Kaw City Museum

An oxbow of the Arkansas River circles around Kaw City, just over the county line into Osage County. The historic community is surrounded on three sides by the river, which once had connections to fellow communities of Uncas and Washunga, sister cities that supported each other in Kay and Osage Counties. Two of those towns are completely gone, flooded underneath the waters of Kaw Lake, but a few Kaw City supporters have kept their memories alive, preserving them long after the communities drowned.

Kaw City was also covered in water, but still has a presence in the area. It was relocated just west of where the original Kaw Nation capitol city once stood. On a cool Wednesday morning, several Kaw City Museum board members and enthusiasts meet to discuss what is great about the community, including Gordon and Dorothy Smith and Jack and Carolyn Godberson.

“Everyone knew everyone, and the kids could ride their bikes and everyone could socialize at the parks,” Dorothy said.

The Kaw City Museum stands on a hill above the Arkansas River and Kaw Lake, overlooking where the community once stood, which includes the town’s railway depot, constructed and operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF). An adjoining facility connects to the depot through a breezeway, bringing the history of Kaw City to life for a modern public to view.

“The depot was in the original Kaw City. They moved it in 1972 after the railroad company donated it to the museum,” Carolyn said.

Stepping inside the museum, one is quickly inundated with historical artifacts, from beadwork to firearms, century-old telephones and their adjacent switchboards. A collection of dolls young girls once played with is seen in the cabinets, and a myriad of photos of early frontier life represent local history.

A hallmark display is a treaty signed by the Kaw Nation, dating back to the 1820s. “It was between the Kaw Tribe and U.S. government. It gave them permission to cross Kaw Tribal land,” Dorothy said.

Much more is seen through the breezeway, where names of patrons are etched into pavers, along with portraits of Kaw City’s graduating senior classes.

Further into the museum and entering the depot itself, a depiction of what a prairie home’s interior once looked like brings history to life, and there are plenty of early photos representing how life in early Kay County was seen in the eyes of those who lived it.

The museum represents what made Kaw City great, but also Washunga and Uncas, three sister communities that had so much in common, so many connections, even to this day.

An outpost known as the Kaw Agency was formed in 1880, which would last until 1892. It would later be named Washunga, after the last Kaw chieftain, in 1902. Kaw City was also established in 1902, only a mile south of Washunga. A ferry and bridge connected the two cities.

Uncas was established in 1895, several miles west of Kaw City, named after a Mohegan chief in Michigan.

The ATSF Railway first arrived in what would become County K, later Kay County, north of Newkirk. A line would eventually extend to Kaw City and Uncas, connecting the communities to Newkirk and Pawhuska.

The connection of the railway into the communities helped bring industry to Kaw City, including the agricultural trade.

“It was a pretty good hub for grain, and the cattle were loaded onto cars about two miles east of Kaw City,” Gordon said. “They brought the cattle in on cattle drives and loaded them onto cars.”

“They dealt in a lot of grain in Kaw City, but Uncas had a small elevator,” he said. “It didn’t store as much, but it took care of people on the farms. The next biggest elevator was Newkirk, about 12 miles (northwest), and it was a big hub for grain also.”

Oil was discovered in Kay County about 1910, and a well was sunk near Kaw City in 1919, in the north end of what would become known as the Burbank Field, named for the community east of Ponca City, south of the sister cities. The railroad would help expand the industry in the area, bringing oilfield workers and equipment into the communities.

The oilfield wealth would bring culture to the area, including churches, opera, theater, movies, hotels, grocery stores, a drugstore with soda fountains and so many other businesses.

“It was just amazing what we had in the old Kaw City,” Dorothy said.

Cold winds would soon blow through the communities, starting with a heavy flood in 1923 that left the area devastated, the first of several. They would be a chilling harbinger of what would come decades down the road.

“One of the floods in the 1930s wiped out the town, and it destroyed the bowling alley and pool,” Gordon said. “I can remember one year, the Kaw City floods, you could feel the gas pipelines around town because you could see the bubbles.”

In the 1940s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began exploring the idea of damming the Arkansas River, flooding a portion of the Kaw Nation Reservation, which would eventually destroy the sister communities. A Blackwell benefactor donated funds to preserve those hometowns and stop the dam process, but the Corps of Engineers won, and construction of the Kaw Lake Dam began in the 1960s, with work completed a decade later. It would only be a few years before the lake filled, submerging the three towns.

“They started buying land in 1966. They said it would take 10 years (to fill), but it filled up in only two,” Cynthia said.

Reeling from the coming loss of the community, many residents sought to keep some form of memory of the community and decided to create a museum representing the history of Kaw City. They found the perfect facility in the ATSF Railway Depot, then under severe dereliction. ATSF would pull their tracks out in the 1970s, as they would be inundated by the lake, and thus deeded the depot to Kaw City for the Kaw City Museum.

They chose a spot on a hill overlooking the original Kaw City for the depot’s new home.

“They had a huge celebration when they moved it,” Dorothy said.

Robert and Annette Cline were behind the railway depot museum, though moving it wouldn’t be that easy. A parade heralded its moving but overhanging powerlines proved to be difficult. They chose instead to showcase the depot’s outhouse in the parade, with the depot moving later. The outhouse still sits outside the depot at the museum.

“On the day of the parade, they couldn’t move the depot because of high (power) lines so they moved the outhouse in its place,” Gordon said.

The depot would prove to be a special museum, recognizing not just Kaw City and the frontier way of life, but the petroleum and railroad industries that made Kaw City a special place itself. They received so many donations that it would necessitate a new facility that the museum could grow into. The effort to build that new facility began in the 1990s, with Kenneth Brill providing the funds to move forward with the addition, allowing so many donations to find a new home. It was dedicated on May 28, 1995.

The Kaw City Museum has a modern facility and board of administrators, including president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and historian/editor. They alone keep the museum alive.

The museum is available to the public in the summer months, from Memorial Day to Labor Day weekends, Saturday and Sunday, 1-5 p.m., though tours can be arranged in private.

“All they have to do is call for tours,” Carolyn said.

Nothing exists today of the sister cities in terms of the communities themselves, but there were some things salvaged, at least to a certain extent. The Kaw City Cemetery was already above the lake, near the present-day museum, and the Washunga Cemetery was relocated to Newkirk, across from the local community up north near Kansas.

“Kaw City didn’t have to move its cemetery, because it was always on the hill,” Jack said. “The depot has been deemed a historic place.” There is some semblance of the original Kaw City in the modern community, as well.

“There were several houses that have been moved up here,” Dorothy said.

As for Uncas, it is reported that very little exists at all.

“The (town) pool barely comes out of the water,” Gordon said.

It has also been noted that the towns can be seen under the waters of Kaw Lake, if the weather conditions are right and one knows where to look.

As for the museum, though it is only seasonal, there have been many people who have donated, come back to visit and simply reminisced about growing up in those communities, sharing what it meant to grow up in those sister communities.

“We have elderly people coming from all over when they lived in Kay County, and I take them in for tours,” Dorothy said.

The museum stays open for seniors, alumni and those who want to learn local history, through donations, whether that be donations of historical items or monetary donations. One form of donations is in the breezeway, with a short floor of brick pavers with names of donors who believe in the Kaw City Museum.

“We have named bricks that we sold and that is how we keep it going and pay the utilities,” Carolyn said. “That is the only way we stay open, is with donations.”

The landscape has completely changed since the Arkansas River was dammed for Kaw Lake. Kaw City was the luckiest of the three sister communities, in that a few buildings, including the depot, were salvaged and moved to the new community.

As for Kaw City, and maybe the sister cities as a whole, the memories are still alive, and not just at the museum, but with those who once lived there.

“It preserves history, the history of the family connections, and those who come to the museum every year,” Dorothy said. “It is a reunion of sorts, everyone who lived here comes back and looks at history. They love to come back because this is their history.”