Rants and Rails

The voting is over on The Traveler's web poll on whether or not readers want to see Summit Street returned to a brick street. Athough a modest majority of 56 percent said "no," most of those who said "yes" -- 26 percent of the 44 percent affirmative voters -- said they would be willing to help pay to have the street "paved" with bricks.

Actually, the question wasn't worded fairly; Summit wouldn't have to be "paved with brick." It already is, as we saw during the final stages of the recently completed Streetscape project. The bricks are under the asphalt surface. Critics of brick streets say they are damaged beyond repair from being scraped by street equipment. But they looked pretty good to me. And others agree. As one downtown businessman said, "All you'd need to do is turn the existing bricks over."

Yes, it would take a little manpower -- something that seems lacking these days in Ark City. And it would take some willpower, also lacking.

I liked a few of the comments we got on the poll -- some were tagged onto our website voting site and another sent to the paper as a "letter to the editor." Two points seem to me worth noting here: we would not need to return the whole four miles of Summit to brick, just the several blocks where Streetscape improvements were done; and we could help fund the project through donations from alumni of Ark City High School -- or for that matter through individuals. Bricks funded by these groups or individuals could be stamped with their names -- the Class of 1965, for example.

Our town's existing brick streets are worth preserving, I believe. Other towns and cities have brick streets and there is a movement nationwide to go back to the bricks for beautification and to provide an historic look. One critic of bricks said tourists wouldn't come to a brick town area here, but I disagree. If we could focus more on Summit business and get some more restaurants and shops opened, people would enjoy the pleasant ambiance of these amenities and the brick streets.

My guess is that the "no" votes came from people who didn't grow up in Arkansas City, or who grew up here -- or moved here -- over the past 10 to 20 years. During those years the brick streets have not been kept up. Let's not let what happened to several historic buildings in town over the years happen to our brick streets. They ended up being razed after years of neglect.

I'd like to turn now from bricks to railroads. Arkansas City was a rail center in Kansas during the 20th century. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe still operates out of here. And there is a movement to bring Amtrak up through here from Oklahoma.

We had four or five rail depots here at one time. In addition to the Santa Fe, at least one -- the Midland Valley -- is still standing.

The Traveler in its May 19, 1930 edition carried a story by student journalist Josephine Pollard who reported: "Four thriving railroads prove themselves a major industrial asset to Arkansas City by providing an annual payroll of $1,956,000 earned by Arkansas City citizens." Nearly two million dollars in 1930 was a lot of money.

A March 28, 1950 Traveler story has the headline: "Santa Fe at Peak Level in Big Operations Here." The story notes: "The Santa Fe's strategic part in the city's life dates back to Jan. 2, 1880, when the first train entered Arkansas City from the north, completing a 10-year dream of railroad transportation for the new frontier town."

Dreams, some may scoff, don't bring money. True, but dreams can provide a direction, or goal, to work toward. How can we build on our history as a rail center? How can we use that history to draw other industry, to draw more people to Ark City?