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Getting lost in Lecompton By Paige Worthy, Jayplay writer
In a tiny town northwest of Lawrence, a turbulent past mingles with the present
Photos by Robert Perkins
At a family picnic in Lecompont, Kourtneff griffith's grandfather holds a puppy, Griffith, not pictured, had driven in from Topeka for the afternoon.
Lecompton is probably
Lecompton is probably the sort of place a lot of people_picture when they think of Kansas. It's quiet and still, almost to the point of sleepiness. Bright yellow, metal "WELCOME" signs swirl lazily from the electrical poles lining the town's main drag, Woodson Avenue. Men nod and give us four-fingered waves from the steering wheels of their John Deere riding mowers to signal hello, and an elderly couple waves from their porch swing at our slowly passing car.
My boyfriend and I drove the 14 miles from Lawrence one warm, lazy afternoon in mid-April. My grandparents, a wealthy Mission Hills, Kan, couple with almost too much time on their hands, had visited a few years ago and enjoyed themselves, so we went to absorb some of its history and see whether there were any other things for college students to do. We didn't find much in the latter category, but I was still drawn to what we did find. The town's calm appearance and sleepy atmosphere belie a violent past: Lecompton was a hotbed of activity at the beginning of the Civil War, when it was the capital of the Kansas territory, the Lecompton constitution, which would have made Kansas a slave state, attracted national attention to the town during political debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858. The U.S. House of Representatives rejected the constitution by only
eight votes that same year, but conflicts between slavery supporters and "free-staters" didn't end there, says Paul Bahnauer, a 62-year-old resident who has lived in Lecompont all his life. Bahnauer gives free tours at the Territorial Capital Museum, one of two museums in town, leading small groups of history buffs and Civil War enthusiasts around the three floors of the museum, which is stocked with antique dishes, antebellum artifacts and creepy mannequins wearing period
outfits. On the first floor, he points to items in cases and recites (verbatim) the text from a page of facts that he probably wrote and memorized. At the end of his tour, Bahmaier adds that his family moved to Lecompton in 1855 from Germany. His father's pistol is on display in the museum, though Bahmaier never shows it on the tour; his father carried it for self-defense because the town was so dangerous, especially for immigrants and abolitionists.
Despite a perilous past, safety never seems to come into question here in the present. Behind the museum is a dusty baseball diamond enclosed by a chain-link fence, the epitheme of small town America. "GO LADY KAWS" is spelled out in huge white letters at the edge of the outfield. White, baseball-shaped wooden名platelets the line for the dugout, and the ground surrounding the field is littered with the black shells of sunflower seeds crushed underfoot. We sit on the blue
8 Jayplay 05.12.05