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Discover Mid-America — October 2004

One man's obsession in Lucas, KS

The limestone-log home of Samuel Dinsmoor in Lucas, KS, is partially hidden by the 30-foot tall concrete sculptures that surround it. (photo by Ken Weyand)

Samuel Perry Dinsmoor was, among many things, a unique individual. Born in Coolville, OH in 1843, Dinsmoor had been a Civil War soldier, schoolteacher and farmer when he moved to Lucas, KS, in 1905. In a region with few trees, Dinsmoor used what farmers had been using to make fence posts — limestone slabs — to build his “log cabin.”

But he didn’t stop there. Already a “senior citizen,” Dinsmoor would spend the next 20 years creating a bizarre collection of sculptures on his property that illustrated his views on religion and politics. It can be argued that regional tourism — and personal gain — could have been in the back of Dinsmoor’s mind as he mixed cement and formed it into primitive statues depicting Biblical characters in his “Garden of Eden.” Many of the figures in his “garden” were derived from Old Testament accounts, others illustrated Dinsmoor’s colorful populist philosophy.

In his small guidebook, Pictorial History of Cabin Home in Garden of Eden, Lucas, Kansas, he described his creations. The first entry was a cement flag, mounted on ball bearings, “the first flag ever made of concrete,” he surmised.

Abel's wife discovers his body in the Garden of Eden, as depicted by Dinsmoor. (photo by Ken Weyand)

The stone log cabin, certainly not the most bizarre of his creations, was the most practical. Built with a combination of limestone and cement “logs,” the cabin consists of 11 rooms and serves today as a museum where visitors can see old photographs and newspaper clippings of Dinsmoor and his family, and examine several pieces of furniture he made.

Surrounding the cabin is a collection of his concrete sculptures — religious figures and populist symbols — perched on vertical trees of concrete that soar 30 feet above the Kansas earth.

The devil is depicted, preparing to hurl his pitchfork at a tiny child. Adam and Eve flank the entrance to a grape arbor with Eve holding an apple and Adam gripping a snake while preparing to kill it. Dinsmoor also sculpted Cain and Abel, and provided them both with wives.

His populist politics are illustrated with sculptures of labor being crucified by “grafters” depicted as a lawyer, doctor, preacher and banker. Big business and government, controllers of everything in Dinsmoor’s view, were depicted as a many-armed hydra, holding society in its grasp.

Dinsmoor’s first wife died in 1917, and he married his 20-year-old housekeeper, Emma Brozek, seven years later when he was 81. Emma was a Polish refugee who seemed content with her new marriage. Historians generally agree that the unlikely couple enjoyed a loving relationship.

“An old man needs a nurse, a young man wants a companion. I got both,” he wrote.

Dinsmoor then amazed his neighbors by becoming a father. The couple’s daughter, Emily Jane, was born in 1924. In his small book, Dinsmoor chided “experts” who claimed such May-December relationships were unhealthy and produced abnormal children. When his daughter was 20 months old, Dinsmoor wrote “she … has not yet seen a sick day, or taken a dose of medicine.”

He capped his other creations with a mausoleum, and is interred there (mummified with charcoal) to stare back at visitors. His first wife is entombed below him. (According to a local legend, Dinsmoor paid gravediggers to transfer her body from its previous grave to his mausoleum.) A two-gallon cement jug is nearby.

“In the resurrection morn,” wrote Dinsmoor, “if I have to go below, I’ll grab my jug and fill it with water on the road down.”

Dinsmoor was a promoter to the end. After describing his coffin and other mausoleum details, he wrote in his guidebook: “I have a will that none except my widow, my descendants, their husbands and wives, shall go in to see me for less than $1.00.” He concluded by writing: “If I see them dropping a dollar in the hands of the flunky, and I see the dollar, I will give them a smile.”

The Garden of Eden in Lucas, KS, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. from April through December, and 1 to 4 p.m. from January through March. To get there, take Exit 206 off I-70 at Wilson and drive north on Hwy. 232 about 16 miles. For more information call 785-525-6395/6288 or visit www.garden-of-eden-lucas-kansas.com.

Discover Mid-America founder and Senior Contributing Editor Ken Weyand files regular reports on notable Midwest destinations. He can be reached at kweyand@gbronline.com or publisher@discoverypub.com.

> Traveling with Ken Archive — past columns