil was the king and queen of Russell County—and still is,” says Jack Beeman, a driller with Shields Oil Producers Inc. in Russell. Russell County produced 1.9 million barrels of oil from 1,753 wells in 2000, ranking it third in the state.

“Oil pumps are everywhere in town,” says Grace Blehm, marketing director for the Russell Chamber of Commerce.

The oil boom story is retold at Russell’s Prairiesta Celebration every 10 years. That’s also when locals recall their now famous model for the 1941 Prairiesta Spring Fashion Show.

“Bob Dole was well-liked in town and he was a handsome fellow, too, in our double-breasted brown pinstriped suit,” says Dean Banker, whose family operated Banker’s Department Store.

Old-timers remember Dole, the former U.S. senator and 1996 Republican presidential candidate, as the friendly soda jerk at Dawson’s Drug Store and later as a World War II hero. After Dole was hit by Nazi gunfire while trying to rescue a fallen soldier, residents filled a cigar box at Dawson’s with $1,800 for hospital bills.

“Bob still can dredge up names better than anyone I know,” Banker says. “That ability to come home five years later and say, ‘Hello, Chunk’ and call you by your nickname is what I’ve always loved about Bob Dole.”

Dole isn’t the only beloved politician from Russell. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, who also ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996, spent some boyhood years here.

“The family was well-respected and the only Jewish family in Russell,” recalls Banker. “We joked that the family moved to Wichita so they could find a nice Jewish boy for Shirley, Arlen’s sister.”

Dole and Specter both occasionally return to Russell for visits with family.

“It’s pretty unique for a town to have two fellows running for president at the same time,” Banker says. “A number of highly successful folks have never hesitated to say that ‘Russell is my home.’”

Marti Attoun is a freelance writer in Joplin, Mo.

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