Down and out at county poor farm
Staff writer
To describe the Marion County poor farm is to describe Borges’ Library of Babel. There is simply too much to even begin to capture the property’s full scope.
It helps, though, to start big-picture.
There are two buildings: the original poor farm, where the destitute, deranged, and (God forbid) unmarried mothers of Marion County lived and worked from 1889 to the early 1940s, and a smaller building about a hundred feet away.
Both are made of Florence limestone, per owner Nancy Marr.
“There must have been some pretty good stonemasons back then,” she said.
The side building was built as immigrant housing in the mid-1880s but never amounted to much. Its back wall is demolished, thanks to years of rough weather, and you can look right through it.
To the west of the poor farm is a yard, with wood planks and bits of porcelain scattered around; a shed, which you will drop eight feet down into if you try to enter; and a vast field, which the inhabitants of the farm used to till.
There also was once an orchard on the property, Marr said.
But look at us! We already are getting lost in the intricacies of the poor farm.
The main building is oddly colorful; the main facade has an ochre hue that in parts fades into gray and silver. The windowsills and roof are red, and a few rooms inside are painted lime green.
It is surrounded by knotty bushes and nervous rabbits. A big propane tube sits menacingly between the two properties. The wooden steps sag and feel as if they will break any day now.
Plenty of things already are broken on the property. A porch attached to the south side of the house, itself a renovation, has completely collapsed. Marr blames it on the building’s guttering, which “never worked well.”
Most of the building’s windows are broken. Vagrants have been breaking glass and stealing furniture for years, Marr said. Considering how many chairs and couches are still inside, it begs the question of how much furniture was there to begin with.
Marr’s car windshield was recently smashed by intruders. The car rests tentatively in the front yard. Marr is unsure what to do with it.
“It runs real good,” she said.
There is plenty beauty to the poor farm, in spite — sometimes because — of its dilapidation.
With its weathered garden, odd color gradient, and patchwork appearance, it looks like something out of a fairy tale.
Odd cottage miniatures, which Marr has scattered around the front steps, add to the effect. It feels fitting that the house contains more houses.
The inside of the building is surprisingly well-preserved, with pretty antiques and oak walls that still gleam with polish. Of course, it is still quite messy. Old books and bits of clothing completely smother sections of the floor. Every nook and cranny tells a story.
Marr is determined to make the point that the poor farm is not abandoned. When websites claim it is, she gets an influx of vagrants, squatters, and ghost-hunters.
Two printer-paper notices, taped to the front and back door, remind visitors that the farm still has an owner and that “the Internet can be very wrong.”
While it is tempting to claim that one can still sense the poor souls that used to inhabit the farm inside, it is not true.
For one, Marr let a group of ghost-hunters in a few years ago, and they couldn’t find anything.
And, of course, the remnants still left behind in the house are those of Marr and other recent inhabitants.
The wallpaper, furniture, and scattered knick-knacks all feel very ’70s. Plastic Coke bottles, printed documents, and trash bags full of Styrofoam made their way to the farm more recently than that.
The original poor farm was an impressive piece of social work. While similar structures built for the destitute were scrappy wood buildings, the county constructed it out of limestone.
With two floors, a porch, a backyard, and a basement and attic, the facilities weren’t shabby, either.
“A lot of poor farms were run-down and not maintained, and the people ate bad food,” Marr said. “Here they ate good food because they grew their own crops. They had 60 acres. They sold their excess productivity. And the people here were very happy. The women had private rooms. The men lived in dorms, except for some weak and fragile men.”
The farm had a professional cook and an assistant who worked on the premises.
The building could house 20, and there were overflow cabins for people to live in if the main space was fully occupied.
The last overflow cabin was destroyed by a particularly nasty squatter, Marr said, who also cut down her favorite willow tree.
“To me, it’s a noble cause, to build a beautiful place for poor people,” Marr said.
Marr grew up in Wichita. She and her then-husband, Wendell Hendricks, purchased the poor farm in 1973 from Hutchinson pastor Bill Cowell.
After the poor farm was shut down in the ’40s, the space became used as a retirement home and a restaurant before falling into the hands of Cowell, then Marr.
“I liked the place because it was beautiful and stone and big, and we did take in the opportunity to have a summer business where we had retreats,” Marr said.
Hendricks and some friends installed a new roof and repaired windows.
The couple were Quakers and often let others who shared their faith use the space.
Marr recalled a Quaker group that met at the farm and eventually marched on Washington to protest the Vietnam war.
According to a 2004 Record profile, Marr and her family used the poor farm as a weekend retreat while living in Wichita before moving in a few years later.
After divorcing Hendricks in 1978, Marr remained in the house.
“Any attempts to sell the home or leave have fallen aside,” she said in 2004. “God kept bringing me back.”
But 20 years on from that article, Marr has changed her mind. She began living “half-and-half” in Marion in 2016 and fully moved out of the poor house in 2021.
She is actively trying to sell the poor farm.
“Look at my age,” she said. “I really need to find new owners.”
The property has become increasingly damaged thanks to vagrants, Marr said.
“Anytime there’s a big, fascinating building like this, people are curious, especially young people,” she said. “Also, they’re looking for free space to smoke their pot.”
Recent attempts to clean up the property have fallen flat.
Marr received a $59,000 restoration grant five years ago from the Kansas State Historical Society but had to give the money back after three years in which she was unable to find a contractor.
She now is looking for around $90,000 for the property. She and Hendricks spent more than $100,000 on renovations over the years, she said.
“It needs a lot of work,” she said. “It’s true, I could get funding, because my credit is good, but I never had the talent of working with companies, and there’s a shortage of labor anyway.”
While much of the building is damaged, life persists within it.
Marr sits in on a pretty leather couch inside while she speaks.
Pigeons roost in the eaves, and sometimes owls flutter in to hunt down mice.
“I used to be attached to the place, but now I see that my time here is long gone,” Marr said. “I just pray that the right people will come and take over. If no one comes, it’s going to be a sad story, lost history.”