Jackson County Barn Tour set for this October
Northeast Kansans are invited to this year’s Jackson County Barn Tour, which will focus on buffalo, barns and brome located on and near the Prairie Band Potawatomi Indian Reservation.
Sponsored by the Jackson County Historical Society, the same tour will be held on both Saturday, Oct. 3, and Saturday, Oct. 10.
The tour departs at 8:30 a.m. each day from the Prairie Band Boys and Girls Club and will return at 3 p.m. The event will include a hot lunch, as well as a variety of entertainment, according to Suzette McCord-Rogers, one of the organizers for the event.
This is the fifth year a barn tour has been held in the county, and its not uncommon for the tour to sell out on both dates, McCord-Rogers said.
Participants travel by school bus, and the tour focuses on a different part of the county each year.
“The barns featured this year are south of Holton and west of Mayetta,” McCord-Rogers said.
Participants will stop and visit four historic barns and will drive by three additional barns. The four historical barns include the Hurst barn, the Walsh barn, the Fitzsimmons barn and two barns built from kits in the late 1940s on the Lutz homestead.
McCord-Rogers said that most of the barns on the tour were built after the Dawes Act of 1887, which authorized the government to survey tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Native Americans.
In addition to the barns, participants will drive by the former Miller Ranch, whose owners once leased more than 1,000 acres of brome from the Prairie Band Potawatomi, and will learn about the importance of the grassland.
The reservation’s buffalo preservation program will be highlighted, and there will be opportunities for people to take photos of the animals up close as they are being fed. The reservation’s program includes about 200 buffalos.
More history of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation will be discussed at a stop at Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church. Members of the church celebrated the congregation’s 100th anniversary on May 31.
The church has a rich history, and McCord-Rogers noted that a Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribal member, Charles J. Chaput, is the Archbishop of Philadelphia and is expected to spend time with Pope Francis when he comes to Philadelphia on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 26 and 27. Archbishop Chaput has celebrated mass in Our Lady of the Snows.
Trails Café is catering lunch both days, which will include roast beef, sides and dessert served at the boys and girls club. Special entertainment is being planned along the way during the tour and at the boys and girls club.
Tickets for the tour are $50 and must be purchased by Wednesday, Sept. 30. To purchase tickets, call Anna Wilhelm with the Jackson County Historical Society at 785-364-2316 or email at jacohistsoc@gmail.com
