Marion County Tourism

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Marion County Tourism
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The Burns Community Museum is housed in the former Burns Union School built in 1904 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The school was the first consolidated grade and high school in Kansas. A classroom, restored to look as it would have originally, reminds visitors of early-day education. The first floor of the two-story building contains a mix of school and community exhibits, along with many pictures and stories donated by families long associated with Burns. Call 316-726-5833.

The Harvey House in Florence, also listed on the National Register of Historic Places was originally known as the Clifton Hotel and was built on a beautiful spot in a wooded area, south of the tracks and southeast of the depot. It was a magnificent structure for those times, one of the most beautiful in Kansas. It was lighted throughout with coal oil lamps and candelabra. The front yard was landscaped in true English fashion with a huge fountain on each side of the entrance. Call 620-878-4296 or email the Harvey House.

One of the greatest events in all of history was the American westward movement of European settlers. It changed America – and America changed the world. The settlement movement across America left a gigantic mosaic of ethnic settlements in its wake. In Kansas, there were settlements established by Russian Volga German Catholics, Russian Jews, Russian and Polish Mennonites; Czech, French, English, Swedish, German, and Polish immigrants; Abolitionists from New England, African Americans, and other groups. West Marion and East-central McPherson counties in central Kansas played a unique role in that movement. Here, starting in 1874, Russian and Polish Mennonites built some fourteen settlement villages.The Mennonite Settlement Museum celebrates that facet of the American mosaic represented by the Russian and Polish refugee Mennonites from eastern Europe who settled here in the early 1870s. Two of these villages, Hoffnungsthal and Gnadenau, are represented at the Mennonite Settlement Museum by the Peter Paul Loewen House and the Jacob Friesen Mill, respectively. Call (620) 947 3775 or email the Hillsboro Museums.

The historic Peter Paul Loewen House, another listing on the National Register of Historic Places, is a traditional Russian clay brick house built in 1876 in the Mennonite settlement village of Hoffnungsthal. The house features a Russian Mennonite straw-burning oven-furnace combination. It is the last remaining house of its kind in North America. Here visitors will see a small but very important collection of handmade Russian Mennonite furniture (the museum is one of only four museums in North America known to collect and exhibit Russian Mennonite furniture). The house is the last surviving restored Russian Mennonite structure of its kind in North America. Call (620) 947 3775 or email the Hillsboro Museums.

The historic William F. Schaeffler House and Grounds includes The elegant 1909 Edwardian Queen Anne style house, which is also on the National Register of Historic Places and a carriage house, and spacious park like grounds. Among other aspects, the historic Schaeffler house features double parlors, a wonderful formal
dining room, and a turn of the century kitchen, all remaining as the original occupants of the house left them. Call (620) 947 3775 or email the Hillsboro Museums.

The Marion Historical Museum was originally constructed in 1882 for the First Baptist Church and continued to serve baptist congregations until the middle of the 1950's. The museum displays a wide variety of artifacts, keepsakes and memorabilia that tell the story of this area. There are reminders of many periods of the town's history. The foyer displays interesting artifacts of the Sante Fe Trail. The "School Room" brings together graduating classes of the Marion High School beginning with 1884. There are the athletic teams from the early 1900's that set great records. Brown-Corby School contributed interesting reminders of grade school days. Call 620-382-3432.

The Downtown Business District of Peabody boasts of 42 contributing buildings in the district. The significant period for the district began in 1874 with the construction of the first free public library and ended in 1922 with the decline in oil production. Peabody is only the 2nd community in the State of Kansas to have its entire downtown district on the National Register of Historic Places. The district includes more than forty examples of Italianate,Victorian Gothic, Neo-Classical, Gothic Revival, Utilitarian, Richardsonian Romanesque, Art Deco/Spanish Colonial, and Queen Anne styles. The nomination, which was unanimously approved by the Kansas State Historic Sites Board of Review, was sponsored by the Peabody Historical Society. Call 620-983-2174 or email Kristen Hooper.

The first settlement of Peabody was originally called Coneburg and was developed in autumn 1870 by a small group of colonists from Wisconsin. By June of 1871 the main line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad had reached the townsite and soon the directors of the railroad passed through the town on their way up the Arkansas River Valley. As an honor to F.H. Peabody of Boston, vice president of the Santa Fe, the new town was named for him. In 1874 he presented to the new growing settlement, a library building, furniture, and a collection of 2000 books for free public use. This library was the first free public library in the state of Kansas. By 1914 the little building had been outgrown and the present Carnegie Library was erected. The original library building was rescued for use as the Peabody Historical Museum during the Kansas Centennial year of 1961 by the newly formed Peabody Historical Society. Call 620-983-2174 or email Kristen Hooper.

The Morgan House is a two story Queen Anne Cottage built by W.H. Morgan, first editor of the Peabody Gazette, for his family in 1881. W.H. Morgan, pioneer newspaper publisher was born in Ohio in 1840. The family soon emigrated "westward to California in search of health and fortune". The father ran a successful hotel business but felt "the city government of San Francisco was controlled by thieves and gamblers and crime was so general that the family concluded to return to the States". W H. Morgan eventually moved to Peabody in 1880, where he began and published the Gazette for 27 years before he sold out to his son in 1907. Call 620-983-2174 or email Kristen Hooper.

The Peabody Printing Museum is a collection of hot type equipment dating from 1870 - 1920. Not only is this Museum an attraction for those visiting Peabody, it also serves as a memorial to the thousands of "ink-stained wretches" who worked in or operated newspapers and print shops in Kansas and the rest of America. Since the 1960s, printing has undergone a huge upheaval, and the equipment and methods of the "letterpress" or "hot type" printing have virtually disappeared in commercial printing and publishing companies. The Peabody Printing Museum hopes to preserve a bit of this great printing history which dates back to the 15th century. The invention of the moveable type by Gutenberg, climaxed with the invention of the Linotype by Merganthaler little more than a century ago virtually disappeared in a period of less than a quarter of a century. Call 620-983-2174 or email Kristen Hooper.

If you enjoy the outdoor life - fishing, boating, camping and all the rest - and you like a tranquil, manageable setting in which to enjoy it, then the Marion County Park & Lake is the place to visit. Marion County Lake and Park is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Be sure to visit the Marion County Park and Lake web site!

Covering more than 12,000 acres, Marion Reservoir offers some of the areas finest fishing and camping. With 140 camp sites, 10 boat ramps, walking trails and Hillsboro and Marion close by for an evening back in "civilization", you couldn't ask for more! Marion Reservoir has 6200 acres of water for fishing and 3850 acres of land for hunting. Many anglkers also enjoy boating up the Cottonwood River, which feeds into Marion Reservoir, for catfish and bass.

Located 1/2 mi. West of US 77 on County Rd. 260th. Approximately 1 mi. NE of Antelope, the Amelia Park Bridge is a closed spandrel reinforced concrete arch bridge located on a rural road near Antelope in Marion County. It was built for the county in 1914 by Topeka Bridge and Iron Company and spans Clear Creek.

A marker near Durham is located by wagon wheel ruts that still remain from travellers using the Santa Fe Trail that stretched from Old Franklin, Missouri, through Kansas and Colorado, to end in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is another location in Marion County on the National Register of Historic Places.

Burns' Farmer's Market starts in June and continues every Friday evening all through the summer. It is held in Corner Park at the main intersection in Burns. There will also be acoustical music at the gazebo and all the downtown shops will be open!

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