Atchison in Autumn

Last November, which is to say in 2007, we visited my father at his home in Kansas City,* While we were there we took a day trip to Atchison, Kansas, a smallish town in the northeast corner of Kansas on the Missouri river. The Missouri river is what divides Kansas and Missouri there and it's the reason why that little corner of Kansas is so squiggly.

It was a good day for taking pictures, so I did. Here is my Atchison photo album. You might want to follow along.

It was a lovely, sunny day. It was lunchtime when we arrived and there was a Dairy Queen right there, ready to serve us a Brazier burger, something I hadn't had in years. Yumm.

We drove up the hill to the ridge where all the upper-class houses were built. At one end we stopped to see one of Atchison's big points of attraction: the birthplace of Amelia Earhart, probably Atchison's most famous native. The house was an attractive white colonial, nicely kept. A distinctive feature was a sculpture of a greyhound along the front walk. From the front of the house one had a nice view of the bridge that crossed the Missouri River from Atchison.

Not far away from the Earhart House was the campus of Benedictine College, which was next to the grounds of St. Benedict's Abbey; the monks of the abbey operate the college.

I hadn't known that St. Benedict's Abbey was home to an architectural masterpiece, its Abbey Church. The church was finished in 1957 for the abbey's centenary. The design was by Chicago architect Barry Byrne (1883-1967).† It was a magnificent building and a delight to tour. No one was about so we had the entire church to ourselves to look at and contemplate and take pictures of. The light that afternoon flattered the building nicely and we spent a very peaceful time admiring its many beauties, as you will see.

When we left we decided to cross the bridge and drive back to Kansas City along the Missouri side of the river. Along the way I took a number of photos of the countryside, including one very menacing shot I was quite please with featuring a factory silhouette with a very toxic-looking sun in the frame. I was also enchanted by rows of bare trees on ridges–repeatedly–and the usual farm building, plus the occasional water tower.

Our route took us through the little town of Weston, Missouri. Along the main street were some charming old buildings, tobacco barns, and a well-kept old train station.

After we were back on the country highway, and just before the warm afternoon light gave out, we topped a ridge and found the perfect tableau of spreading tree, red farm out-building, and wooded ridge in the background. I like taking pictures of barns in late-afternoon sunlight. It's the final photograph in the album.
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*That's Kansas City, Kansas, please. Admittedly it's far smaller than the across-the-river Kansas City, Missouri, but at least it's named for the state in which it finds itself.

† Finding information online about Barry Byrne was a challenge, but here's a site with an excellent biography, more about St. Benedict's Abbey Church, plus other work by Byrne, including his Church of Christ the King in Turners Cross, Ireland, the main thrust of the website.

Posted on June 3, 2008 at 23.43 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook

2 Responses

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  1. Written by Bill Morrison
    on Wednesday, 4 June 2008 at 11.25
    Permalink

    Lovely pictures, Jeff. And a very interesting church. But your 'telephone poles' aren't. Those are power lines. But what to call the poles? 'Hydro poles' is the term I normally use, but of course there's no way of knowing the source of the power in the lines. 'Power line poles' somehow just doesn't do it.

    So what's next? Topeka? Santa Fe?

  2. Written by jns
    on Wednesday, 4 June 2008 at 13.35
    Permalink

    Oh dear, not telephone poles? I was trying to think whether I'd ever heard them called other things, but I guess I have heard "utility poles", but where's the romance in that? Maybe I should go anachronistic and call them "telegraph poles"! Then again, maybe "utility poles" suggests the right mood for that part of the state.

    As for visiting Topeka and Santa Fe next, I fear an outbreak of song if I were to do that. Perhaps Chattanooga?

    Oddly, as we'll see in the next set, I seem to keep taking my pictures of barns in areas where there are old train depots near by.

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