Halstead, Kansas

We have been into a very miserable weather since we left home, for a week we had nothing but foul conditions, raining, windy with threats of tornados and very cold, we were coat right in the middle of a very large cold front moving East and in the Midwest of our country North until today, October 15 is the very first day that we have a very nice and sunny day. We are in the State of Kansas, in the vicinity of the City of Halstead.

 This little town of about 2000 peoples consists of a wonderful blend of small-town friendliness, safety, and "family", while also providing access to services and amenities normally associated with larger communities, one reason is the vicinity of a town called Newton about 10 miles east has restructured itself within the past few years, even has a Walmart now!

Founded largely by Russian Mennonite immigrants, the City of Halstead was incorporated in 1877 and named in honor of journalist Murat Halstead. With the hard red winter wheat (Turkey Red) they brought from Russia, the Mennonites established Halstead as a farming community, and built the Bernard Warkentine Mill (and as to day still there) at the confluence of the Little Arkansas River and Black Kettle Creek. A famous "pow wow" between the frontiersman Kit Carson and the Native American Chief Black Kettle had taken place some years earlier unexpected at this same confluence. About 10 years ago on one of our trips through the country, we found ourselves on a campground about 5 or 6 miles away from Halstead, and being as nosy as we are, we ended up roaming around this old little town and talking to people here and there, all of the sudden we were invited to a Ice Cream Social programmed for next day (will be Sunday) and of course we accepted the nice invitation. Sunday come along and we went to the park were the event was taking place, when we got there we found ourselves surrounded by about 250 to 300 people who were tremendously nice, treating us like we have been members of the community for many years. The home made ice cream was delicious and the towns people were the best hosts that we can remember, during the conversations we found out that particular site was famous because of the filming of the famous 1956 romantic comedy-drama ‘PICNIC’, which stared William Holden and Kim Novak, Rosalind Russell, Susan Strasberg and Cliff Roberson. If I remember correctly (I’m dating myself now) the picture was nominated for many academy awards and I think it won two of them the same year. We made lots of friends that afternoon, and we were invited to “really” visit the town next day chaperoned by the President of the Chamber of Commerce, who happened to be the Real Estate Broker of the town. Next day we saddled up on Willie, and to the town we went. We were introduced to the town history and shown some of the points of interest, and some the houses that were built around 1850s, two in particular called our attention to the point that we made an offer to buy one of them, (by that time we were kind of tired of Las Vegas) but the owners came back with a counter offer that we didn’t like, so two or three days later we left for greener pastures. We were about a thousand miles away, when we received a phone call from the Broker and she said that the owners had changed their minds and accepted our offer for the house, but by then we were too far away all ready, and as it happened we had changed our minds too, so we decided not to buy the house, we still think it was a good decision, one of the reasons for our decision was that the closest Hospital was about 35 miles away in Wichita and the other was that this beautiful little town is right in the middle of what is known to be the infamous Tornado Alley. Now remember this is……On my view only….