Barber County Kansas
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Barber County Kansas |
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Gyp Mill near Kling, Kansas.
"Kling -- Between Belvidere and Sun City. This was a company town set up to mine gypsum. The mine was an "open mine," and used horses, mules, and hard labor to remove the gypsum. The town had a company store, a school and a church. Some of the homes now in Sun City came from Kling." -- Touring Barber & Harper Counties by Robert Collins.
1936 Phillips Petroleum road map showing Kling, Barber County, Kansas
located along the old route of Federal Highway U.S. 160 between
Sun City and
Belvidere.
View a larger portion of the above map of southwestern Kansas in 1936
Map from the collection of Phyllis Scherich
Detail of USGS topographical map showing the location of two gypsum quarries
near the former site of Kling, Barber County, Kansas.
Located along the old route of Federal Highway U.S. 160 between
Sun City and
Belvidere.
The quarry symbols of crossed rock picks are circled in red on this map.
The railroad runs parallel to the highway just south of it, and the Medicine River is just south of the railroad.
View this map online at Terraserver USA in a new browser window.
"Ralph Sheldon went to work with a harvesting and threshing crew, and soon Bessie was running the cook shack, feeding the crews. After harvest was over, the Sheldons operated a caf', which was located in a frame building on the site that is now part of Dirks Copy Products. Bessie was a superb cook - and her pies were especially popular. After the birth of son, Ray, in 1910 Ralph Sheldon went to work for Best Bros. Keene Cement. The family moved to Kling - a gypsum workers' "suburb" of Sun City. The Sheldon family of three lived in three rooms of a duplex; Ralph's widowed mother and a brother lived in the other half of the house." -- Excerpt from the 21 October 2007 Meandering column by Bev McCollom, published in
The Gyp Hill Premiere , Medicine Lodge, Barber County, Kansas.
Elm Grove "Red Rock" School, about 1904. This school was in the Kling area.
Gypsum Mines and Mills in Barber County, Kansas, a collection of photographs and references.
Flooded Quarry near Kling KS
Thanks to Nathan Lee for the pleasure of discussing his exploration of this area in 2008 and and to Kim Fowles for the above reference to Touring Barber & Harper Counties.
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