The Legend of Burnett's Mound

How many times have you seen some Hollywood teen type movie with cars parked at the top of a hill overlooking a glorious valley below. Teenagers would park their cars at the top of the hill and "make out" with their girlfriends or boyfriends. There might be any number of cars parked there with steamed up windows on colder evenings. If Stull Kansas is possibly one of the Seven Gateways to Hell, then perhaps Burnett's Mound, lying at the southwest corner of Topeka, Kansas is quite possibly the Stairway to Heaven. I suspect that a larger than normal number of virginities were lost, or given away, near the top of this mound overlooking the skyline of Topeka. The 250 ft mound is named after Abram Burnett a Potawatomie indian chief who had quite a colorful and "larger than life" reputation, both as a tough negotiator for the native Americans he represented and as an accomplished drinker of intoxicating beverages. It is said that he could drink anybody under the table, and at a reputed weight of 450 lbs he would have enjoyed some advantage in being able to consume mass quantities of alcohol.

Here is a link to more info about the chief

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_20001123/ai_n11756393/

And here is another picture.

As a child I spent much time on this hill. We rode our bicycles up there, explored the area and even attempted to ride our bicycles on some of the motorcycle trails that existed near the hill at the time.

The city of Topeka had placed a huge water tank on the northeast side of the hill, that tank essentially serving as a water tower and providing much of the southern and western parts of the city with drinking water. From the top, the yellow structure is the water tank.

The scene from the top of the hill can be quite a spectacular view of the city skyline a few miles away. There is a good view of the State Capitol Building and the downtown area.

We used to hunt for fossils up there. The area where the water tank was placed was partially cut into the hill and provided a great opportunity to explore the layers of ground that made up the hill itself. We spent many enjoyable hours on that hill as kids doing what kids do.

As we got older, the nature of our activities on the hill changed as well. For instance, when we were in high school, we felt that it was important for our girlfriends to experience the sublime nature of the scenic views from the top of the hill. It would have been selfish to keep these experiences to ourselves and not share them with our friends.

On my recent trip to Topeka, one of my picture taking expeditions was to go back to Burnett's Mound and see if things had changed. It had been a long time since I had been up there.

I arrived at about 9:00 am and found the gate closed.

I had other riding plans for the day and decided to do some other errands and come back later in the morning, which I did.

And of course the gate was still closed at 11:30 am.

I surveyed the situation. It was sure as hell light out. Why wasn't the gate open?

Gate closed.

Multiple locks on the gate.

??????

I looked closer at the locks on the gate. I noticed the sequence of locks on the gate. A number of combination locks and then finally a keyed lock.

I envisioned some sort of city or park official in my mind saying this:

"Damn Earl! I don't know the combination! What do we do?"

Earl's response would be: Well, Fred, I suppose we could just put another lock on it. I have another one over here in the truck!"

Two months later, same conversation. I suppose nobody ever thought about cutting off the old lock. Then after a few times of this we have what we see today.

Impressive, huh?

Anyway, I didn't travel 200 miles to be denied by an assortment of locks like this. So I briefly checked the ground clearance on the scooter, jumped the curb and went up the hill anyway. I sure had the place all to myself.

Anybody have a clue as to why that rock seems to be wet?

Along the way up I reach another more serious looking gate. This will be the end of the road today, and looks like it has been the end of the road for some time.

You used to be able to travel a bit further using this road that now looks overgrown and unusable.

The unfortunate thing is that the closed road led up to this parking area.

This parking lot is site of the gateway to heaven for so many teenagers that have been, and may still be, quite literally at the mercy of their own hormones.

I may be exaggerating. Then again maybe not.

If you proceed to the top of the mound, you take these steps.

The very top of the mound looks pretty overgrown.

And here is a nice view to the northwest.

Now there is a whole lot more to the legend of Burnett's Mound.

You see, the mound is supposedly a Native American burial ground.

There are many legends about this. Another legend says that Topeka should be safe from tornados because of the burial ground.

Another story says that If a tornado were to approach Topeka from this direction, that the topography of the hill would push the storm right back up into the clouds.

We moved to Topeka in 1966. I remember the realtor telling my father that our new home should be safe from tornados because we were just about a mile northeast of the hill, well protected by the legend. Tornados generally travel form the southwest to the northeast and where our home was, we should be very safe.

Buy that?

Yeah right!

One week after we moved there, you guessed it, an F5 tornado (the worst kind)struck the city. June 8, 1966, one of those days indelibly etched in my mind. I was 9 years old. Scared the crap out of me! Our home was pretty severely damaged, but nobody in our family was hurt. Just 200 yards from us though, houses were literally reduced to rubble.

How did the mound do in protecting the city?

. Ever hear about people saying that a tornado sounds like a freight train? Well it is very true, except a whole lot louder. At least it seemed that way to 9 year old ears.

.

Here's the path of the storm.

Damn storm went right by the mound and proceeded to tear a path clear through the city. The path just missed directly hitting the capitol building, but still managed to tear up part of the dome.

You hear crazy things about what can happen in a tornado.

.

Not too far from our house there was a car blown up onto the second story of an apartment complex that had severe damage. .

Not too far from the mound there was a house that was lifted off the foundation, sort of like in the Wizard of Oz, a car was blown into the basement, and the house came back down very close to its original position on the foundation.

.

Would I kid you?

The national guard came out and protected the area from looters. We had to get passes to get in and out of the area where our home was and we ate Red Cross sandwiches for a few days as well.

. This lady was having a great time.

In digging up some pictures for this post I found this next one that I don't remember ever seeing before. It is an aerial view looking toward the southwest. Burnett's Mound is at the top left of the picture. See the water tank?

Note the debris path at the lower right side of the picture. If you go straight up and look at the corner at the intersection, you can see the house where I lived, the one right on the corner.

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The side of our house that faced the storm was literally untouched. Because of the circular winds, however, the back side of our house, facing away from the tornado was beat up pretty badly.

. My wife once told me that the reason she married me was because I had already lived through a tornado, and the chances of us together having to face one again were pretty small.

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Believe that?

. Some people might be afraid to live in Kansas because of the threat of tornados. But I suppose there are the possibilities of natural disasters wherever you live. Floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards and other potential disasters are possible anywhere on the planet. Even the threat of pink crocs worries me. . The storm did an estimated $100 million in damage. In 1966 dollars, adjusted to today's pale dollars, it still ranks as one of the worst storms in the history of history.

. There were 16 deaths attributed to the storm. Remarkably, the death toll probably would have been worse If the storm had hit later in the night.

. For many years after that you could still go up to the mound and see the path of the storm because of the very clear path of damaged trees through the city.

. But nature is powerful and the trees eventually repaired themselves. Today there is very little evidence of the storm over 40 years before. The forces of nature are very powerful, both in a destructive and a healing way.

The state motto for Kansas is sort of a wierd phrase:

. Ad Astra Per Aspera

. It means "To the Stars Through Difficulty"

. Years later they placed a statue at the top of the state Capitol building, supposedly a symbol of that phrase.

. Life can present many different kinds of challenges.

. It probably doesn't hurt to Aim for the Stars!