Flyover people
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Years ago, when I moved to Emporia, one friend would ask me from time to time, “Aren’t you from Rock City?”
“No,” I’d say, “Pawnee Rock. I’m from Pawnee Rock.”
After hearing the place mentioned so often, I decided that one day I would visit this fabled Rock City. The day had finally arrived.
Rock City, here we come.
On the Fourth of July, Dave and I were in the neighborhood (Salina), so we drove north about 20 miles to see the site.
This Registered Natural Landmark is a few miles southwest of Minneapolis (pop. 2,015), the county seat of Ottawa County.
Rock City is just a small patch of land — they describe it as the size of two football fields — with about 200 sphere-shaped boulders scattered on the ground.
To me, it looked like teams of giants had been called away unexpectedly and left their croquet balls on the pasture.
Some of the round boulders are 3 to 4 feet high, some 10 to 12 feet. Rock City is simply a bunch of sandstone rocks grouped together, sort of lined up, resting on the grassy sea.
What are these rocks and how did they get there?
I checked with Jim Aber, professor of geology at Emporia State University, who told me:
“The large spherical structures at Rock City are examples of concretions, which are common in the Dakota formation. This is a Cretaceous formation that is widespread in the Great Plains — from Pawnee Rock to Rock City to the Black Hills.
“In places, the sandstone was cemented around organic nuclei,” Aber said. “Where the softer, uncemented rock weathers away, the harder cemented concretions become exposed at the surface, as at Rock City, Mushroom Rock State Park, and many other localities.”
These sandstone rocks are part of our state’s surf-to-turf history. Kansas has a number of geological surprises and Rock City is one of them.
In the gift shop, I visited with Sylvia Skanks, who has worked there for 10 years, providing information about Rock City and the area. The shop sells T-shirts and ball caps as well as regional cookbooks and crafts from local residents.
She likes to keep records and told me that in May and June, 1,364 visitors had stopped by Rock City. So far in 2008, tourists had come from 43 states, as well as from Germany, Canada, Columbia and Kyrgyzstan.
Sylvia invited us to wander around and take photos, “And if you want a picture of you two taken together I’ll come out and do that,” she offered.
She enjoys her job out there in the country and often takes a chair outside. “I like nature,” she said. “I watch the birds. A mamma bird had her babies down on the ground awhile ago.”
The air was still that morning at Rock City, but it wasn’t quiet. Off in the distance, combines hummed through the wheat fields. Closer, I heard the call of a bobwhite.
White butterflies flickered over the purple poppy mallow. Lizards zipped around on the stones, unwilling to pose for photographs.
In the stillness of the morning I tried to imagine what the settlers must have thought in the 1800s when they discovered the boulders. As they trekked across the prairie, these peculiar spheres must have made them tilt their heads and say, “Huh?”
Rock City isn’t a flashy tourist attraction. There are no roller coasters here and there’s no indoor plumbing, but visitors are likely to be intrigued and amazed when pondering these boulders and their presence on the open prairie.
In Kansas, we’re about as far away from the sea coasts as anyone in the United States can be.
We are far away not only in distance — but in time. Still, in this landlocked state, we can always find evidence of our oceanic past.
“Flyover People” is online at www.flyoverpeople.net.
• Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.