Junction City Off The Beaten Path

Wetzel' Log Cabin Church is in a small park near I-70 in Grandview Plaza just east of Junction City. This log cabin was a home and also the first lutheran church. It has a common feature of some old cabins. There is an open center between the two rooms. That was an area where the breeze could blow through and families would sleep there to stay cool while still having a roof above them.

The building beyond the historical marker is the first territorial capitol. It is open from 10 to 5 on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays only and Sundays from 1 to 5. I was there on a Tuesday and only saw if from the out side. It is located on the east side of Fort Riley.

The Buffalo Soldier Memorial is at the corner of 18th and Buffalo Soldier Drive. For my friends in foreign countries Buffalo Soldier was a nickname given to the soldiers of the 9th and 10th horse cavalry regiments. The soldiers were all African American black men. At the US Cavalry Museum you will learn that these men were given inferior equipment and yet they had fewer incidences of desertion and less discipline problems than the white soldiers did.

There is an old locomotive at Wyman Park on Fort Riley. You can climb up in the train and see what it was like for the engineer who drove the train. I used to like to do stuff like that when I was young... Who am I kidding? I still do stuff like that.

There are automatic fish feeders at each of the raceways. The long narrow raceways are about 4 feet deep and can hold as many as 150,000 small fish in each one. When the feeders begin dropping fish feed in the water the water under them seems to boil as the fish all try to eat at once.

Another picture inside my favorite place, the Milford Nature Center. The picture is of the paintings that were used to create special stamps. Hunters and conservationists purchased the stamps to help the state raise money to protect waterfowl and other wildlife.

There are almost 2 miles of nature trails at the Milford Nature Center. At Milford State Park you will find 3 other hiking trails in the 1,084 acre park north of the dam. The Riverwalk Trail is located on Camp Forsythe at Fort Riley. The Kaw Trail is near the Kansas First Territorial Capitol. The Homers Pond trail is on the west side of Junction City near Eisenhower Drive. There are many places for hiking and BIRDWATCHING around Junction City.

There are hawks in the parking lot at the Milford Nature Center. Here you can see up close all those hawks that are on the phone poles and billboards as you drive the highways in my state. The redtailed hawk here is one of the most common ones I see.