Bucklin, Kansas, Main Street Vintage Mural Poster

"Bucklin, Kansas, Main Street Vintage Mural" by Catherine Sherman A mural on the side of a flower shop on Main Street in Bucklin, Kansas, depicts the early days of Bucklin's main street, which is in Ford County in southwest Kansas. The mural shows a busy street full of people, horses and dogs, with buggies and wagons. Among the stores and services shown are two grocery stores, a notary public, a newspaper, shoe store, painter and café. A train steams along the track at the end of the street. A trace of snow remains below the bottom of the mural from an earlier snowfall. I saw this mural when a friend and I drove to New Mexico from Kansas City in April 2014, taking the scenic route that would take us to many small towns and also along Route 66. We saw a lot of beautiful and interesting murals on that drive. Since we drove through Bucklin, a Veterans Memorial Park has been erected next to the mural. Many early settlers migrated to the mid-America prairies in the 1880s to stake claims of farm and ranch land. Many came by emigrant trains to Dodge City, Kansas, and then rented or bought wagons to haul supplies to their claims. Sod houses or dugouts were often the first living quarters. When the settlers heard that a railroad was coming through the area near Dodge City, several groups hurriedly started new towns, hoping their site would be selected. But when the Rock Island division, Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska made a survey in the spring of 188, they passed up these small towns -- Corbitt and Colcord -- and announced a new town on May 10,1887 named Bucklin, after one of their civil engineers. Bucklin was situated at the junction of two railroads, with outlets to the northwest and southwest. Bucklin was incorporated in 1909. Investors in the original town sites were given free lots in Bucklin to move their stores to the new town. Read more about Bucklin's history in fordcountyhistory.org