We take trips for many different reasons. Sometimes it’s to visit family and friends. Or sometimes it’s to get away from them! We look for destinations that will dazzle our senses with natural beauty, or to revel in great art and architecture.
Then there are special places where only echoes remain. And that fascinates us too.
Take Nicodemus, Kansas. Like so many rural communities, the population of this small town in the northwest part of the state has dwindled to almost nothing. But those who’ve stayed hold on fiercely to its legacy. Nicodemus, named for the abolitionist ballad “Wake Nicodemus,” is the oldest remaining town settled by African-Americans west of the Mississippi. And it’s now part of the National Parks Service.
In the 1870s, as Reconstruction ravaged the post-Civil War South, freed slaves jumped at the chance to journey westward. Exodusters, they were called. Of course, it didn’t take them long to realize that the so-called “promised land” of this new agricultural Eden had been over-promised. The prairie’s flat, open vistas were a far cry from the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee. But these were very determined people.
FebTravelBy the mid 1880’s, the town they’d founded a few years before had grown to nearly 700. It had churches, schools, a bank, and two newspapers. These pioneers proved to be very good farmers, coaxing crops from ground that others might eschew. However, in 1888, their dream suffered a serious setback. The railroad line that Nicodemus so badly needed, bypassed it in favor of a town four miles south.
Still these folks persisted. Though the Dust Bowl and Great Depression knocked Nicodemus back on its heels, descendants of the town’s first families dug in and held on. Maybe it was the annual Emancipation Day celebration, held every year on the last weekend in July that helped stoke their resolve. Everyone always came back for it, from all across the country. And they still do today.
If you visit Nicodemus that weekend, you’ll see hundreds of people enjoying the festivities, catching up with old friends. The rest of the year though, you may find only a few of its less than 40 permanent residents. Five historic structures that speak to African-American life do still stand here, including a Visitors Center with exhibits that help fill in the details. But the past isn’t something you always have to see.
Sometimes its spirit speaks loud and clear.
Discover more about Nicodemus at www.nps.gov/nico