On Monday, May 10th I was heading North on Route 99 out of Oklahoma and into Kansas. Right at the State line there is a whistle stop known as Chautauqua, Kansas. Chautauqua is made up of a series of streets & scattered houses that have seen better days. On the south end of Chautauqua there is a non descript county road and by the turn to that road is a small green sign which reads, "Elgin via county road." I have saw this sign numerous times in the past as I traveled up and down route 99 but this day I decided to make the turn onto the county road and go exploring.

Five or so dusty miles down the curvy unpaved road my destination was reached.... Elgin, Kansas. This county road dead ended 100 years in the past. How do you describe a town that's sitting within it's own deathroughs, but still clinging to life? As I turned on to what had once been the Elgin main street, I was struck by the oddness of that street. On either side of the road were tall, overgrown weed lots. The road itself was red brick cobblestone and the weeds from either side of the road were intruding up through the cobblestone as if to claim back what had once been theirs. The cobblestone road itself was odd, a four lane road with a median strip suited for a major metropolitan city, yet laid, traveled and forgotten before 1901. As I turned on to the cross street of the main district, I was greeted by a brick structure who was home to rats, mice and the occasional opossum. This had once been the Elgin Bank, the center of financial commerce for this community. Now it was a smorgasbord for any barn owl who might fly through one of its broken windows. Heading West down this cobblestone street I was entranced by the four structures to my right. There was a limestone foundation that started from waist level and slowly rose to what had been the second story of a business building. Within the center of this foundation grew a small forest. Next to this building was another limestone building. Part of the wall was cracked and appeared as though it was trying to walk away from the rest of the structure as if to say "you are too dilapidated for me to be associated with you any longer." Strangest of all, were the two brick buildings directly beside the limestone building of which I just spoke. As you looked through their unbroken display windows you are struck by the fact that there are no doors on these buildings, neither front nor back and that you are looking straight through the buildings. The buildings appear to be lit from within but that is just an illusion as electricity may have never coursed through these structures. The ambient light enters these silent behemoths through the top, for they have long ago lost their roofs. In the window of the center building hanging upon a rack are a row of dresses, untouched, undesired and never again to grace the back of any woman. I found it odd that these dresses would be hanging in the window of these open and abandoned buildings as if waiting for the buildings to once again serve their purpose. Across the street from these buildings is a lone, limestone building which once housed the local Masonic Temple. What it's purpose was after the last Mason had graced it's halls is lost in time and memory. Yet this building stands a silent watch upon the four structures across from it.

At the end of this cobblestone road is a small metal structure situated at the edge of a community park. Painted upon the side of the structure are the words "Elgin, Kansas - The town too tough to die." The park seems to attest to this almost as if it's a small flower poking through a garbage pile, giving a glimpse of life where there is nothing but death. Turning back North, away from the main road you come upon a rusted water tower which has not held water in it for many a year. Sitting right next to this water tower is a limestone building approximately 20 feet wide by 40 feet deep. As you look at this building you cannot help but be struck by its one outstanding feature. On either side of the long side of the building are six windows - 3 to the North and 3 to the South. But, these are not just any windows, these are cathedral windows of the type that you might find in any large church in any major metropolitan area on earth. Yet here they are giving character to a limestone building covered in vines and who's shingles long ago dissolved back to the earth.

I circled back to the main street, stepped out of my truck and looked East, then West. The last signs that there had ever been any commerce within this vanishing community was the empty Gulf Service Station building 100 yards to my East and seeming so out of place in this town who's day came and went before the last century even began. It seems eerie to me now that as the sun was setting and lighting the western sky a fiery red I stood within this town 100 years in the past.