Lucas-The Wackiest Town in Kansas

I suppose every town has its well-known eccentrics, but few leave a legacy more concrete than the Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas. Literally. Samuel P. Dinsmoor used 113 tons of cement to create his sculpture garden, which has been attracting tourists to this small farming community for well more than a century. Even Dinsmoor is still hanging around, though he’s seen better days. All told, Lucas is the wackiest town in Kansas. And here you thought the Sunflower State was boring.

Cabin Home and the Garden of Eden

Dinsmoor, a retired school teacher, farmer and Civil War veteran, began his project in 1907 at the age of 64. In a desire to attract train travelers passing through Lucas, even then in the middle of nowhere, he erected a “log” cabin made of quarried lengths of limestone laid out with dovetailed corners and opened it to the public. His home was Lucas’ first with electricity, provided by a generator, and the first with indoor plumbing, achieved by tapping into what he thought was a natural stream but turned out to be the town’s main water line.

City leaders weren’t amused, but that didn’t stop Dinsmoor. Over the next two decades he transformed his yard into his version of the Garden of Eden, creating more than 150 concrete statues that espoused his religious and Populist political views. In front of the home are Adam and Eve, greeting visitors. Nearby are Cain and Abel, while a figure representing Labor is at the back of the house, being crucified by business interests (represented here by statues of a Lawyer, Doctor, Preacher and Banker).

Adam and Eve in the Lucas Garden of Eden — Adam and Eve were among Dinsmoor’s first statues for his Garden of Eden, which he created from 1907 to 1928

To make sure passing tourists took notice of his attraction, he placed many of his statues atop 29 reinforced concrete “trees,” some of them three stories tall and high enough to be seen from the railroad. For good measure, he also illuminated them. He gave tours, sold postcards, gave Sunday lectures, and wrote a guidebook to his property. After his first wife, whom he’d married on horseback, died, he married his housekeeper. He was 81. She was 20. They had two children.

Samuel P. Dinsmoor made Lucas the wackiest town in Kansas — Samuel P. Dinsmoor and his second wife in a photograph displayed in his Cabin Home, open to the public for guided tours

Dinsmoor died in 1932, but ever the eccentric, he made sure he’d still be around for paying guests by constructing his own limestone mausoleum at the back of his property, complete with a coffin (concrete, of course) covered with a glass lid so visitors can still gaze upon him even to this day. It was a stroke of genius, really, because no one who visits the Lucas Garden of Eden ever forgets. More importantly, by doing his own thing, Dinsmoor unwittingly inspired others to follow suit, making this town of just 400 souls the Grassroots Art Capital of Kansas.

An Inspiration for Funky Art

In 1932, the year Dinsmoor died, Roy and Clara Miller began constructing conical mountains and miniature buildings, made of rocks collected from more than 50 trips to Colorado. They displayed them in Miller’s Park, which they opened in 1921 to serve as an oasis for weary travelers. Originally located on the western edge of Lucas, in 1969 the sculptures were sold and carted off to Hays. In 2013 they were returned to Lucas, where they now reside just behind the Garden of Eden.

In the 1950s, Florence Deeble began transforming her backyard into “postcard” scenes of famous places, using cement and rocks to create replicas of famous places like Estes Park and Mount Rushmore. After her death in 1999, artist Mri-Pilar transformed the interior of Deeble’s early 20th-century home into a gallery like no other, filled with more than 1,800 sculptures made from recycled dolls, kitchen gadgets, and other objects. The home’s bathtub filled with plastic dolls is so creepy, it probably doubles as a low-maintenance burglar deterrent, as no intruder in their right mind would want to stay the night there.

House of Isis, Lucas KS — The inside of Florence Deeble’s home is now a gallery called the Garden of Isis, named after the Greek goddess

Grassroots Art Center

Over the years, Kansas has had more than its fair share of self-taught artists, many of whom are now memorialized at the Grassroots Art Center on Lucas’ Main Street. Its displays are a tribute to unbridled creativity–who knew you could create art using chewing gum, pull tabs, cow bones or objects found at the bottom of a drained lake? Some of the artwork is amazingly intricate, others just plain fun. If viewing the artwork here doesn’t launch you on explorations across Kansas and beyond in search of more grassroot art, I don’t know what will.

Artist Liza MacKinnon uses pages of books, maps, photographs, currency and other forms of paper to produce historically correct dresses like this one, on display at the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas

More Reasons Lucas the Wackiest Town in Kansas

While the attractions described above are reasons enough to visit Lucas, art and creativity can be spotted at various locations around town. Telephone poles on Main Street have been corralled for all kinds of funky installations. Yard art sprouts in front of some houses, while a jeweler named Elizabeth Bryan told me she stayed sane in 2020 by embedding mosaics into the foundation of her tidy brick home, adding color to her lock-down life.

On Main Street there’s the Roadside Sideshow Expo, home to The World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things, where you can learn how owner Erika Nelson makes miniature versions of famous attractions and monuments she has seen on trips across the country. Although she enjoys figuring out how to best create her miniatures, using cat hair in her version of the world’s largest cow hairball and dental floss to depict the world’s largest roll of rubber bands, she said that her favorite part of the job was researching the story behind the story and understanding what led someone to build it.

Even Lucas’ public toilet, called Bowl Plaza, is a work of art. Its front facade, the “tank” of the toilet, sports an open “toilet lid,” while circular outdoor seating centered on a fountain serves as the “bowl.” Inside it’s bright and cheery, with mosaics made from broken glass, pottery, tiles, toys, and other objects. Is it any wonder Bowl Plaza was named Winner of the Quirkiest Experience in the 2018 International Toilet Tourism Award? Just one more reason Lucas is the wackiest town in Kansas.

Post Rock Scenic Byway

For road-trippers, there’s another bonus to visiting Lucas: it’s a 15-mile drive off I-70 via the Post Rock Scenic Byway, which skirts Wilson Lake and is noted for its many limestone fence posts made by early settlers on the treeless plains. And yes, the temptation was too great–fence posts, too, have become works of art in and around Lucas.