Our final stop in Kansas during our 50 state road trip was the city of Hutchinson. Hutchinson is in the center of the state and has several fun things to do (more on those activities in the coming week).
It’s also fairly close to all sorts of other interesting locations, so Shae, Truffles and I went on a mini-road trip for the day around central Kansas.
With an interesting museum, some sculpture hunting, a castle on a hill (in Kansas!), mushroom rocks and more, there was lots to keep us busy all day. So if you’re planning a trip to central Kansas, here are some tips for fun things to do and see there.
Old Mill Museum
Our first stop was the Old Mill Museum in Lindsborg, a city known as Little Sweden due to its Swedish heritage. A friend from where we used to live in Portsmouth VA connected us with Sheila who works at the museum.
A tour of the Old Mill Museum is only $2 for adults and $1 for children and so is excellent value. The tour started off with a video in the main building which explained some of the museum’s history. Sheila and Jim then took us across to the Old Mill itself for a guided tour. It was fascinating to see all the machinery inside that was built more than 100 years ago.
The machinery lays dormant all year except for the first weekend of May when they hold Millfest. To celebrate Millfest, they fire up the machinery and offer tours while it’s running. That’d be an extremely interesting experience, so we’ll swing back by the museum if we’re ever passing through Kansas at the beginning of May. Here’s a list of all the activities from the 2018 Millfest celebration.
Address
Old Mill Museum, 120 East Mill Street, Lindsborg, KS 67456
Heritage Square
The Old Mill Museum is also home to Heritage Square, a collection of seven historic buildings. Heritage Square is across the street from the Old Mill Museum and the buildings are open for you to explore inside to learn more about the lives of early Kansan residents.
There’s an old school house you can look around…
…along with the Swedish Pavilion, a building that was prefabricated in Sweden and shipped across the Atlantic for the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair.
Dala Horses in Lindsborg
Dala horses are carved and painted wooden statues from Sweden and the city of Lindsborg has adopted the Dala as its symbol. Local residents and businesses have done a great job with getting on board with this and as a result you’ll see small Dala horses hanging outside many homes and businesses around the city.
These smaller Dala are created by a store called Hemslojd that sells all kinds of other souvenirs and Swedish-themed items. You can even buy your own Dala like the ones pictured above and below, or a small ornament version.
Those aren’t the only Dala you’ll see in Lindsborg though. There are dozens of larger sculptures around the city for you to find, so check out this post to see them all and find out where they’re located.
Coronado Heights Park
After spending a couple of hours searching for the wild Dala horses in Lindsborg, we headed a few miles north to Coronado Heights Park.
Coronado Heights is a 300′ hill that stands out from the local area which is fairly flat. The area is thought to be where Francisco Vásquez de Coronado gave up on his hunt for the seven cities of gold, hence the name.
A castle-looking building was built at the top of Coronado Heights in 1936 and is open to the public.
There are picnic tables inside the castle, so it’s probably a lovely place to hang out in the height of summer as it likely remains cool inside due to all the stone. There’s also a fireplace off to the left of this photo where you could grill food.
There’s a staircase inside the castle for you to climb to the top. From up there you get a good view of the surrounding countryside, something you can also get from some of the picnic tables around the grounds at Coronado Heights Park.
There are stone picnic tables all around the castle, with a couple of adjacent tables that’d be good for a larger group, along with an outdoor stone fireplace. One of the nice things about Coronado Heights Park is that there’s no fee to visit.
Address
Coronado Heights Park, Falun, KS 67442
Rock City Park
From Coronado Heights, we continued heading north about 45 miles to Rock City Park. Rock City Park is found just outside the small city of Minneapolis (Kansas, not Minnesota!) and has a couple of hundred unique rock formations.
We’d found out about Rock City Park when Vickie Holland had shared her post with us about things to do in Kansas. We were glad she did as it was worth checking out. I’m not great when it comes to geology, so check out Rock City Park’s Wikipedia entry to learn more about how these boulders were formed.
One thing to note is that Rock City Park has an admission fee – $3 for adults and $0.50 for children.
Address
Rock City Park, 1051 Ivy Rd, Minneapolis, KS 67467
Mushroom Rock State Park
After leaving Rock City Park, we headed southwest about 40 miles to Mushroom Rock State Park, another place we read about on Vickie’s blogpost. Unlike Rock City Park, there’s no admission fee to enter Mushroom Rock State Park.
Covering only 5 acres of land, Mushroom Rock State Park is the smallest state park in Kansas which is one of the reasons we wanted to check it out. The main reason we wanted to visit it though was because it’s also home to some unique rock formations. These ones are different though as they’re shaped like – you guessed it – mushrooms.
These rocks are apparently very similar to the rocks from Rock City Park, they’re just more eroded. This park did have a few similar-looking boulders to Rock City Park though.
When heading out that morning, we hadn’t planned to spend a couple of hours in Lindsborg searching for the Dala sculptures. Thankfully we got to Mushroom Rock State Park just in time before the sun went down.
Address
Mushroom Rock State Park, Ave K, Brookville, KS 67425
Final Thoughts
This road trip around central Kansas lasted from about 10 am to 6 pm, so it’s a day full of activities that are all worth checking out.
It’s also a cheap day out. If you do this as two adults, your only costs will be for gas and $10 in admission fees – $4 for the Old Mill Museum and $6 for Rock City Park. We brought our lunch with us to make it even cheaper, so Coronado Heights Park was the perfect place to stop for lunch.
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