The Round Barn

 The village of Arcadia OK, along Historic Route 66, was home to a second interesting roadside attraction:  the Round Barn. (The other was POPs, featured in the last blog post.)

It was built by local farmer William Harrison Odor in 1898 using native bur oak boards soaked while green and forced into the curves needed for the walls and roof rafters. Local red Permian rock was used for the foundation. The barn housed hay, grain and livestock.

the black arrow shows Hwy. 66

The Arcadia Round Barn is 60 feet (18 meters) in diameter and 43 feet (13 meters) tall. The barn was built in a round shape because Odor thought tornados would go around the building rather than through. 

The volunteer in the first/lower level of the barn shared the round shape was also to keep evil spirits away. 

Three of Odors workers thought the loft would make a great dance floor and offered to pay the difference in price of replacing the planned rough plank flooring with smooth hardwood flooring, IF they could hold three dances.

The loft can still be rented today for dances, but no alcohol can be consumed in the barn.

In April of 1946, ownership of the barn passed to Frank and Katie Vrana. For the next 30 years, Vrana used the barn to store hay and as a work place. A large door cut into the north-east side of the barn weakened the structure and high winds from a storm caused the barn to lean. The barn was rapidly decaying and a target for arsonists and vandals when it was placed on the Historic Register of Historic Places in 1977.

basket weave design of the roof

Luke Robison, a retired builder and carpenter, became aware of the barn’s plight and formed The Arcadia Historical and Preservation Society with his wife Anna and Beverly White. On May 27, 1988 Frank Vrana's descendants donated the barn to the Society.

Robison had just begun to shore up the structure a few days before when, on June 29, 1988 at 12:09 pm, the decaying roof of the barn “just kind of sighed and fell in, like a soufflé,” according to one witness. The Society remained undeterred, determined to proceed with the restoration. Work began in 1989 and was officially dedicated April 1992.

There are numerous old pieces of farm equipment on site. Hubby remembers neighbors using a similar potato planter.

an out house

Yep. Everyone had one. (remember to click on the photo to get a larger view.) I wonder if it is used during the dances as there is no bathroom in the barn. 

We were led to believe we could purchase Round Barn Root Beer at the barn, but they only sold bottled water. That is why we had to go back to Pops (visit #3) and then found out they did not have any bottled Round Barn Root Beer in stock!

 

Pops

 We drove in and parked in the parking lot because we were geocaching. But we could not find the answers we needed to get credit for our geocaching find, so I went inside to ask an employee for some help. Going inside was like going down the rabbit hole. 

One might do a double take at the price of their fuel and unless your tank is down to fumes, fuel can be purchased for 90¢ a gallon less just 10 miles down the road.

The unique architecture and size of the building might have a passerby wondering the reason Pops is on the outskirts of a 'little podunk community' near a much larger metro community.

But it is the iconic soda bottle or bottle of pop (if you are from South Dakota) located on the premises that has travelers from all over the US stopping for a photo and just maybe, like me, entering the building to check it out.

Pops is along Route 66, the Mother Road. Route 66 was established November 11, 1926 and will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2026. Running from Chicago IL to Santa Monica CA, it was originally 2448 miles long. It was removed from the US Highway System in 1985 when stretches of Interstate highway replaced sections of the original Route 66. A strong sense of nostalgia has had a substantial impact in bringing the old Route 66 back to life. While it is no longer a major destination route, it still draws thousands of tourists to its destination points each year. The stretches that are left have been getting recognition because of the upcoming anniversary and because of geocaching. That is why we stopped...three times! 

Usually, Route 66 stops for geocaching are at historical sites along the road, often original buildings or the remains of the original buildings. Pops was established in 2007 so it was not there in the early years. 

“Basically there was a small gas station that sat here for years and years; just your standard little rural gas station. The owners retired and sold the property. Pops Founder Aubrey McClendon bought the property and seeing as it was on the historic highway felt the store should capture some Route 66 nostalgia. For McClendon, that nostalgia included memories of road tripping as a kid and the different types of soda he could get as a kid in different parts of the country,” said Marty Doepke, vice president of the company.

McClendon hired acclaimed architect Rand Elliott, the same architect that worked on the Route 66 Museum—located a couple hours from the c-store—to design and expand the old c-store into a 5,000-square-foot soda ranch. Elliott created an ultra-modern design with a 1950s-style soda counter and all glass shelving to hold the glass soda bottles. ~ CStoreDecisions, April 2018

Soda Ranch

The north and south walls of the building are all windows lined with glass shelves displaying glass bottles of colored sodas from all over the world. In fact, 700 kinds of soda. 

Fact #5: How long does it take to clean all those shelves?

If you struggle to keep your shelves dusted at home, just imagine the daunting task facing POPS staff. With dozens of glass shelves lining the walls all around the building and hundreds of bottles of soda artistically arranged on those shelves, keeping them clean is a year-round job. But just how long does it take to clean the shelves at POPS?

“Roughly two weeks.,” Marty says. “Restaurant staff are assigned two shelves to clean each shift, excluding weekends. It’s all monitored on our shelf chart. Once the chart is filled, we start over again.” ~ 5 Things You Never Knew About Pops by Brooke Barnett

blue carbonated drink

Fact #3: The Weirdest Sodas

If you’ve ever browsed the shelves at POPS, you might have noticed bacon-flavored or peanut butter-flavored sodas. Interested in knowing which one Marty would consider to be the weirdest? “There are too many in the running for most unusual,” he explains. “But some of the top contenders would be Beefdrinker’s Teriyaki Beef Jerky Soda or Lesters Fixins’ Ranch Dressing Soda. We also feature sodas with some pretty unusual names, including Avery’s Kitty Piddle or Pimple Pop.  There are some unusual fruit sodas, too, including Sioux City Prickly Pear and Hot Lips Marionberry.”

And POPS sodas truly come from all over the world. “In terms of soda that has traveled the farthest distance, we feature Bundaberg sodas from Australia,” Marty adds.  POPS features sodas from 13 different countries, including Austria, Italy, England, El Salvador, Brazil, Lebanon, Canada, Jamaica and Mexico. ~ 5 Things You Never Knew About Pops by Brooke Barnett

McClendon called his father ‘Pops.’ “His father Joe was a soda jerk when he was a kid and Aubrey called his dad, Pops, and that really contributed to the name,” Doepke said. That and the plethora of soda pop options.

“When we opened the doors we had 400 different types of bottled pop, all packaged in glass bottles from all over the U.S. and around the world. We quickly saw the popularity of what we had to offer and went from 400 to 500 types of pop very quickly,” he said. ~ CStoreDecisions, April 2018

Pops carries 80 different root beers and is the only place where Round Barn Root Beer can be purchased, That is related to the next blog post.

The top two best selling pop flavors haven’t changed since Pops first opened its doors. Sugar-cane-based Dr Pepper, which comes in an eight-ounce glass bottle, has been the best selling soda flavor since day one. The No. 2 best selling pop flavor has always been Round Barn Root Beer, which is bottled locally. “It gives a nod to another Route 66 icon, which happens to be about a quarter mile across the street from us. The Round Barn is in Arcadia itself,” Doepke said.

It’s no secret that carbonated soft drink sales have declined at convenience stores as customers seek more health-conscious alternatives. Many beverage manufacturers and c-stores have responded with craft sodas featuring more natural ingredients.

The effervescent retailer has seen a similar trend. “Most of our soda does feature cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. The stigma of the high fructose corn syrup has been a negative on soda sales over the years,” Doepke said. “As a result, we’ve seen the mass-produced brands suffer in sales over the last few years. Meanwhile, we’ve seen a surge in craft soda sales. It’s amazing to see how many brands are out there and most of them do include cane sugar as the sugar substitute, or Stevia in some of the more natural brands.” ~ CStoreDecisons, April 2018

At a height of 66 feet (get it? 66?) the massive Pops Soda Bottle was considered to be the tallest soda bottle in the world, weighing in at over four tons. It was constructed by WW Steel in Oklahoma City at their fabrication plant there. Once completed, it was delivered in one piece and took an entire day to move to its new home. Its red rock and steel trusses are covered in hundreds of multi-colored LED lights that can be seen from miles away at night. ~ Wander Wisdom, Eric Strandridge; May 11, 2022

So why did we stop three times???

This ultramodern gas station showcases thousands of colorful soda pop bottles. In addition, POPS includes a popular restaurant featuring a traditional soda fountain, mouth-watering burgers and hand-dipped milk shakes that serves approximately 475,000 people each year. ~ 5 Things You Never Knew About Pops by Brooke Barnett

We enjoyed classic cheese burgers and fries and Round Barn Root Beer for lunch. (We were in the area geocaching and we needed to eat.) And I browsed the gift shop for the second time and found another something I had to buy.

The third stop was because we wanted to buy some bottles of their best selling, locally brewed root beer after we had completed the reason for heading back to Arcadia today. But alas, it could only be purchased as fountain drinks as they were all out of the bottled Round Barn Root Beer.

Fifty-three geocaches hidden mostly in cedar trees and on fence posts are now found and signed with our geocachings handles. I will say OK has some fun geo-arts. We completed the I See Dead People one this spring. Curt has some more puzzles solved, but with snow and much colder temps in the forecast (it was 58º today), we will continue to head west and south. 

I Like Ike!

 We knew the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum was located in Abilene KS and we planned to stop because it was also the location of a geocaching Adventure Lab. What we did not know was how little we knew about the 34th President and his accomplishments as President (1953-1961). 

the campus covers 22 acres and has 5 buildings open to visitors

Dwight David's parents lived in this house from 1898-1946

this is its original location

the house is getting an update so we could not see it

Dwight was born in Denison TX (1890) and moved to Abilene in 1892. He was named David Dwight at birth, but changed his name legally to Dwight David because his father was also David J. Eisenhower.

This building completed in 1954 was in the planning works before Eisenhower became President. It houses a wealth of information about his growing up years, his military years, and of course as president.

The Eisenhower Presidential Library houses his many military and presidential papers available only to researchers.

Place of Meditation is the burial site of Dwight, Mamie and their first born son, Doud, who died at age 3 in 1921 as a result of scarlet fever.

Dwight David died in March 28, 1969 of congestive heart failure. He had seven heart attacks from 1955 to his death. Mamie passed away in 1979.

the Eisenhowers designed the Place of Meditation

Champion of Peace

The 11' bronze statue was designed by Robert L. Dean, Jr.

Dwight and Mamie married July 1, 1916

Becoming Ike & Mamie

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

another of his quotes

Their second son John (1922-2013) married Barbara Thompson. They have 4 children: David (who married Julie Nixon), Barbara, Susan and Mary. John graduated from West Point, served in the US Army and retired as brigadier general, was an author, and Ambassador to Belgium. Camp David is named after their first born grandson David. Spending time with family was very important to Ike and Mamie while they were in the White House and at their home in Gettysburg PA.

(click on the photo to enlarge)

Ike & Mamie purchased the working farm in 1950 when he retired from military service. Mamie undertook the total remodeling of the farm house. It became the gathering place for family events, a weekend retreat during presidential life, the meeting place for foreign dignitaries and leaders.

The Gettysburg home is now park of Eisenhower National Historic Site and adjacent to the Gettysburg national Military Park.

School Desegregation during his presidency

responsible for our Interstate Roadway system

He admired the German's autobahn roadways during his time in Germany and the need to move military equipment quickly. He wanted the same concept, moving across the country quickly, applied to the US.

I spent lots of time in the section devoted to Mamie and the Mamie look: hats, shoes, dresses. 

If you are ever in the area of Abilene KS, take the time to visit the Eisenhower Presidential Museum and Library campus. The 20 minute video at the Visitor's Center and Gift Shop gave good background information. The museum is well designed and also an excellent place to visit. And then there is Wikipedia. Although we all know it is not the all knowing source of info, I did read some interesting information about our 34th president. Did you know Ike...

 -was an avid Bridge player?

-was also quite the poker player at West Point?

-was also a heavy smoker while at West Point?

-also liked to play golf?

-had a winter home in FL after his retirement? 

-was an avid painter of pastoral scenes? 

-was president of Columbia University for 2 years?

-was the Supreme Commander of NATO?

-was an avid fisherman? 

-was on the maiden voyage flight of Air Force One?

-created the cabinet level Department of Education, Health and Welfare?

-was president when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union?

-insisted on heavy movie and still photo documentation of the Nazi Death Camps in 1945?

-was a college football coach?

-enjoyed reading Zane Grey's westerns?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

   

Traveling South Through Kansas

 We have started our journey to our winter home in AZ. Hubby did the trip planning taking us through some new areas of Kansas so we could see something NEW and GEOCACHE collecting some more KS counties. And as is very typical, we came across a couple of unexpected gems. The first was related to the Pony Express.

We traveled along US Highway 36, part of which is known as the Pony Express National Historic Trail. the highway was marked with the riders on hill tops.

We had spent our first night in Marysville KS and this was the scene Tuesday morning. The truck was covered in snow, but the temps and sunshine melted most of the snow throughout the morning.

a geocache brought us to this location

(remember to click on the photo to enlarge)

Four miles? We can check it out, right? Please? I'll take photos and you can look for another geocache.

We bypassed the Visitors Center and drove right to the station. Good thing we did as it wasn't open anyway and we would have wasted more precious time.

I was able to peak through three of the windows and get photos of the inside furnishings.

the station had 3 entrances

one of the 3 stoops and doors

another of the rooms

and the third window peek

a nondescript historical building

and probably the only one of its kind

This stop reminded me of when we stumbled upon a stagecoach stop near the small town of Labolt in northeast South Dakota. Peeking through the windows, the house was left just as it had been in the 1800s/early 1900s. The sad part was a few years after we had been there (because of geocaching) the house was moved and the current land owner removed all the trees and outbuildings and plowed the historic spot. I am thankful the Kansas Historical Society has kept the Pony Express Station from a similar demise. 

The second gem will be posted tomorrow.