Franklin County Poor Farm: A Visitor's Perspective

Andre and Nicole Bonnin at the Poor Farm.
Photo by Peter Burns

This guest post was written by Andre Bonnin of Paris, France. Andre and his wife, Nicole, were visiting the Mettenburg family, of Princeton, Kansas, in October 2016 and were invited to join the Rural History Club's field trip to the Franklin County Poor Farm. Andre wrote the article in his native French; Nicole provided the English translation. Andre also took the photos, except for the one at left.

~~~~~

Archeology, history, social topics: here are three good reasons to meet a club of Kansas citizens, fans of history, in the outbuildings of a Franklin County “Poor Farm” on a sunny morning.

More than one hundred years ago, some kind people of this county worried about precarious conditions of poor farmers. A social and human sensitive issue without solution. Back to their ideals and looking for the Pilgrim Fathers' history, they founded a community gathering together those poor farmers. They built lodging houses and infirmaries providing medical care. Farm working in the fields around and milking cattle fed the farmers. A very innovative social adventure began.