Monticello Community

Historical Society



OUR SITES

TOUR STOPS REFER TO THE HISTORIC MONTICELLO DRIVING AND BIKING TOUR.

SEE OUR FACEBOOK SITE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Site is on Federal Historic Register. (Virginia School)
Site is on Local Register
TOUR STOP 1
This modest building is a telling example of the courage and dedication of American volunteer fire departments. Until 1973, Monticello had agreements with the largely-volunteer Delaware Township, Wyandotte County, and the Shawnee Township Fire Departments that stated if they were able to service a call in the area they would. After a home burnt to the ground because it took a brigade 25 minutes to respond, the case for a local fire department became urgent. In 1972, Floyd Cline vowed that if he were elected to the Monticello Township board he would work toward establishing a fire department. He fulfilled his promise to get the station built and a volunteer fire department established. A bond issue equipped the department and built this hall that also housed the township offices and meeting area. The fire department operated here until 1988 when the township was divided and annexed by Shawnee, Lenexa, Bonner Springs and Olathe.
1975 Monticello Township Hall and Fire Department MONTICELLO HISTORICAL STATION AND MUSEUM TOUR STOP 2 (MONTICELLO) UNION CEMETERY
In 1884, the Union Cemetery Company purchased five acres from F. L. and Mary C. Kueker for $275. Yet, with the oldest grave dating to 1860, these grounds were already known locally as a cemetery. In 1895, citizens built a Civil War monument at the center of the cemetery with mounds of four cannon balls marking each of its corners and a cannon pointed west. On Memorial Days, there were programs with prayers, music, and speeches by local dignitaries, recitation of the Gettysburg Address, and firing the cannon. People would bring flowers from their yards and gardens to tidy up their family graves. Unfortunately, the cannon was stolen along with the pipe, fence and the cannon balls—and the weekend of memorial events slowly faded away. Today Union Cemetery is still an active burial location and a telling vestige of generations of life and memorial traditions.
Monument dedicated to Union Soldiers who died in the Confederate Prisons TOUR STOP 3 MONTICELLO METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH Monticello Methodist Episcopal Church, 1894
Currently United Methodist Church In about 1850, a new Methodist Indian School, built about one half mile north of today’s church site, began to teach both Indian and White children. Methodist preachers conducted Sunday School and Camp meetings there on a regular basis. In 1880, the growing numbers of German and American Methodists joined forces to build a new church that later burned from a lightening strike in 1894. With the help of insurance money, the determined parishioners quickly rebuilt the Gothic Revival structure that stands today. The Monticello Methodist Episcopal Church occupied a central place in the life of the community but did not receive a full-time pastor appointment until the mid 1950’s.
TOUR STOP 4 VIRGINIA SCHOOL HOUSE (RELOCATED) Virginia School Class 1931-1932
Original Site of Virginia School, 1878. 71st & Clare, Shawnee. Opened for class in January 1878, this schoolhouse soon became a center for culture and community for people of all ages. Besides being a home for grades 1-8, the little building housed religious services and a Sunday school. Louis A. Gleason conducted a writing school and the building was home to a Lyceum—a popular 19th century institution where the community enjoyed debates and programs. Around 1900, when school districts were upgrading their one-room schoolhouses, Virginia added a vestibule to buffer outdoor winds and a place where students could hang their coats, leave their lunches, use the wash basin, and find drinking water. The school operated until 1962. The Virginia School building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in February 2004 and moved a year later to its current location on the grounds of the Mize Elementary School.
TOUR STOP 5 “WILD BILL” HICKOK LAND CLAIM

James Butler Hickok. Kansas State Historical Society

James Butler Hickok became one of Monticello’s first town constable in 1858 and later led a life of western adventures romanticized in print and Hollywood movies. “Wild Bill” Hickok was a slight man with long wavy hair and a bushy mustache. He was known as a staunch abolitionist during the turbulent Boarder War era; and his log cabin on this site was destroyed twice under suspicious circumstances, possibly by marauding Bushwhackers. Hickok left Monticello after only two years as constable, possibly because of his love for a half Shawnee woman named Mary Jane Owen and family objections on both sides. On July 21, 1865, in Springfield, Missouri, Hickok killed David Tutt in a “quick draw duel”— the first of its kind. In 1876, Hickok was shot in a poker game in Deadwood, Dakota Territory while holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights—since immortalized as, “The Dead Man’s Hand.”
TOUR STOP 6 MONTICELLO CEMETERY

Monticello Cemetery Established 1899

First owned by John P. Campbell who received it as bounty land given to soldiers in 1855, this historic landscape reflects the public need for cemeteries on the frontier. In 1859, Campbell sold this parcel to Monticello Township for use as a pubic cemetery. The oldest surviving legible marker stone is for 13- year old Clara B. McFadden who died in 1866. In 1898, the Monticello Cemetery Association was organized to maintain the somewhat deteriorated cemetery “in creditable condition and keeping it so.” In 1925, with the advent of the automobile, the hitching rails were taken down; and in 1934, the road and parking were added. The cemetery has 262 internments. Some stones have been repaired, those for veterans are all marked with medals, and most stones are decorated.
TOUR STOP 7 MONTICELLO TOWNSITE - TOWNSHIP HALL

Solomon Coker General Merchandise Store. Jo.Co. Library

Zarah Townsite, 1878. Monticello was established in 1857 at the crossroads of the Midland Trail running from Westport, Missouri to Lawrence, Kansas and the Territorial Road linking Ft. Leavenworth and Paola. During the tumultuous “Bleeding Kansas” years, Monticello was home to sympathizers on both sides of the slavery question and became a flashpoint where houses were burnt, horses stolen and fights broke out. James Butler Hickok, (later known as “Wild Bill”) wrote to his mother, “there is no common law here now at all…a man can do what he pleases without fear of the law or anything else.” The town eventually grew from its frontier roughness to thrive with a blacksmith shop, land office, stores, a post office, a stagecoach hotel and saloons before being bypassed by the new railroad in 1878 when the town of Zarah developed as a railroad stop.
TOUR STOP 8 ROUND PRAIRIE SCHOOL (1879-1962)
Plaque located along sidewalk east of residence.
TOUR STOP 9 GARRETT FARM AND PARK

Samuel Garrett House, 1874 Jo.Co. Library

Samuel Garrett was an English stonemason who immigrated to the Monticello are in 1849. Four years later he married Betsey Captain, a Shawnee Indian. By 1858, three of Samuel’s brothers, along with their parents, immigrated to Monticello area. The three brothers, stone mason by trade, built homes for themselves while Samuel continued to farm. They built a second a second stone house for Samuel in 1876. Their self-sufficient farm and contributions to the township are typical of community building on the frontier. The Garrett brothers built a schoolhouse in 1865 along with a new family home and growing farm. Part of the former Samuel Garrett farm and one of its stone buildings can now be seen in today’s Garrett Park. Samuel Garrett died in 1891.
TOUR STOP 10 CHOUTEAU FERRY CROSSING/RAILROAD STATION

Frederick Chouteau. Used with permission by the

Kansas State Historical Society

Sketch of Dog Trot Cabin. J.A. Garrett, 2013

In the early 19th century, the famous Chouteau Family Agency of St. Louis operated trading posts along the Kaw River. Frederick Chouteau operated this ferry and trading post for trade with the Shawnee and Delaware tribes. He married a Shawnee woman, Nancy Logan, and was later adopted into the Shawnee Tribe. Three of their sons continued to reside on farms near their birthplace and operate the ferry until 1870 when the Shawnee were removed from Kansas to the Cherokee Nation in present day Oklahoma. In 1877, on land above the ferry crossing, Peter Keroher established Chouteau Station as a stop on the Kansas City, Topeka and Western Railroad that became an essential regional transfer point for commerce and agriculture. Later, a rail spur was added where cars could be stationed for loading of potatoes and wheat. Farmers drove cattle down the country roads to holding pens for shipment by railroad to Kansas City.
TOUR STOP 11 TIBLOW FERRY CROSSING
Frisbie Rd and W 43rd St., Shawnee, KS

Grinter Ferry Crossing at the Grinter House

The Tiblow Ferry served as a critical link on the trail between Fort Leavenworth, Paola and Fort Scott. Henry Tiblow, was a Delaware Indian whose education and life say much about Indian “assimilation” and entrepreneurship in the 1860s. He received his education at the Shawnee Mission Indian School in present day Fairway, Kansas and later served as a Delaware and Shawnee interpreter. In 1863, the ferry was chartered by the Monticello Ferry Company and was operated on the Kaw River for many years by Henry Tiblow Jr.— Tiblow’s son. Two other ferries also served the national trail system that linked Kansas with the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails and ultimately, the Pacific coast. The Chouteau Ferry (see Site 10) was chartered in 1863 to cross the Kaw at present day Edwardsville and the Parrish Ferry (also chartered in 1863) operated south of the Tiblow Ferry.
TOUR STOP 12 TOWN OF WILDER, KANSAS

Wilder Depot. Wichita State University Library

Wilder came to life in 1875 on land owned by Peter D. Cook. The new town promised great advantages including groves of trees, an excellent spring, a location two miles from the Tiblow Ferry, and a new train line connecting Kansas City and Topeka. Peter Cook stood to benefit the most from the new Kansas City, Topeka, and Western Railroad. As one of its first directors, he ensured that the railroad be built through Wilder and Johnson County where he happened to own land. As a result, another railroad bypassed Monticello—thus effectively ending its chances of becoming a big town. Yet, it turned out that Wilder, with its floodplain location, was also doomed to eventual abandonment. Even though few traces of Wilder remain, its history says much about the power of railroads, “insider” trading, and unforeseen natural disasters in shaping the fates of communities in Monticello Township.
TOUR STOP 13 BOLES CEMETERY

Reverend Charles Boles. Jo.Co. Library

In 1860, the Reverend Charles L. Boles acquired 160- acres from the federal government. In 1863, with the death of Elizabeth Boles, he set aside one-half acre in the southeast corner of his land for burial purposes. Reverend Boles was born January 2, 1819. He entered the ministry of the Methodist Church in 1847 and served as a missionary to the Shawnee Indians from 1852 until 1858. From 1858 until 1862, he worked as a missionary to the Delaware Indians. Charles King, who came from England to Monticello in 1870, is typical of the settlers whose families and their struggles are remembered here. Beginning in 1871, at least six King children died and were buried at the Boles Cemetery. Due to vandalism of the grave markers, only a few remain of known burials between 1863 and 1929.
Driving and Bike Tour Map

(913) 667-3706

Site is on Federal Historic Register.
Site is on Local Register
This modest building is a telling example of the courage and dedication of American volunteer fire departments. Until 1973, Monticello had agreements with the largely- volunteer Delaware Township, Wyandotte County, and the Shawnee Township Fire Departments that stated if they were able to service a call in the area they would. After a home burnt to the ground because it took a brigade 25 minutes to respond, the case for a local fire department became urgent. In 1972, Floyd Cline vowed that if he were elected to the Monticello Township board he would work toward establishing a fire department. He fulfilled his promise to get the station built and a volunteer fire department established. A bond issue equipped the department and built this hall that also housed the township offices and meeting area. The fire department operated here until 1988 when the township was divided and annexed by Shawnee, Lenexa, Bonner Springs and Olathe.

1975 Monticello Township Hall and Fire

Department

MONTICELLO HISTORICAL

STATION AND MUSEUM

TOUR STOP 1

(MONTICELLO) UNION

CEMETERY

TOUR STOP 2
In 1884, the Union Cemetery Company purchased five acres from F. L. and Mary C. Kueker for $275. Yet, with the oldest grave dating to 1860, these grounds were already known locally as a cemetery. In 1895, citizens built a Civil War monument at the center of the cemetery with mounds of four cannon balls marking each of its corners and a cannon pointed west. On Memorial Days, there were programs with prayers, music, and speeches by local dignitaries, recitation of the Gettysburg Address, and firing the cannon. People would bring flowers from their yards and gardens to tidy up their family graves. Unfortunately, the cannon was stolen along with the pipe, fence and the cannon balls—and the weekend of memorial events slowly faded away. Today Union Cemetery is still an active burial location and a telling vestige of generations of life and memorial traditions.

Monument dedicated to Union Soldiers who

died in the Confederate Prisons

MONTICELLO METHODIST

EPISCOPAL CHURCH

TOUR STOP 3

Monticello Methodist Episcopal Church, 1894

Currently United Methodist Church In about 1850, a new Methodist Indian School, built about one half mile north of today’s church site, began to teach both Indian and White children. Methodist preachers conducted Sunday School and Camp meetings there on a regular basis. In 1880, the growing numbers of German and American Methodists joined forces to build a new church that later burned from a lightening strike in 1894. With the help of insurance money, the determined parishioners quickly rebuilt the Gothic Revival structure that stands today. The Monticello Methodist Episcopal Church occupied a central place in the life of the community but did not receive a full-time pastor appointment until the mid 1950’s.

VIRGINIA SCHOOL HOUSE

(RELOCATED)

TOUR STOP 4

Virginia School Class 1931-1932

Original Site of Virginia School, 1878. 71st & Clare, Shawnee. Opened for class in January 1878, this schoolhouse soon became a center for culture and community for people of all ages. Besides being a home for grades 1-8, the little building housed religious services and a Sunday school. Louis A. Gleason conducted a writing school and the building was home to a Lyceum—a popular 19th century institution where the community enjoyed debates and programs. Around 1900, when school districts were upgrading their one-room schoolhouses, Virginia added a vestibule to buffer outdoor winds and a place where students could hang their coats, leave their lunches, use the wash basin, and find drinking water. The school operated until 1962. The Virginia School building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in February 2004 and moved a year later to its current location on the grounds of the Mize Elementary School.

“WILD BILL” HICKOK LAND

CLAIM

TOUR STOP 5

James Butler Hickok. Kansas State Historical

Society

James Butler Hickok became one of Monticello’s first town constable in 1858 and later led a life of western adventures romanticized in print and Hollywood movies. “Wild Bill” Hickok was a slight man with long wavy hair and a bushy mustache. He was known as a staunch abolitionist during the turbulent Boarder War era; and his log cabin on this site was destroyed twice under suspicious circumstances, possibly by marauding Bushwhackers. Hickok left Monticello after only two years as constable, possibly because of his love for a half Shawnee woman named Mary Jane Owen and family objections on both sides. On July 21, 1865, in Springfield, Missouri, Hickok killed David Tutt in a “quick draw duel”— the first of its kind. In 1876, Hickok was shot in a poker game in Deadwood, Dakota Territory while holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights—since immortalized as, “The Dead Man’s Hand.”

MONTICELLO CEMETERY

TOUR STOP 6

Monticello Cemetery Established 1899

First owned by John P. Campbell who received it as bounty land given to soldiers in 1855, this historic landscape reflects the public need for cemeteries on the frontier. In 1859, Campbell sold this parcel to Monticello Township for use as a pubic cemetery. The oldest surviving legible marker stone is for 13-year old Clara B. McFadden who died in 1866. In 1898, the Monticello Cemetery Association was organized to maintain the somewhat deteriorated cemetery “in creditable condition and keeping it so.” In 1925, with the advent of the automobile, the hitching rails were taken down; and in 1934, the road and parking were added. The cemetery has 262 internments. Some stones have been repaired, those for veterans are all marked with medals, and most stones are decorated.

MONTICELLO TOWNSITE

TOWNSHIP HALL

TOUR STOP 7

Solomon Coker General Merchandise Store.

Jo.Co. Library

Zarah Townsite, 1878. Monticello was established in 1857 at the crossroads of the Midland Trail running from Westport, Missouri to Lawrence, Kansas and the Territorial Road linking Ft. Leavenworth and Paola. During the tumultuous “Bleeding Kansas” years, Monticello was home to sympathizers on both sides of the slavery question and became a flashpoint where houses were burnt, horses stolen and fights broke out. James Butler Hickok, (later known as “Wild Bill”) wrote to his mother, “there is no common law here now at all…a man can do what he pleases without fear of the law or anything else.” The town eventually grew from its frontier roughness to thrive with a blacksmith shop, land office, stores, a post office, a stagecoach hotel and saloons before being bypassed by the new railroad in 1878 when the town of Zarah developed as a railroad stop.

ROUND PRAIRIE SCHOOL

(1879-1962)

TOUR STOP 8
Plaque located along sidewalk east of residence.

GARRETT FARM AND PARK

TOUR STOP 9

Samuel Garrett House, 1874 Jo.Co. Library

Samuel Garrett was an English stonemason who immigrated to the Monticello are in 1849. Four years later he married Betsey Captain, a Shawnee Indian. By 1858, three of Samuel’s brothers, along with their parents, immigrated to Monticello area. The three brothers, stone mason by trade, built homes for themselves while Samuel continued to farm. They built a second a second stone house for Samuel in 1876. Their self-sufficient farm and contributions to the township are typical of community building on the frontier. The Garrett brothers built a schoolhouse in 1865 along with a new family home and growing farm. Part of the former Samuel Garrett farm and one of its stone buildings can now be seen in today’s Garrett Park. Samuel Garrett died in 1891.

CHOUTEAU FERRY

/RAILROAD STATION

TOUR STOP 10

Frederick Chouteau. Used with permission by

the Kansas State Historical Society

Sketch of Dog Trot Cabin. J.A. Garrett, 2013

In the early 19th century, the famous Chouteau Family Agency of St. Louis operated trading posts along the Kaw River. Frederick Chouteau operated this ferry and trading post for trade with the Shawnee and Delaware tribes. He married a Shawnee woman, Nancy Logan, and was later adopted into the Shawnee Tribe. Three of their sons continued to reside on farms near their birthplace and operate the ferry until 1870 when the Shawnee were removed from Kansas to the Cherokee Nation in present day Oklahoma. In 1877, on land above the ferry crossing, Peter Keroher established Chouteau Station as a stop on the Kansas City, Topeka and Western Railroad that became an essential regional transfer point for commerce and agriculture. Later, a rail spur was added where cars could be stationed for loading of potatoes and wheat. Farmers drove cattle down the country roads to holding pens for shipment by railroad to Kansas City.

TIBLOW FERRY CROSSING

TOUR STOP 11
Frisbie Rd and W 43rd St., Shawnee, KS

Grinter Ferry Crossing at the Grinter House

The Tiblow Ferry served as a critical link on the trail between Fort Leavenworth, Paola and Fort Scott. Henry Tiblow, was a Delaware Indian whose education and life say much about Indian “assimilation” and entrepreneurship in the 1860s. He received his education at the Shawnee Mission Indian School in present day Fairway, Kansas and later served as a Delaware and Shawnee interpreter. In 1863, the ferry was chartered by the Monticello Ferry Company and was operated on the Kaw River for many years by Henry Tiblow Jr.— Tiblow’s son. Two other ferries also served the national trail system that linked Kansas with the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails and ultimately, the Pacific coast. The Chouteau Ferry (see Site 10) was chartered in 1863 to cross the Kaw at present day Edwardsville and the Parrish Ferry (also chartered in 1863) operated south of the Tiblow Ferry.

TOWN OF WILDER,

KANSAS

TOUR STOP 12

Wilder Depot. Wichita State

University Library

Wilder came to life in 1875 on land owned by Peter D. Cook. The new town promised great advantages including groves of trees, an excellent spring, a location two miles from the Tiblow Ferry, and a new train line connecting Kansas City and Topeka. Peter Cook stood to benefit the most from the new Kansas City, Topeka, and Western Railroad. As one of its first directors, he ensured that the railroad be built through Wilder and Johnson County where he happened to own land. As a result, another railroad bypassed Monticello—thus effectively ending its chances of becoming a big town. Yet, it turned out that Wilder, with its floodplain location, was also doomed to eventual abandonment. Even though few traces of Wilder remain, its history says much about the power of railroads, “insider” trading, and unforeseen natural disasters in shaping the fates of communities in Monticello Township.

BOLES CEMETERY

TOUR STOP 13

Reverend Charles Boles. Jo.Co. Library

In 1860, the Reverend Charles L. Boles acquired 160-acres from the federal government. In 1863, with the death of Elizabeth Boles, he set aside one-half acre in the southeast corner of his land for burial purposes. Reverend Boles was born January 2, 1819. He entered the ministry of the Methodist Church in 1847 and served as a missionary to the Shawnee Indians from 1852 until 1858. From 1858 until 1862, he worked as a missionary to the Delaware Indians. Charles King, who came from England to Monticello in 1870, is typical of the settlers whose families and their struggles are remembered here. Beginning in 1871, at least six King children died and were buried at the Boles Cemetery. Due to vandalism of the grave markers, only a few remain of known burials between 1863 and 1929.
Driving and Bike Tour Map
See our Facebook site for more information.
TOUR STOPS REFER TO THE HISTORIC MONTICELLO DRIVING AND BIKING TOUR. SEE OUR FACEBOOK SITE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Monticello Community

Historical Society