August 10, 2018
This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.
Today’s
program is about another historic site owned by the Historical Society and is
available for tours or used by the Society on special occasions.
The Spring
Valley Historic Site consists of the Spring Valley School, the Little Cabin and
the Wetzel Cabin. The Spring Valley Historic Site was originally the Spring
Valley rural school grounds. The School building is a native limestone one-room
school building originally built in 1873 and operated as Rural School District
#21 until its closure in 1958.
The Wetzel
Cabin was relocated to the Spring Valley Site in 2004 and is located directly
south and downhill of the school in a small depression. The log cabin is constructed in a unique
style and includes two rooms separated by a breezeway or “dogtrot” and an attic
loft. The Christian F. Wetzel Cabin was
originally built on the banks of Clark’s Creek southeast of Junction City in
1857 and was constructed for Louis Kettlass by Isaac H. Loder at a cost of
$225.00. After Kettlass died, Wetzel purchased the cabin in 1860 and his family
moved into the house. The Wetzels lived
in the cabin for about four years and during that time the first services in
Kansas of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod were held in their home by
missionary Reverend F. Wingen Lange. In 1864, the cabin was sold to Samuel E.
Turner for $750.00 and until 1925 it was used as a residence by various
families. The cabin was restored and
moved, and stood at a new location east of Junction City until it was relocated
to its current location.
The Little
Cabin is a one-room hewn-log cabin, originally located on Lyons Creek in
southern Geary County. It has been reconstructed on the eastern edge of the
school ground.
Other
buildings on the site include a wood frame shed, a pony barn, a bright red
water pump and two outhouses constructed as a WPA project.
And… that is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical
Society.
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