Goodland, Kansas: Stories of Homesteaders, Resilience & Smoky Gardens

A conversation about history and the work of keeping a small town alive

Goodland, Kansas came to life along the Rock Island Railroad’s line of water stops on the western plains.

For some families, the beginning took root and never let go. For others, finding a place has been less certain.

That thread ran through my conversation with Gennifer Golden House, a local leader, fundraiser, and farmer who’s spent her life tending to northwest Kansas. While doing research for my upcoming book, Lost in Goodland: A Memoir of Childhood Chaos, we spoke over a video call to talk about the history of our small town, as seen through both of our families.

I learned that my ancestors, Thomas and Margaret Butt (later Butts), were original homesteaders who arrived in Sherman County in 1887. 

Many of the early homes in Goodland were built by Thomas, who was one of the first carpenters in the area.

Before that, he fought for the Union in the Civil War alongside his two brothers, Edward and Zachariah. He served throughout the war in Company A of the 42nd Illinois Infantry, enlisting early in 1861. As a bugler, he took part in several major battles, including the daring nighttime capture of Island No. 10 in Tennessee, a key Confederate stronghold.

Wounded but alive, Thomas was discharged on July 7th, 1865, a rare stroke of luck, considering both of his brothers were killed in the war.

When he died in 1907, The Goodland Republic wrote, “An old landmark has fallen.”

Gennifer’s roots in Sherman County run deep through the Golden and House families, both long-standing names in local farming and civic life. She manages Golden Properties today, while her son works with the House operation. She serves her community through both land and leadership, from farming to serving on boards and working with foundations, schools, and local projects.

This is Goodland as Gennifer sees it—a place of deep roots and steady hands. For others, myself included, finding that kind of footing has been harder.

We talked for nearly two hours that Sunday afternoon. About homesteading. Courthouse gunfights. Mental health. Immigration. What I expected to be a history lesson turned into a living portrait of Goodland.

The conversation carried me straight back to her kitchen, over ten years prior, when I was visiting her daughter Ellie. Maybe it was my own insecurity, but their family always seemed perfectly at home in Goodland, sure of their place in the community and in the world. At the time, I felt the opposite. 

“I always wondered if you were part of that family,” Gennifer said, once we connected it. “They were original settlers. Your roots go back to the beginning.”

That beginning was anything but quiet. In the late 1800s, Eustis and Goodland clashed over election results and who would become the county seat. Eustis had the courthouse. Goodland had something to prove. So a group of armed Goodland residents stormed the Eustis courthouse and took the records.

“That’s how it was decided,” Gennifer said. “They just walked in and took it.”

The Rock Island Railroad reached Goodland in 1888, celebrated with fireworks, and parades, linking the town to the rest of the country and giving citizens connection beyond the county line. Even two presidents passed through town by train. Years later, Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, and John Dillinger all spent time in Goodland—in the county jail.

Fires, floods, and blizzards regularly threatened to erase that foundation, like the 1903 storm that killed 2,000 cattle, and prairie fires in 1916 burned within two miles of town. 

In the 1920s, the Dyatt family built a dam on their property, and turned a slow stretch of the Smoky Hill River into a reservoir. and filled the land with boats, ball games, dances, and fireworks. 

That spot came to be known as Smoky Gardens.

Families from all over the plains came to fish, boat, swim, picnic, and escape the Kansas heat. They loaded up their horse-drawn carriages with food, clothes, tents, and fishing gear, setting out for a few days of camping under the prairie sky.

But there was history to be written.

Floods came through and tore the dam apart over and over again. Each time The Smoky faded, the community refused to let it die. They rebuilt, patched it up, and tried again. When my grandparents got there, it was hard to tell if it had any life left. Grandpa worked alongside others to restore the land, breathing life into it once again. 

Some believe resilience is a trait earned and passed down through things like lost harvests and funerals that were too close together. And maybe it is. But I believe pain, or trauma, gets passed down too. Not only in history books or headlines, but in quieter ways. We inherit more than the color of our eyes or the way we laugh. We inherit some of the cuts that were never healed, the fears they tried to bury, and the emotions that went unexpressed.

If we’re lucky, we inherit the strength to survive it. And the chance to face what they did not. 

Our conversation wasn’t just about history. We talked about addiction, grief, and the parts of rural life people don’t always see.

She shared her father’s recovery through Valley Hope, a treatment center in Norton. I shared mine: growing up with a mother I loved deeply, who also struggled with addiction. Those moments, raw and real, are part of the story I’ve been trying to tell as I finish my first book.

“I think it’s important to show people they’re not alone in going through this,” I told her. “That what we went through might feel unique and shameful, but it’s not.”

She nodded. “Until you go through it, you don’t understand.”

Something that didn’t hit me until I was talking with Gennifer was just how few resources towns like Goodland have for battling substance abuse and addiction. In Goodland, that kind of help was non-existent. The nearest facility was 114 miles away in Norton. We rarely had a car that could make the trip, or the gas money to get there and back, let alone the cost of treatment itself.

It made me feel for my mom and the situation she was in. She made bad decisions in a time of despair and was left without access to real resources for recovery.

Gennifer says that resources are still scarce, and if that is the case, it means many people are still struggling.

We also talked about the growing number of international students coming through Fort Hays Tech Northwest today. And how the town is still figuring out what inclusion really means, including the ways it sometimes falls short.

"There's a warmth in Goodland, but it's not always extended to everyone equally," she noted. "It's something we're still working on."

Being different in Goodland isn’t easy, where the pull of tradition runs deep, and so do the social lines drawn generations ago.

While Goodland has begun opening up to diversity, the experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals, newcomers without deep family roots, and those who don’t fit into a fixed box show there’s still work to do in building a community that reflects the American value of freedom and equity for all.

"We have LGBTQ+ individuals in our community," Gennifer acknowledged. "But many aren't open about it, because they're unsure how it will be received."

We talked about who really holds power in a small town. Gennifer spoke about the importance of showing up to community events and meetings. But showing up isn’t always simple. Sometimes the door opens more easily for familiar names or people who’ve always felt welcome. For others, it’s not as clear where they belong.

"In small towns like ours, showing up is important," Gennifer emphasized. "But for some, especially newcomers or those who feel different, it's not always easy to find a place where they feel they belong. Legacy and history are valued here, but we need to make space for new stories and voices, too."

I’ve heard the saying, “Goodland takes care of their own.”, many times throughout my life. I could see it too, but I didn’t always feel it. The community falls back on the instincts that carried the generation before through dust storms and floods by holding steady, helping where they can, and finding a way forward.

Some of the examples, even in small town Kansas, were international news. 

In April 2001, a U.S. Navy surveillance plane went down hard over the South China Sea after a midair collision with a Chinese fighter jet. On board was Lt. Jeff Vignery, a co-pilot from Goodland, who helped steer the crippled aircraft through a freefall, calling out Maydays as they braced for impact. They managed to land in China, where they were detained for eleven tense days.

The crew faced isolation and interrogation while the world watched. Back in northwest Kansas, the Vignery family waited and worried, but were surrounded by a town who refused to let them feel alone. For those eleven days, resilience kept them and the community going. 

When the crew was released, Lt. Vignery returned to a hero’s welcome at the Naval Air Station in Whidbey Island, Washington and then all the way home in Goodland. 

Or Army Sgt. Derrick J. Lutters from Goodland, who was killed in Iraq when the vehicle he was in was attacked by a suicide bomber south of Baghdad. The community wrapped around the Lutters family with reverence and care, honoring them not only with sympathy, but with deep respect.

The community would rally around these families in quiet, steadfast ways. Meals would show up at the front door without anyone asking. Lawns would be mowed, snow cleared, errands handled by neighbors who knew what was needed before it had to be said. Prayer circles would form. Cards would pile up on kitchen counters. At school events, people would stand a little closer and speak a little softer. There were moments of silence held. Their names were spoken into microphones so they wouldn’t be forgotten.

“When my husband died,” Gennifer said, “I could dial the wrong number and the person would still ask how they could help.”

Goodland rallied around its own. 

But not everyone who lived in Goodland was claimed. What happens when the suffering isn’t obvious, or the story’s too messy to hold? When the community judges rather than helps? Or when they simply don’t want to face it?

Listening to Gennifer softened my resentment. Her stories helped me see why some families take pride in staying, even if I still wrestle with how that pride was used to measure worth. 

That kindness and community is something special, but it hurts that it isn’t there for everyone in Goodland. Maybe that’s not realistic.

I wish my hometown didn’t leave me with such mixed feelings. The memories are heavy, sometimes traumatic, and I know that shapes how I see it. But it’s still home and I think about it all the time. What I say isn't always praise, but it comes from love. 

There was pride in her voice—not just about my family, but about all the early homesteaders who staked claims, built wells, and dug into the soil with mule-drawn plows. 

“Some of those families are still here, several generations later,” she said.

But for Goodland to survive another hundred years, it will need to open itself to people and ideas once kept at arm’s length, honoring its ancestors while carrying their work forward. 

The old roots run deep. I just hope there’s still room for new ones to take hold.

Watch for Lost in Goodland, available 2026.