I got a great trip report from local B'gamer Linda Yelnick about her recent visit to Burlingame, Kansas. The other town named for Anson is about 28 miles southwest of Topeka. Linda prepped for her visit by contacting the Burlingame (KS) Historical Preservation Society and letting them know she would be visiting so that when she arrived she got the classic friendly mid-western reception. Linda and her son discovered a number of interesting things about this little town of 934 people from Carolyn Strohm of the BHPS.
The other Burlingame was originally a coal mining town named Council City and is one of the oldest communities in Kansas being founded in 1854 before Kansas was a state. Anson Burlingame passed through four years later in 1858 and gave an anti-slavery speech that impressed the folks enough to rename the town after him. Anson never lived in either town named for him. B'game, KS is known as the place where "rail meets trail" as the Santa Fe rail and Santa Fe trail cross there.
Linda was impressed by the small-town feel where the main street is about two blocks long and everything is closed on Sundays unless the restaurant owner decides to open and make a meal for a visitor as he did for Linda and her son. The street is quite wide so that the ox caravans of old could make a U-turn downtown. As Carolyn Strohm told Linda "everybody knows everybody and we feel safe and secure". Old timers in 94010 remember something similar. The old Lincoln school building that dates from 1902 has been re-purposed into a impressive historical museum. Oddly enough, the school mascot is the Burlingame Bearcat! San Mateans cannot be happy about that.
The other Burlingame also has a prominent citizen named Jerry Hill who is most famous for award-winning kettle corn. The two Jerry's have been in touch and kettle corn was exchanged. The next time I see our Jerry I will ask him what he sent out to their Jerry. Check out the entry sign to Burlingame, KS 66413. Plenty of room to grow there.
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