The Thursday History Club

The Thursday History Club

For well over a century, S.P. Dinsmoor’s Garden of Eden in Lucas has attracted visitors from near and far who come to marvel at the sculptural environment and cabin home that Dinsmoor created between 1907 and 1928. The Garden of Eden’s early 20th century guestbooks read like a “who’s who” of the time, including Dr. John R. Brinkley, the “goat gland doctor” and Lula Fowler, the wife of State Senator R.T. Fowler. The guestbooks also contain pages and pages of names of local residents who visited the Garden of Eden and had ties to Dinsmoor. Connecting the names of the guests to people in historic photos is the focus of the Garden of Eden’s “Community Harvest at the Garden of Eden: Citizen Historians of Lucas” project. Thanks to a 2025 HK Culture Preservation Grant and a group of dedicated history detectives from the Lucas Senior Center, the project is yielding a crop of new historical discoveries.

According to Erika Nelson, project director, the project engaged citizen historians whose enthusiasm for the project made a big impact. “Members of the Lucas Senior Citizens program have really adopted the identification work centered around the original guest books, dating from 1910 through the mid-1940s,” shared Nelson. “Early visitors to the Garden of Eden were primarily local and regional folks, and Senior Center volunteers have produced their own notebook of notes, identifying and connecting families from the region to their specific sign-ins. We'd originally focused an even amount of time on digital transcription and in-person transcription, but with the enthusiasm and depth of investigation evidenced with the senior center, we re-focused resources to highlight the most successful interactions.”

S.P. Dinsmoor (center) with unidentified visitors. Image courtesy of S.P. Dinsmoor’s Garden of Eden

The Lucas Senior Citizens’ work has been extensive, involving hours of research on local families and phone calls tracking down maiden names, dates, and other information. The resulting research can be cross-referenced with other local resources at the Lucas Public Library, including Lucas High School yearbooks. “Both tracks have been fruitful and illustrate the complexity of history,” observed Nelson. “Who tells the stories, and how much of what we know is true? Or which truths are we prioritizing when we research? I think this two-toned telling of local tales from the 1920s leads us to better understanding of the interconnectedness of friends and neighbors at Dinsmoor's time but also reveals that tendency to adopt supposition as truth, in the desire to have a solid answer.”

Although the grant project has been completed, the Garden of Eden’s work with the Senior Center to connect and verify local stories to the early Garden of Eden guest registers will continue. The Garden of Eden also plans on producing a series of Substack digital newsletter posts from the results.

Due to the National Endowment for the Humanities withholding funds appropriated by Congress to be used in Kansas in 2026, Humanities Kansas is currently unable to offer any grants funding. Please continue to check the HK website for updates.

Join the Movement of Ideas

• VISIT the S.P. Dinsmoor's Garden of Eden in Lucas.
• SUBSCRIBE to the S.P. Dinsmoor Garden of Eden Substack newsletter. 
• READ about a grassroots oral history project in Lucas supported by an HK grant. 
• WATCH a short film about the Post Rock Scenic Byway between Wilson and Lucas.