COMPANY TOWN CULTURE: Sunflower Village, Kansas, in the 1940s

COMPANY TOWN CULTURE: Sunflower Village, Kansas, in the 1940sAuthor(s): Chris PostSource: Material Culture, Vol. 37, No. 2 (FALL 2005), pp. 42-59Published by: Pioneer America SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29764286 .

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COMPANY TOWN CULTURE: Sunflower Village, Kansas, in the 1940s

Chris Post

Geography Department University of Kansas

Sunflower Village, Kansas (Figure 1), was a government-built community

operated by the Federal Public Housing Administration during World War II. The town housed employees of a nearby munitions plant (Sunflower Ordnance

Works, or SOW) from 1943 until 1959 when the government sold the village's land and buildings to a private investor. Sunflower's existence as a company town provides a useful case study for this urban genre. The community's plat layout represents an interesting example of garden cities and "green-belt" towns. Together, these ideas explain how the town functioned during its peak years in the mid-1940s when it had a population of approximately 7,000 (Kansas City Star [KCS] 1958).

Figure 1. Sunflower Village from an aerial photograph taken in the 1940s or 1950s

by unknown photographer. Source: Clearview City Administration.

42 MATERIAL CULTURE



I use two methods to tell this part of Sunflower's story. First is the urban

morphology of the village and how it reflected "garden cities" built during the

post-World War I era. Secondly, I evaluate the community as a federally owned

company town by focusing on its material culture and the evolving sense of

place that accompanied it. This latter approach, as developed by humanistic

geographers (de Wit 1997; Lopez 1990; Tuan 1977), views Sunflower from the inside. It describes how the residents interpreted their daily lives, interactions, and connections with the community's homes and buildings.

Setting Sunflower Ordnance Works was situated approximately fifteen miles

from both the Kansas City metropolitan area and Lawrence, a college town of just over 14,000 residents (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1942). The plant was also near the smaller communities of Eudora and De Soto (Map 1). The Kansas River connected all of these cities, as did a main line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Proximity to this railroad helped provide the plant's transportation needs. Sunflower Village was built just north of the plant, across Kansas Highway 10 (K-10). The town was not included in the original plans for the plant, but soon became necessary as existing communities became

Map 1. Sunflower Village and the surrounding area showing current city limits, river courses, and highways. Historical information includes the railroad section from De Soto to Sunflower Ordnance Works and the routes of both Old (south fork) and New (north fork) K-10. (Map by Amy Post. Source: KanView map available from Kansas Data Access and Support Center of the Kansas Geological Survey.)

Vol. 37 (2005) No. 2 43



crowded and rubber rationing during World War II made transportation to and from the plant difficult.

Sunflower Village's Material Landscape The layout of Sunflower Village was one of its most distinctive features

(Figure 1). Although some of the community's roads reflect the familiar American grid, other streets curve around and through the landscape (Allen 1966; Buckley 2004). This latter aspect of the village's road pattern would become popular with the advent of suburbia after World War II, but Sunflower

Village was perhaps the first place to implement them in Kansas. The creative mind behind Sunflower's curvilinear design and the larger

"garden city" movement of which it was a part, was architect Clarence S. Stein.

His garden city vision incorporated three elements: First, he wanted to create

a "Garden City ... a town planned for industry and healthy living, of a size

that makes possible a full measure of social life, but no larger, surrounded by a permanent rural belt" (Stein 1966). This concept led to the development of

"green belts," open spaces designed to bring a rural feel into communities.

The second objective focused on building specialized roads for different

purposes. This concept utilized cul-de-sacs and smaller lanes in residential

neighborhoods along with larger thoroughfares in business areas to preserve a safer relationship between people and automobiles. Finally, Stein wanted

to establish "neighborhood units:" clusters of homes (called "superblocks") or businesses that were grouped together and connected to the rest of the

community by unobtrusive lanes. Overall, he was looking for "a town in

which people could live peacefully with the automobile?or rather in spite of it" (Stein 1966). In a garden city, the traditional downtown on Main Street did not exist. Primary roads would curve around the town while front doors looked out onto large lawns, possibly a sidewalk, without an intervening road

between facing neighbors. Stein built several planned communities with this vision until the Great

Depression of 1929 stopped most urban development. One New Deal project, the Greenbelt Program, made use of Stein's concepts, though he himself was not directly involved. This program resulted in the formation of Greenbelt, Maryland; Greenhills, Ohio; and Greendale, Wisconsin (Alanen and Eden 1987; Arnold 1971; Knepper 2001). An aerial photo of a Los Angeles, California suburb, Baldwin Hills, shows the difference between these sets of ideas and traditional speculative development adjacent to it on the north and south

(Figure 2). Three open areas or greens dominate the middle of Stein's community and main roads are found only on the perimeter. Flanking developments show a more fluid road structure than the old grid arrangement, but still with each house facing a major road. With this layout, the amount of green space is

greatly reduced and the dominance of automobiles is evident.

44 MATERIAL CULTURE



Figure 2. Aerial view of Baldwin Hills, California, set in between two areas of typical speculative development to the north and south. Source: Stein, 1966, pg. 191.

Sunflower Village clearly was laid out with Stein's vision in mind

(Figure 1). Although the village was not as extravagant as many of the planned communities from the New Deal, it was still ahead of its time, especially considering that Sunflower was conceived and built in a little more than a

year. The goal, specific to Sunflower, was for the curved roads to "soften"

the community's company-town reality (Mulrooney 1989). Grid-style roads still were employed, but within a more fluid perimeter. The main entry road off Kansas Highway 10?Sunflower Road?curved around the west side of

the community. The newer, eastern half of the village assumed a semicircular

shape with an appendage to the northeast. Army Road made a straight, north south bisection of the village into its two parts, Old (west) and New (east)

Villages.

Vol. 37 (2005) No. 2 45



The main arteries were called roads or streets and reflected local place names. Examples include De Soto Street, Eudora Street, Lexington Street (the local township), Ordnance Road, Douglas Road (an adjacent county where Lawrence is the county seat), Johnson Street, and Sunflower and Army Roads.

Minor routes were designated as lanes (a favorite label of Stein's) or drives and

typically given simple alphabetical or numerical names. For instance, nearly every small road in the original village was given a letter from "C" to "OO."

In New Village, the equivalent routes were named Drives "A" through "F"

and Lanes "1" through "14." These smaller streets actually functioned like

alleys in that they were only wide enough for one car. The official names

stuck, however, as one former employee and resident of sixty years reinforced:

"Some people call this an alley, you see it's a /ane" (Anonymous 2002). In Old Village, lanes separated the back sides of parallel rows of houses.

This arrangement meant that the front doors of such homes faced each other across a wide lawn, just as in the greenbelt communities (Figure 3). The

design was intended to promote a community feeling. However, since plant

employees worked shifts around the clock, community gatherings were rare. A

village resident recalled that "You didn't use the front door. You used the back door and walked in the lane. We didn't even play baseball or softball out front.

We played in the lane [laughing]. We broke lots of windows" (MacAninch 2003).

Figure 3. Green space and sidewalks divided the residential space in front of the homes, and not in the rear. Photo by author.

46 MATERIAL CULTURE



Residences

Residential buildings dominated the material landscape of Sunflower

Village (Figure 4). They were numerous (originally 852), one story in height, and similar in appearance. Residents made a few individual adjustments, but larger, more permanent modifications came only after the Korean War.

Variation existed mainly in the size of the buildings. The largest were 118 feet long and 24 feet wide; the smallest measured 72 feet by 24 feet. Square footage ranged from nearly 3,000 down to just over 1,700. Residential units

were built in several colors including "green, cream, slate, and tan" (Lawrence

Journal-World [LJW] 1943).

Figure 4. Residential neighborhood in Sunflower Village. Photo from Lawrence

Journal-World, 11/24/43.

Original village maps show that the residential buildings were divided into as many as six individual units during the war. Most buildings in Old

Village were arranged this way, but others were partitioned into only four units. All of the buildings in New Village were divided into two units. It is impossible to say whether individual apartments were larger in one village than the other.

The studio apartment was the most popular floor plan, and dominates the available maps. These contained a living room/bedroom, a kitchen, and a

closet-sized bathroom. Such an apartment would have measured a meager 472 square feet if located in the largest buildings! Two bedroom and three bedroom units also existed for married workers with children. Most former

residents I talked with indicated the tightness of these units. "You couldn't

hardly turn around" (Cross 2003), commented one. But, as another villager noted, these units were a positive change for some families:

We felt we were lucky to find this "two-bedroom with bath upstairs" that we shared with the other families in a converted old Kansas City home. When we moved to Sunflower, our apartment was brand new; we had a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and a private bath. We were ecstatic. We felt it was nice and large! (Travis 2003)

Vol. 37 (2005) No. 2 47



Modern examples help illustrate the tight spacing that resulted from these arrangements. In most buildings the chimneys installed for the original coal heaters reveal the number of units once centered in a particular building (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Six chimneys, still existent, mark where each unit was within this

building. This picture also shows the entrance into an original studio apartment on the gable-end wall.

Inspection of the chimney, window, and door arrangements reveal that

the buildings were divided in a way that put two studios on the outside walls, with four additional studios (or two larger apartments) on the inside. Doors into the ends of the buildings would have led into the outermost studio units

(Figure 5). Concrete blocks and paint on some current homes have covered

up these entrances (Figure 6). Finally, modern garages (amenities added later to several units) may

take up the space that a single family's entire home once did. Concrete

patches on the garage floors conceal what used to be ground openings for utilities

(Figure 7). Some residents personalized their homes by decorating the walls or

bringing in their own furniture (Figure 8). One former village youth said, "We

changed colors, my dad painted and put in linoleum" (McAninch 2003). Another added, "my late husband took lots of pictures and we hung those" (Cross 2003). Other families made no decorative arrangements, assuming their move to the village was only temporary (Norris 2002; Pearson 1946; Anonymous 2002a,). "Other than curtains, I don't remember having any wall decorations in our apartment. My mother did make curtains to hide an

unsightly storage closet at the end of the hall next to the bathroom," wrote one resident (Travis 2003).

48 MATERIAL CULTURE



Figure 6. Former entrance into a unit with an end wall.

Vol. 37 (2005) No. 2 49



In addition, some families altered the outdoor landscape by planting flower or vegetable gardens. As one resident remembered, "A family was here

and had three kids. Each kid picked something for the yard. One picked a tree to plant and it's still there". She added later, "I had a sweet potato plant in a pot indoors that grew clear to the ceiling" (Norris 2003). Still another added:

The Village sponsored a community garden ("victory garden") located at the far east end of the housing development where families could grow vegetables. On one occasion, I remember going with our neighbors to do some hoeing and removal of weeds at their portion of the plot. It was

tiring, hot, and sweat-inducing. Being eleven years old, I wanted to be

doing anything else but work in the garden (Travis 2003).

Rent in Sunflower was low, when compared to most western company towns (Allen 1966), ranging from $29 to $36.50 per month, dependant upon the number of bedrooms (LJW 1957). Renting a furnished or unfurnished unit was also an option, but kitchen appliances were always included. All utilities and trash-removal services came with the monthly rent, as did butane water

heaters and circulating coal stoves. Coal and ice were not only included in

the rental cost, but also were delivered by the government (LJW 1943). When it came to these utilities, former residents consistently thought about the coal heaters. "First thing I remember was the potbelly stove and the ice box" (Norris 2002), mentioned one resident, adding that "We got the smallest ice box possible thinking we wouldn't be here long." Not all of the memories were pleasant though: one village child said, "I remember one winter when the coal dust was so thick you couldn't see a block away" (Moon 2002)

Phone service was also provided in some way or another through time.

"When I first came, we had no telephones [in the units]," said one former resident, but "We had a few pay phones around the place" (Anonymous 2002). This lack of technology delayed the arrival of world news in the village. "There wasn't much communication. We were closed, no outsiders came in" (Moon

2002), commented one villager.

Administration and Business Structures The government erected a community building for the village on the

west entry road from K-10 Highway (Figure 9). This structure faced east and housed administration offices, a library, and an auditorium used for Saturday

night dances and church services (Pearson 1946). It also served as a temporary schoolhouse until a permanent one was built behind it.

Religion was a vital aspect of life at Sunflower Village. Unlike most American company towns, however, no church building was built until after the government sold Sunflower's property. All church-related activities took

place in the community building. Both Catholic and Protestant services were

50 MATERIAL CULTURE



Figure 9. The former community building at Sunflower Village. The building also served as a school when the village started.

held through World War II. In addition, a resident Protestant minister arrived in the village in October 1944 (Pearson 1946). Sunflower Village's designers placed two commercial buildings directly on K 10. This location was convenient, but in accordance with the design principles of the garden cities, not central within the community's plat. Both structures were only one story without a false front. Instead of facing each other, they were lined side by side, both facing south. The government provided the space for private contractors so that residents would not have to drive for essentials such as food, prescriptions, postal service, daycare, and immediate medical attention. Together the two buildings-one still existent-housed nearly anything that someone could find during a walk to their local "downtown."

These two commercial buildings demonstrated a major divide between Sunflower and most other company towns. Private companies handled all of the service businesses in typical company towns. This practice would have

gone against the basic idea of making money by providing goods and services to their employees via company-owned stores. The federal government on

the other hand gave private contracts to these same businesses that wanted

to come into Sunflower.

The western business building was approximately three hundred feet long and sixty feet wide. It was white and housed a grocery, barber shop, drug store

(operated by the Walgreen corporation), soda parlor (located within the drug store), and post office (LJW 1943). This structure still exists today containing a post office, printing press, and small variety store.

This variety of businesses in the western building provided services that allowed for efficient production. Food, health, and hair care were essential to keeping employees available for work. In addition, the proximity of goods and services to residents allowed for an even higher degree of employee safety and convenience.

Vol. 37 (2005) No. 2 51



The building site offered entertainment as well, albeit inadvertently. One young villager remembered, "The [grocery] store we were pleased with. It was like an A & P. Everything was rationed, we had coupons. There was one special time when they got a doughnut machine and you could see them

being made" (Travis 2002) After World War II, a youth center was built in the

strip providing a local leisure environment for community youth. As another interviewee mentioned, this "'Teen Town' had pool tables and we would play cards and other games there" (McAninch 2003).

Also located in the first commercial strip was a Red Cross station and several other service operations (LJW 1957). The Red Cross was ever present at Sunflower Village. Safety was a top priority at SOW and the employers obviously stressed this ideal at the homes as well. A doctor's office and a

day care were also available to residents. One young villager commented, "I

remember the doctor's office; it seems like I had to go there every week. [Mom] worked night hours and kids were on their own. You went to work and left

your kid at home. I don't remember day care" (Moon 2002). His mother held different memories of the building, "We did have a day care and I dropped my son off there before I went to work at the plant" (Cross 2002). Another resident, who did not have children herself, remembered, "There was 24 hour day care and children slept there while parents worked at night" (Anonymous 2002). Finally, a printing press was set up in the western commercial building. This

facility was used for the printing of two internal newspapers: the Sunflower

Villager and the Sunflower Planet

! 1 'i 7

Figure 10. Recreation commercial building that housed bowling alley, restaurant, and theater. Photo by unknown photographer on January 19, 1947. Source: De Soto History Museum.

52 MATERIAL CULTURE



The second commercial building was built in July of 1945, two months before the end of the war. It housed a movie theater, tavern, gas station, Sears

catalog ordering center, and bowling alley (Figure 10; KCS 1958). Because of the timing, wartime residents have fewer memories of this place. This second

set of businesses focused on entertainment, another motivational tool used

for overseas troops and in other company towns. For residents who worked

three shifts a day, a movie was an affordable diversion away from home.

Nearly all of Sunflower Village's businesses were involved in the social

atmosphere of the village in less obvious ways, especially for the youth who remained there after World War II. The business areas were central to

everybody's lives. Every resident that I interviewed voiced some opinion about

them. "I think the grocery store was Falley's and owned out of Topeka. I think it was open 24 hours a day" (Anonymous 2002), remembered one resident.

Not all of the memories were positive: "We had dirt roads at the time, Falley's market, a drug store. We used to have to stand in line for rations on sugar and gasoline and we caught the bus to work." Adding, however, those "long lines to get rationed stamps, or sugar, and other things improved [over time]"

(Cross 2002)

Although the federal government developed these commercial areas within walking distance of the workers, not all residents took advantage of this proximity. "We'd go to different places to shop, we didn't always shop here" (Anonymous 2002). Another mentioned, "When my husband came back

[from the war] we went to Lawrence for everything. Since my husband died, I've gone to Olathe" (Cross 2002)

For youngsters in the Village, imagination was the key to having fun. The creativity of one young man made for an entire summer of fun:

There were some pillars at the entrance, we dug around those and got inside and it was our fort. We brought all our stuff there. I was sad when that came down; I was about six. We brought our stuff there like comic books. That was a summer project. You used your imagination to figure out what to do (Moon 2002).

Company Towns in America In order to compare Sunflower Village with other towns built by

corporate and government entities, I compiled information from existing studies of western mining towns (Allen 1966; Clyne 1999), Appalachian coal communities (Buckley 2004; Marsh 1987; Mulrooney 1989), and similar

places (Gaddy 1996; Hudson 1985, Olien and Olien 1982). These results are summarized in Table 1.

A primary generalization is that most company towns in the United States were intended for temporary settlement while the local resources were

exploited. Once the resource was gone, so was the company and the town.

Vol. 37 (2005) No. 2 53



Mould, however, brings to light an exception to this rule that may help explain Sunflower's continuing existence:

Other resources are exploited for a longer period ... a community may grow up with houses, churches, and schools. The change in the landscape of the company town is often accompanied by an equally significant social

change: the settlement becomes not just a place to work, but a place to

live, raise a family, build a future (1985).

A second point concerns the road patterns of company towns. So far

as location and topography allowed, "planned and orderly" arrangements

Table 1. Sunflower village Traits Compared to Generalizations for Company Towns

Category General Description Sunflower Village

Location / Road Pattern Rural, grid pattern or followed topography of mountain valleys.

Rural, curved roads, more similar to planned communities and garden cities

Rent / Utilities Low cost with most utilities

paid for. Low cost and all utilities paid for. Coal and ice delivered by government.

Building Material, Size and

Shape Dependent on climate and

industry: wood, brick, and concrete block. Small and

simple, one or two stories.

Hierarchy of house types.

Simple, concrete block or wood frame, small, one story. Larger houses

available for officers.

Paint / Color If painted, white. Several colors: cream,

slate, tan.

Demographics Ethnic diversity, only men worked in extraction.

Little ethnic diversity. Women workers during World War II. Mostly Caucasian.

Religion Encouraged. Many towns

housed ministers and

priests.

Encouraged, with village church as social center.

Services / Schools Company store on credit or

scrip only. Schools and teachers provided.

Most services were

privately contracted

through government.

Grocery, postal service,

schools, day-care, Red

Cross, pharmacy, and soda

fountain.

Activities / Entertainment No town government. Baseball fields, community celebrations, fraternal and

community organizations existed for recreation.

Baseball fields, skating rink, scouting, fishing,

VFW, movie theater,

bowling.

54 MATERIAL CULTURE



dominated, usually a square grid (Allen 1966). Of course, this pattern does not

vary from most incorporated towns west of the Appalachians where the United States Public Land Survey was utilized to mark tracts of land for ownership purposes. Company towns were usually rural and isolated so they had room

to sprawl, but mountainous topography forced some logging and mining companies to adapt linear plats in narrow valleys. Mulrooney's study shows

maps of many square-grid towns focused on a central business district (CBD),

making them appear as typical American communities (Mulrooney 1989). Over time the CBD stayed, but straight roads gave way to curved streets in order to "soften the image" of company towns. As noted earlier, a CBD was

not used in Sunflower Village. Next is the look of the homes themselves: their building material, form,

and color. Homes in most company towns were planned to include all of

the necessary rooms and amenities for independent living: bathrooms (when

plumbing became available), kitchens, and multiple bedrooms. Generally only a few floor plans (sometimes only one) were used for an entire community.

Many of these homes in the dry West went without paint. Elsewhere, officials

usually employed the same color of paint throughout the entire community. Building materials used depended on climate, with cinder block or brick common in dryer areas and wood found elsewhere (Allen 1996).

Employee houses in company towns were usually simple, one-story shoeboxes with pitched roofs. A few companies however built two-story homes

for administrators and foremen (Buckley 2004).

Cheap rent was another near-universal trait of company towns. Prices

could be as low as five dollars for an entire home or two dollars per room

(Allen, 1966). Residents working for the Climax Molybdenum Company in

Climax, Colorado, paid only five dollars per room per month for a log cabin or $6.75 for steam-heated homes as recently as 1957 (Allen 1966). Utilities

usually came with the rent or, if additional, at nominal rates (Clyne 1999).

Demographically, company towns were heterogeneous. In America,

immigrants frequently served the roles of miner, logger, and factory worker.

Companies sought out such people because they often could pay them less than established residents. This practice produced diversity. American Indians and

Mexicans were common in western mining and logging camps. Scandinavians

frequently worked in logging towns (Olien andOlien 1982; Allen 1966) while

Appalachian coal towns reported high populations of Eastern Europeans (Buckley 2004; Marsh 1987; Mulrooney 1989; Elliott 1990) and southern

Colorado mining towns many persons of Japanese and Hispano descent (Clyne 1999). Ethnic neighborhoods frequently arose out of segregation imposed by the companies.

I have not found any company towns in which religion was not

encouraged. Many times priests and ministers were brought in from local

churches, and at times were even given part-time work in the mines or as

umpires in community baseball games (Allen 1966). Often, the company

Vol. 37 (2005) No. 2 55



would pay for churches as well. The McCloud Lumber Company in McCloud, California, had enough employee diversity and interest to erect separate buildings for Catholic, Episcopalian, and two types of Baptist followers (Allen 1966). Marsh reported that "churches were the physical and social centers of

neighborhoods and communities [in his part of Pennsylvania], and a small town might have had a dozen different congregations" (1987).

Schools also were a central part of the company town landscape.

Companies built schools as soon as possible on site and offered teachers the same low rental rates as regular workers (Allen 1966). Elliott has discussed in depth his schooling experience in McGill (1990). Clyne hypothesizes that

company-town children were just like those in any other American community from autumn through spring, staying busy in school and with home chores (1999).

In terms of cultural activity, business, and services, a few other

generalizations can be made. In most of these communities a company-owned store dominated business and made employees use credit or scrip (Allen 1966; Mulrooney 1989). Everything had to be purchased at those sites and no outside competitors were allowed in. Health care was usually available since

the owner could make no money if their employees were too sick or injured to work.

Because recreation was seen to promote morale and good health, sports facilities such as baseball diamonds frequently occurred on company-town

landscapes. In southwestern Pennsylvania and southern Colorado, companies even outfitted teams with uniforms and equipment (Mulrooney 1989; Clyne 1999).

Finally, I found no evidence that any type of community government was ever formed in any company town. Although the topic is rarely discussed, Allen does acknowledge the point that civic governments were not in the interest of the companies and their powerful position in the community (1966). In 1943, vi I lagers formed a town council consisting of five neighborhood representatives and one general mayor.

Clearly, the primary difference between Sunflower Village and the

company-town types discussed above is that Sunflower was owned and

operated by the United States government. Ownership belonged to the

government's War Department, but much of the plant's operation was

contracted to the Hercules Powder Company. Sunflower Village itself stayed under the direct supervision of the Federal Public Housing Administration. This makes Sunflower a rarity on the American landscape and different from other company towns. The government, unlike most private companies, had no goal of profit making for its townsite.

Despite internal variation, models of company towns provide a basis for

evaluating the form and substance of Sunflower Village. The uniqueness of this community, because of its government sponsorship, also suggests that its

study may extend our knowledge of company towns as a settlement form.

56 MATERIAL CULTURE



Culturally speaking, Sunflower Village was similar to many other

company towns. Adults worked and did little else. Even the business district held little interest for these people outside of providing domestic goods, day care services, and an occasional movie. Similarly, the experience of youth at

Sunflower Village would not surprise those who have studied other company towns (e.g. Elliott 1990 and Clyne 1999). The community also compares well to the other studies in terms of religion, recreation, and health care. Children

lived a life of their own, going to school and playing. They learned at home as well; their responsibilities were amplified by moms and dads working shifts at SOW.

Conclusion

Sunflower Village existed as a special place in three ways. First, the

community's layout was ahead of its time, reflecting the ideals of flowing road lines and green areas created in Clarence S. Stein's "garden cities".

Second, it was a well-defined company town in terms of its material and

intangible features. Lastly, despite being owned and operated largely by the federal government, the village shared several landscape characteristics with

its privately developed contemporaries.

Typical of company towns, the homes were homogenous, small and rent

was cheap. Life was simple and safety, youth, and faith were valued. Outside

observers and local media saw the economic opportunities for residents to assist

the country in its war effort as noble. The community is still in the memories of adults and children who grew up there. Younger villagers have stronger and more pleasant recollections for the most part; their sense of place is more

agreeable than that of their older counterparts. Another distinguishing aspect of Sunflower Village was its role as a

microcosm, possibly even the epitome of what the Middle West was meant to be (Shortridge 1989). It was a purposeful, child-friendly community, a

place where many residents cultivated their own fruits and vegetables through "victory gardens." Sunflower was the realization of a positive image that

dominated the region early in the twentieth century and again after the first world war before mechanization, drought, and low farm prices laid to rest the

perception of an arcadian existence in the middle states.

With this discussion of Sunflower Village's landscape, and the evaluation of it as a company town, we can envision the community of sixty years ago that was home to a unique mix of working adults and their families. It is easy to see that the government looked to Clarence Stein and the "green-belt" towns

of the New Deal for a model layout of a planned community. Sunflower also

corresponds to many of the generalities found for other company towns such

as the simple, small homes and the provision of schools and other services.

The anomalies and multiple influences of Sunflower Village's material culture

provide a unique landscape experience for its residents.

Vol. 37 (2005) No. 2 57



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Lawrence Journal-World. 1943. "Housing Units at Sunflower Filled," November 24.

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Lawrence Journal-World. 1957. "Dynamite Junction'Slowly Loses Boom/' March 27.

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_. 2003. Phone Interviews by author. April 9.

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_. 2003. Electronic Mail with Author. April 10.

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U.S. Bureau of Census. 1942. 1940 United States Census of Population: Vol. 1: Number of Inhabitants, Washington, D. C: Government Printing Office.

Note: All photos by the author unless otherwise indicated.

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COMPANY TOWN CULTURE: Sunflower Village, Kansas, in the 1940s

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