August 4, 2007
Amelia Earhart sat on the veranda of her grandparent’s home in Atchison, Kansas, in the early 1900’s and dreamed of flying. Who wouldn’t from her vantage point on a bluff high above the Missouri River?
The circa 1860 white clapboard and brick mansion where she was born on July 24, 1897, sits on a steep bluff overlooking the Missouri River and offers a breathtaking view of precipitous bluffs, a fast-flowing river, and a sky so blue anyone would want to take wing and soar through it.
I had the opportunity this summer to sit where Amelia sat and dream of doing just that.
I was on a business trip to Atchison but took a portion of my day to tour the town. What a surprise I had in store!
As it turns out, Atchison is much more than the birthplace of Amelia Earhart.
I decided to start my tour of Atchison at her birth home because of Amelia herself, a fascinating heroine of flight by any standard. In 1937, Amelia Earhart attempted a circumnavigational flight around the world, the first by a woman. She perished quite mysteriously over the central Pacific Ocean. Today, her disappearance is legendary.
Visitors will find the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum on the corner of North Terrace and Santa Fe Streets.
I had to hunt to find it because I came at it from the direction of the river road that runs along the Missouri River. This is not the best way to go to Amelia’s, but I was already at the river.
I must confess that I was drawn to the “Big Muddy” as soon as my business appointment ended, and I went back to the river again later in the day. You will learn why in a bit.
First, I stopped along the river for directions to the Amelia Earhart home at an interesting establishment called Flyers Bar & Grill. The folks there were quite helpful, and the menu looked interesting but sampling their fare would have to wait for another day. A waitress told me to take a left up the hill (turned out to be more like a small mountain). Then she said, “turn at the first alley and follow it (through the brush and trees) and drive behind a few houses, and it will lead you straight to Amelia’s.”
I did, but there is a better way. When you cross the Amelia Earhart Bridge on Highway 59 from the Missouri side, turn right on 4th, then right on Sante Fe and drive to the top of the bluff overlooking the river. You can’t miss it. What a view you will have, too. Just the view Amelia had from her grandparents’ porch more than 100 years ago.
I am actually glad that I stopped for directions at Flyers Grill. If not, I would have missed the chairs.
I’ll explain. In the front yard of the restaurant are lawn chairs and rockers. Flyers has a great thing going with these chairs let me tell you. You take your food outside (if you don’t want to dine in) and sit in those chairs, enjoy your meal, and watch the river flow. It did not take me long to discover that river watching is more mesmerizing and stress reducing than anything I have found in a long time. It was all I could do to not stop my tour, sit a spell, and watch.
After I left Amelia’s, I went back to the river to an overlook point at Veterans Memorial Park. You can see both the highway and railroad bridges from that spot and watch the barges and towboats as well. The Riverhouse Restaurant is a stone’s throw away where one can also dine outside and watch the river.
River watching appears to be the thing to do in Atchison.
I learned why.
No matter how you spend your day or where you choose to go in Atchison, the river eventually draws you back.
In the meantime, there are plenty of things to do. Visitors can enjoy bed and breakfasts such as the ornate Glick Mansion, explore the Evah Cray Historical Home Museum, visit St. Benedict’s Abbey, and travel through the beautiful campus of Benedictine College.
If you want an Atchison visit with a bit more “edge” to it, then take one of the Haunted Atchison Tours of spooky homes and cemeteries, have a psychic reading, or engage in tombstone rubbing.
Legends of ghost sightings and other mysterious incidents have given Atchison the reputation as “the most haunted town in Kansas”.
The haunted tours must be good because more than a dozen homes are featured on the 45-minute trolley ride, as recently documented by the Travel Channel.
In the end after all this sightseeing is done, I bet you will wander back toward the river just as I did. It pulls you there for one more look before you leave.
When you stand on the river’s banks at Veterans Memorial Park, you will find another Atchison legend. An historical marker depicts the exact spot where Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their company of boatmen and soldiers passed by on their epic journey west from1804 to 1806.
The river was wild and unpredictable then, and Lewis and Clark recorded that it was in a constant state of change. They watched it with rapt attention and noted that the Missouri sometimes changed over night. It created side channels, chutes, eddies, boils, sandbars, backwaters, and oxbow lakes. The Missouri River is different today, stable and usually within its banks. Yet, just as the early explorers found it fascinating to watch then, you will now.
I stopped to read the memorial marker and its inscription after taking one last look at the river: “In the spirit of the land, the river and the people, this eternal flame pays tribute to those who have overcome challenges, explored the unknown, loved and protected their homeland. With honor we recognize the legacy of the legends who have come this way.”
Legends such as Amelia Earhart, Lewis and Clark, and all the other ghosts said to hover near the river and in the mansions and cemeteries of Atchison, Kansas.
They pull you or the river does. Pull you straight toward its banks so you must stop what you are doing and just watch it. I have no idea who or what is doing the pulling, but one thing is certain.
River watching in Atchison, Kansas, is inescapable. If you are in town, go to the river first, but I guess I do not need to tell you that really. The river will pull you there just fine all by itself.
