The Road that Keeps My Feet on the Ground

 

It’s my favorite road in the world.

We call it the Longville Gravel Pit Road.

Folks in Longville know it as the Dry Creek Road.

It’s a rough eleven mile track that connects Highway 113 and US 171.

There’s so many reasons why this road is special to me.

Below are several:

 

It’s a wildlife road:

 

I slowed down today to look for the turkeys. In the edge of the rye grass, I saw them. As I eased my truck to a stop, they stopped their grazing and eyed me carefully. I took my grandfather’s binoculars and glassed them. There were eight of them. As they watched me, they began stretching, flapping their wings, and strutting about, before beginning a joint retreat toward the cover of Dry Creek swamp, stopping periodically to grab an insect or seed as they left.

 

 

Noah Iles in front of Deep Roots Tree on Longville Gravel Pit Road

The Gravel Pit Road is also where the two graves are:

Killed by Jayhawkers

The compilers of this reference document have not seen these graves but several persons have told us about them. A friend, George McFatter, just happened to have the information in his wallet and shared it with us. Thank you, George!

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• LEMUEL JACKSON BRADFORD JUN 29 1825 FEB 1865
  [KILLED BY JAYHAWKERS]
• WILLIAM WASHINGTON GREEN 1829 1865
  [KILLED BY JAYHAWKERS]

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Collected by George McFatter
Evelyn E. Cole and Roberta B. Doty
April 1993On April 16, 1993, after many months of searching for these graves, we met a young man who agreed To lead us to them. He is 13 year old Whitney Green. We are most grateful to him. We drove west on the Longville Road from Dry Creek about 4 or 5 miles to tombstone road. We parked at a locked gate [Whitney’s father is a member of the hunting club which leases this property]. We walked almost a mile to the grave site. Welborn Monument Co. placed headstones on these graves several years ago making this a permanently marked part of history.

Originally, there was a fence around the monuments, but it has been removed.

 

Noah and I tried to find the graves yesterday but failed.

It’s been years since I went there.  If you know which side road to park/walk, let me know.