A growing number of Lyon Countians have made a 45-minute drive north part of their routine.
Lake Wabaunsee, about five miles west of Eskridge, has become a retreat for area residents who have discovered the beauty of lake living in the middle of the Flint Hills.
Others, like Emporians Mike Turnbull and Pat and Lori Clark, already knew it was a little piece of heaven.
“Once you come down Highway 99 and 4 and see that lake sitting in the valley, it’s picturesque,” Turnbull said. “It’s a postcard.”
For Turnbull, the lake always has been a second home; in 2001, he formally gave it that status when he bought a cabin from an elderly Wichita couple who no longer could use it.
“For me, it was a homecoming,” he said. “I was born and raised in Eskridge.”
He spent considerable time at the lake during his high school and college days.
“I would go out there every weekend and ski and socialize,” he said. “I’d take my ’49 Chevy out there and drive it by the spillway. It was where I washed my car. The first car wash in Eskridge was at Lake Wabaunsee.”
The lake is fed by 13 springs, which keep the lake water clean and prevent drastic changes in water level.
“It’s really clear,” Turnbull said. “Even in severe drought they will feed the lake.”
The springs may have been one of the reasons the Lake Wabaunsee Corp. chose the lake’s original location in the 1920’s. After several years of struggling to secure support from the state or federal government, work on the lake began in 1933 by the Kansas Emergency Relief Corp. The KERC which established a transient camp to house 400 workerse who could not qualify for the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Lake Wabaunsee Corp. already had options to purchase 497.04 acres set aside for a park and a 214-acre lake, and had collected $20,000 in pledges. Each $100 pledge entitled the donor to a lakeside lot when the project was completed, according to a Lake Wabaunsee history.
In 1936, when the project was about 15 percent complete, it was taken over by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA). Additional money was needed in 1937, when WPA officials threatened to abandon the project. A bond election to purchase the land for $11,000 was passed and the City of Eskridge held a lottery to sell 150 lots at $100 each. Many of those lots went to Topeka residents.
The lake has been home to a National Youth Administration mechanical training school, the Ninth Armored Division water maneuvers training, and, in 1942, to several hundred German prisoners of war who had been captured in Africa. The POWs were taken by busloads to work daily in Topeka and on many farms in the area.
After the war ended in 1945, the prisoners were released and development of lake property began in earnest.
Some of the cabins are still owned by families of the long-time property-owners. The Clarks, who fall into that category, have owned their property at Lake Wabaunsee for 12 years.
Pat Clark grew up spending summers at his uncle’s cabin. When his uncle was ready to sell 12 years ago, they bought the property and the “cabin” that sat on it.
“It was a trailer that was older than we were,” Lori Clark said, adding that even the trailer was an improvement over prior accommodations. “... We went from a camper at Melvern every weekend, and it was wonderful.”
The couple said they used to “rough it” in the deteriorating trailer until about six years ago, when they built a new cedar-sided house and garage on the property.
“We plan to retire there,” Lori Clark said.
Their initial purchase proved to be a bargain, compared to prices at the lake today. The couple got two lots, a storm shelter, a mobile home and a dock for less than one-third of the cost of one lot today.
“It’s the best investment we ever made,” Pat Clark said. “The prices have just been inflated so much.”
But he isn’t referring only to the financial investment. The peaceful beauty of the lake makes their home a haven much of the time. The services provided bring the conveniences of city living, and that is a major benefit.
Clear water from the City of Eskridge was piped to Lake Wabaunsee years ago, and most homes — 220 of them — have water meters.
“There’s only like five houses that didn’t hook on to water,” said David Niedfelt, lake superintendent.
The winding roads are all paved with asphalt and maintained by the City of Eskridge, which owns the lake. For 17 years, the homes all have had sewer systems with lifts to flow waste to lagoons away from the property, and trash is picked up regularly.
A 9-hole golf golf course under construction may be ready for play by the end of the year, Nienfelt said.
The Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church sits on the north end of the lake for those who attend services on Sunday.
The lake is a year-round home to some.
“School buses come pick up kids, there’s mail service, and everything,” Pat Clark said.
The conveniences, coupled with the setting, have made the lake almost too popular. With about 230 cabins and houses already built and a handful of building lots left, the lake is about to reach its fill of people.
“It would be real tough to find a lakefront lot right now,” Niedfelt said. “We’ve got people from California, Tennesse, all over the states that have houses out here. It’s not just a local thing any more.”
The few remaining 50’x100’ lakefront lots are selling for about $60,000 each. The price of existing and new housing has skyrocketed in the past two or three years. Some are selling for more than $300,000. Cabins have burgeoned into two-story homes faced with brick and limestone, with two-car garages and massive decks that would look appropriate in the upscale suburbs of Kansas City.
And that may be the seed of the only negative that Turnbull and the Clarks see looming at the lake.
They are concerned that the growing number of big-city owners are bringing in big-city ideas about rules and covenants to govern the way the lake is run.
“I know how the people in Colorado feel,” Pat Clark said with a rueful smile. “We’ve seen it change from a peaceful little lake ...”
tbone (anonymous) says...
funny....its the people from out of state and from the big-city who are driving up your property values...Mr Turnbull and Mr & Mrs Clark won't complain about that when they sell their properties. I spent many a summer there and that was before there was trash service or blacktop roads. People there probably felt the same about emporians back then. Lets be happy for the Eskridge public. It is the lake people that infuse their economy.
June 30, 2007 at 1:51 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
cyberspace (anonymous) says...
After this weekend's rains, you won't need to travel to a lake. It will be right out in your front or back yard!
Ahh, there are some benefits to climate change!
June 30, 2007 at 8:22 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )