More post rock architecture from Kansas: Boyd, Barton County

From my continuing fascination with post rocks in Kansas. 

West of Hoisington, Kansas, there is a pair of old post rock buildings worth seeing. I didn't shoot any photos, so I've pulled these three images in this story from Google Street View, circa Nov 2021. 

The station faces east, and you can see an outline where the old shipping scales were in front of the buildings. Also the old fence and hitching post are wonderful relics. 

It's the former Boyd, Kansas, townsite. Great photos and a 2016 write up at the Farmer Days blog: Exploring Barton County, KS. The old gas pumps are now gone. Be sure to click on the Post Rock category for additional post rock building photos.

 

The railroad still runs on the south side of the old station. Grain silos or elevators are still in use in 2023. 

The Legends of Kansas site, "Barton County, Kansas Extinct Towns" offered this description:

This village in Eureka township was first called Maherville when it began as a station on the Missouri Pacific Railroad. The town received a post office in June 1874. For whatever reason, the town’s name was changed to Boyd in January 1904. The post office also took on the new name. In 1910 it was a trading and shipping point for the neighborhood with a population of 40. The post office closed its doors forever in October 1937.

 

Love the combination of limestone post rock and some smaller stone to fill out the structure. 

Jackie Langholz has a small set of photos of Boyd Station from 2006 on Flickr. And Steven Thomas caught a pic of a small outbuilding with the same combination of rocks at the site. 

Another try at succulents for grave decorations for Memorial Day

Last year was another difficult drought year in Oklahoma. So last year's succulents didn't survive the full year. 

This year, I bought a mat of young succulents and sedum varieties mixed together. It comes with a coconut fiber backing, and I only had to cut it to shape. I also bought some small gravel like you would use in an aquarium to cover the soil and help retail any moisture for a bit longer. 

Connie and I put them out on family graves and in the little flower urns. I happened to be in town and checked on them about 2 weeks later, and look how they're blooming! Of course, this has been an unbelievably rainy and cool couple of weeks, so it's not much of a test yet.