Gypsum, KS

Gypsum, KS, located on one of my favorite roads in Kansas-- KS Highway 4.  The town still has many nice structures, but apart from a gun store and a service station, there aren't many businesses still in operation.  Overall it's a nice town and one that could be rebuilt by a new generation of purposeful citizens.

  

Moore Grain and Feed Co.  

Drink Coca-Cola.  Gothic windows aren't a common design element on buildings in Kansas.

City Auditorium.  We've passed through Gypsum many times over the years and I vaguely recall a semi-famous country act performing here at some point in the recent past.

This service station is still in operation-- a definite rarity these days.  In the olden days places like this would top up your radiator, check your oil, air up your tires, dispense free road maps and little framed pictures of a stream with a tiny thermometer inset next to the inscription bearing "Ollie's 66" or some such.  Outside would be an old-fashioned pop machine dispensing grape soda in honest-to-God glass bottles.

Alas, no soda fountain or daily specials for us as the Cookie Jar Cafe is out of business.

The Country Cafe also appears to be no more.

Old calaboose, right off the main street of town.  I wonder if its former occupants filed grievances over the living conditions!

Today a building like this would be a metal shed, ostensibly to save construction expenses.  Today, even McMansions don't have this quality of brick work or detail.  

Abandoned grain elevator.  The town's levee can be see off in the far distance.

This elevator is still in use.  However, the railroad that serviced it is long gone.  

Strange house on a side street.  I couldn't tell for certain if this wasn't once a church.

Abandoned school, in the tertiary stages of decay.  Hard to imagine the voices of children learning their ABCs in this dilapidated facility.  I've read that to demolish structures like these is prohibitively expensive but I can't see this place escaping the wrecking ball much longer.

I wonder when was the last class to have graduated from Gypsum High.  I also wonder if they don't look at the building and feel a profound sense of loss.  The people who built this school clearly intended for it to last forever, but these days forever isn't very long.

In years past even truck trailers had nice styling.  'Progress' seems to go hand-in-hand with ugliness.

Modern day ruins.

Nice pagoda-style structure for the public water fountain.  

Rather than having their children share the same bridge that cars use, the residents in years past decided to build a separate bridge for pedestrians.  These were to be found in several locations in Gypsum.  Today such a thing would be found to "cost too much." Besides, who walks anymore anyway?

Another pedestrian bridge-- this one doesn't parallel any roads and was built for the sake of those on foot.

Slumbering cats.

According to Wikipedia, Frank Wilkeson lived here.