Ghosts of Towner, CO

 

Towner is almost in the state of Kansas.  On a nice day one can look east and see the grain elevators od their neighbors in Kansas.  That is about all that’s left in Towner is a couple of grain elevator operations.  Population is now less then 25.  The businesses are gone, shuttered and overgrown.  The few homes there are nice and one can see some activity there. 

Towner probably has one of the saddest stories a person could read about.  March of 1931 a nasty spring blizzard swept across the plains with nasty fury.  That morning dawned nice and warm, 60 plus degrees.  School children were picked up by the bus and off to school they went.  By the time they got to school the radio was reporting on the ugly blizzard headed their way. 

Children were put back on the bus to go home at 9 in the morning.  Having gone a short distance down the road the blizzard hit.  It was blinding and the driver could not see the hood of his bus.  There

was no heat and the windshield was frosted over.  Taking a turn to go to a neighbors house a short distance away the drive got lost and drove in circles becoming stuck in the heavy snow. 

For a day and a half the blizzard raged.  The children and driver were trapped in the bus, no heat, no food, no water.  The ending was not happy.

Today there is no longer a school, it has consolidated with neighboring Sheridan Lake.  It is now a town of mostly empty streets, old machinery and a few dwindling houses. 

Located on a state highway, there is not much traffic that flies past on the blacktop.  Being a state road rather then a US highway, not many changes have been made to the right of way.  The highway and the railroad parrallell each other for the most part and the bend and wind across the plains. 

Here one can step back in time and see what it was like to drive on a highway in the early 1900’s.  When the railroad pushed through in the late 1800’s a wagon road followed the iron rails.  Not much has changed.  Today it is a nice paved highway slicing over the grasslands. 

Most of the towns on SH 96 could be considered ghost towns and few there is nothing left but empty shacks.  Even western Kansas has its share of forsaken burgs.

Here there is a look back at another time when dreams of a new life were flocking to get their own piece of land. 

When something is neglected, Mother Nature steps up to reclaim her land.  Weeds sprout and things collapse.  Even the railroad is seldom used and buried in among the weeds.  Time has stopped along here.