"Navigating the Kit House Territory"

As soon as I lost cell phone signal, I knew; I knew that this would be an unfamiliar place, somewhere I wouldn’t normally explore. It’s funny how our mind works sometimes, drawing conclusions based on things you have experienced or seen. Often times we can be surprised by a person or a place when our assumptions turn out to be different than reality. As my navigation system told me to turn right, I couldn’t help but wonder where I was going as the familiar sounds of a car’s rubber tires against the pavement gave way to a gravel-paved landscape. My cruising speed slowed down to a mere 20 mph and my mind began painting a picture of a movie scene. Finally, I heard the navigation say those magic words, “your route guidance is now finished,” while I turned down the only road in Volland, KS.

This time, my mind wasn’t crazy, and I wasn’t making the wrong assumptions. Although this very first memory of Volland is from a few months ago, I can still recall it today. It is safe to say that my first impressions of the place were not so great; after all I was never a farm boy. I grew up in a suburb of Kansas City and to be in rural America like this was quite odd. Everything about it was uncomfortable, and the only things that seemed to make sense were the Volland Store and Railroad, whose trains flying by every so often would still help give life to this place.

I remember the subsequent weeks clearly and my curiosity with this peculiar place grew. I wanted to know more about the inception of Volland and what drew people to this place which I myself did not find appealing. After searching in the library, conducting interviews, and researching online, it became clear to me that the town was established due to necessity: a place for cattle to be loaded onto trains, bound for Chicago slaughterhouses and a place for steam engines to deliberately rest. Volland, as was the case with many other towns in Kansas, was established conveniently at a place along the tracks where steam locomotives must stop to allow their engines to cool down before continuing their journey. The Chicago Rock Island & Pacific company had created a depot in Volland in the mid-1800s which helped the stop become a shipping point for cattle moving in and out of the Flint Hill pastures. The Volland store was erected by the Kratzer brothers soon after and the store fueled life into the town until the mid-1950’s.

This still left an open interpretation as to how the other residential structures came to be. No matter where I looked, it seemed that everyone had their own take as to how these homes got here. It became clear that there had been some modifications to the original homes, mainly in the form of additions to accommodate a more modern family. Some believed the original homes were “kit homes”. I didn’t think much of that phrase at first, but my curiosity led me to post on basecamp (the classes communication forum) describing my findings. While some colleagues were skeptical that homes in Volland could have been kit homes, a case study on House #1 only shows overwhelming evidence to prove it as such.