the community. The structure was built in 1909 at a cost of $100,000, and ended the feud between towns competing for the county seat once and for all. On the grounds in front of the courthouse is the majestic Freedom Memorial, built through the efforts of community volunteers. The brick path linking the 6.5 foot bronze eagle, “Sovereign Wings” to the Statue of Liberty replica, honors over 900 U.S. military veterans.
Black Gold
Another silent observer of history is the Missouri Pacific Railroad Depot, renovated through the efforts of community volunteers, and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. Built in 1918 by the chief engineer for MoPac, this depot has hosted President Theodore Roosevelt on a visit to El Dorado. Today visitors can enjoy the park-like depot grounds adorned by beautiful sculptures.
Baseball enthusiasts can travel through recent history at the historic McDonald Stadium, a 1940 WPA project, and El Dorado Baseball Hall of Fame, an on-site museum featuring memorabilia of our local “boys of summer” heroes. President Obama Kansas Heritage. Did you know that the 44th President of the United States has strong ties to El Dorado and Kansas? To learn more, visit www.obamakansasheritage.org, now under development.
The El Dorado Field is a story of men and events that helped Kansas and the nation emerge from the drafthorse and kerosene-lamp years into the gasoline age. Few events in oil history had such lasting effects on petroleum technology, on the course of world history and on the general local, state, and national economy, as that of the El Dorado Field. Oil was discovered on October 6, 1915 on the Stapleton #1 lease at a depth of 2,497 feet. By 1918 the El Dorado Oil Field was the largest producer among single fields in the U.S. This production level during a crucial time of America’s involvement in World War I, led to statements that El Dorado “floated” the country to victory on a “sea of oil”. It would later make a substantial contribution to World War II as well. In 1910 the population of Butler County was 23,000, but nearly doubled to 43,000 in 1920, much of which was located in the “oil company towns” of Midian and Oil Hill, just west and north of El Dorado. The town of El Dorado thrived with all this activity. The historic oil strike brought the refining business to El Dorado. Men such as Archibald Derby, John Vickers and William Skelly were drawn to the El Dorado oil field, and established successful oil producing and refining companies as well as service station chains. Today, the former Skelly Refinery, which became part of Getty, then Texaco, is now in operation as Frontier Oil and Refining. It is the largest refinery in Kansas and the only one of the eight original area refineries still in operation.
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More recent history has been immortalized by the 1958 El Dorado Tornado Victim’s Memorial. Members of the El Dorado Rotary Club raised the funds, built and dedicated this memorial to the thirteen victims of the tornado which tore through El Dorado in 1958. Designed by local architects, the memorial features thirteen pillars and an Aeolian harp which captures the wind’s soft melody and represents the community whose spirit was bent, but not broken, that day.
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