It’s Wamego Match Day!

by Michael Stubbs | Sep 14, 2024

OCTOBER 3 – 5, 2024

Prorated match on gifts
up to $5,000 per organization per donor

IN-PERSON EVENT

OCTOBER 3RD | 7 AM – 7 PM
IRON CLAD, 427 LINCOLN AVE

STOP BY TO MINGLE AND MAKE YOUR
MATCH DAY DONATION

 

 

ONLINE GIVING

OCTOBER 3RD – 5TH
12 AM – 11:59 PM
WAMEGOMATCHDAY.COM

MAKE YOUR DONATION ONLINE

 

 

MAIL IN/DROP OFF

RECEIVED BY OCTOBER 8TH
IRON CLAD, 427 LINCOLN AVE
OCTOBER 3-5, 2024

DROP OFF DONATIONS IN THE RED
DOOR MAIL SLOT AT IRON CLAD

Download your donation form here!

 

 

 

Thank you to the Patterson Family Foundation for providing $70,000 in matching funds for this year’s event.

Prairie Guards Main Fundraising Event of the Year

The Wamego Community Foundation Match Day is just over two weeks away on October 3^rd. Funds raised will support the Park’s yearly operating expenses and continued development of its educational resources.

Our efforts are now focused on communicating to visitors the many important stories associated with the Park. Contributions are needed for the design and fabrication of interpretive, commemorative, directional, and informational signage in the Park.

Subjects covered on the interpretive panels in the kiosk will include geology, tallgrass Prairie, Mount Mitchell’s 10,500-year-old cultural history, Native American tribes, Kansas Territory, “Bleeding Kansas”, the Beecher Bible and Rifle Colony, the Underground Railroad, and European and African American settlement in the neighborhood.

Donors’ past support has helped us create this wonderful prairie Park that is enjoyed by folks from all over the world. We are extremely grateful to them. If you are able, please help us finish this work by downloading this form and making a check out to the Wamego Community Foundation designating the Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards as the recipient. Online contributions may be made between October 3rd and October 5^th at wamegomatchday.com.

 

The board of the Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards: Christy Crenshaw, Bruce Waugh, Michelle Crisler, John Hund, Kathryn Mitchell Buster, Christian Bishop, Michael Stubbs, and Brian Peterson

 

Wamego Match Day How It Works

• On the enclosed form Choose Your Organization: Select which nonprofits you want to support. 100% of your donation goes directly to their fund at Wamego Community Foundation.
• Prorated Match: Donations are eligible for a prorated match based on the total amount raised and the available matching pool. For example, if an organization raises 7.5% of the total donations, they will receive 7.5% of the matching funds.

Donation Limits

• Donations of up to $5,000 per donor, per organization, are eligible for the prorated match.

Using the Funds

• Nonprofits can use their match funds for immediate needs, endowments, or other expenses.

Tax-Deductible Donations

• All donations are tax-deductible, with receipts provided by email or mail.

How to Donate

1. By Check: Write one check for all donations payable to Wamego Community Foundation. Complete a donation form to designate your chosen nonprofits. Mail the check to MMPG’s Box 136 Wamego KS, 66547 or Iron Clad, 427 Lincon, Wamego, KS 66547.
2. In-Person: Join us on October 3 at Iron Clad, 427 Lincoln Ave, Wamego from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. for the live event. Happy hour starts at 4:00 PM, drinks and light appetizers will be provided.
3. Online: Donate anytime from October 3 to October 5 through the wamegomatchday.com website.

Freedom’s Frontier NHA grant awarded to Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards

by Michael Stubbs | Aug 21, 2024

The Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards received $1,000 in grant funding from Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area. The award will help reprint the popular Park’s brochure, which is distributed locally and at Kansas Travel Information Centers across the state.

The Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards manage the 164-acre Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie Park south of Wamego in Wabaunsee County. The Guards recently completed construction of a new entrance to the Park at 29000 Mount Mitchell Road. Improvements include an accessible trail to the ruts of the Topeka Fort Riley Road used by the Underground Railroad helping enslaved people escape to freedom in Canada.

Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area (FFNHA) is a federally funded nonprofit organization and affiliate of the National Park Service dedicated to building awareness of the struggle for freedom along the Missouri-Kansas border. Established by Congress in 2006, its nationally significant themes are the settlement of the frontier, the Missouri-Kansas Border War and Civil War, and the enduring struggle for freedom. These diverse, interwoven, and nationally important stories grew from a unique physical and cultural landscape. FFNHA inspires respect for multiple perspectives and empowers residents to preserve and share these stories. We achieve our goals through interpretation, preservation, conservation, and education for all residents and visitors.

GRANT OPPORTUNITY UPDATES: Transportation Alternatives Grant

by Michael Stubbs | Jul 23, 2024

EXCITING GRANT OPPORTUNITY

by Michael Stubbs | May 2, 2024

Dear Friends and Neighbors and Supporters of the Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie Park,

We need your help.

The Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards have been invited by the Kansas Department of Transportation to prepare an application for a federal Transportation Alternatives Grant to build a pedestrian/bike trail from Wamego’s Miller Nature Park on the south bank of the Kansas River to the Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie Park, a distance of three miles.

The project is a segment of the Flint Hills Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Master Trail Plan for the region between Junction City and Wamego and is called the “Mount Mitchell Connector.” The opportunity to build this trail has come about because the design of the third phase of the K-99 realignment project between I-70 and the city of Wamego hasn’t been completed and the trail can still be included in the design.

Paralleling the highway, the trail will provide safe pedestrian and bike access to the historic Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie Park, a beloved 164-acre native tallgrass prairie and the location of a trail used by those seeking to escape enslavement on the westernmost route of the Underground Railroad.

The Park is: a Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area Star Attraction; a National Park Service Network to Freedom Site commemorating the Underground Railroad; an auxiliary site of the Brown V. Board National Historic Park and the US Civil Rights Trail. It is also a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places; an auxiliary site of the Kansas River Water Trail; and a featured attraction along the Native Stone Scenic Byway and the Road to Oz. When improvements are completed, the Park will be eligible for inclusion in the Kansas African American History Trail.

TRAIL BENEFITS:

• The Mount Mitchell Connector pedestrian/bike trail will provide safe access to Mount Mitchell for Wamego residents and users of the Kansas River Water Trail.
• It will provide safety for riders on the Canada to Mexico Great Plains Gravel Route.
• Mount Mitchell is an outdoor classroom and museum visited by schoolchildren, residents, and tourists. Providing better access to it helps preserve our heritage and strengthens community identity.
• The scientific basis for nature’s health benefits is now overwhelming. Study after peer-reviewed study has shown that nature exposure is linked to living longer, sleeping better, displaying improved cognitive function, and enjoying lower rates of heart disease, obesity, depression and stress.
• Trails not only provide health and wellness to individuals, they also encourage economic revitalization of communities, protection of the environment, and provide improved quality of life.

Please consider writing a letter of support for this project. Click here to download a sample letter – or a simple statement of support is fine. The grant deadline is fast approaching, so please send your letter ASAP to info@mountmitchellprairie.org or PO Box 136 Wamego, KS 66547!

Hilltop Monument destroyed

by Michael Stubbs | Feb 20, 2024

On February 14^th visitors to the Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie Park south of Wamego discovered that the hilltop monument to Captain William Mitchell and the Beecher Bible and Rifle Colony had been toppled and destroyed. The nine-foot-tall limestone monolith had been erected in 1956 by the Kansas State Historical Society during the centennial year of the colony’s arrival in Kansas Territory. Its placement had been one of the stipulations of the property’s transfer to state ownership by Captain Mitchell’s son Will three years earlier. Another stipulation of the gift was that the property would become a state park dedicated to Mitchell and the abolitionists of the Connecticut Colony.

After her brother’s death, Maude Mitchell, daughter of Captain and Mary Mitchell, contracted with Joe Beaudet of the Manhattan Monument Company to erect the marker. She accompanied Beaudet and his crew to the top of the hill expressing to him that she hoped the state would create the park she and her brother had envisioned. She died the following year.

For many reasons, the state never developed a park, and in 2002 the historical society began plans to return the property to Will Mitchell’s heirs. Local residents, now known as the Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards, contacted the Mitchell family and received their permission to pursue the property’s transfer to local control so that they could create the park their grandfather had envisioned.

The Kansas Legislature made the transfer in April of 2006 and since that time the Prairie Guards have raised over one million dollars to develop the Park. Its size has grown from 30 to 164 acres. Construction of a new main entrance and parking area at 29000 Mount Mitchell Road began last July and is expected to be completed in time for the Guard’s 11^th annual Mitchell Farm and Prairie Celebration on June 22^nd.

Other improvements include the installation of water, power, and WIFI connectivity, and a restroom as well as an accessible path to the swales of the Topeka Fort Riley Road, used by the westernmost route of the Underground Railroad. An interpretive kiosk will inform visitors of the many stories associated with this landscape. It will begin with the ancient Permian seas that created the Flint Hills topography, the appearance of a glacier that brought Sioux quartzite boulders to the area, the first indigenous people to live here, and continue to the present day.

The bronze plaque from the toppled monument has been salvaged and will be incorporated into a new monument that will also acknowledge the many donors who have fulfilled Will Mitchell’s dream to create a park that honors the pioneers who made Kansas a state free from slavery.

The Prairie Guards are currently working with the Kansas Department of Transportation and local officials to include a bike/walking path as part of the final phase of Highway 99’s reconstruction. The trail will run from the Miller Family Nature Preserve south of the Kansas River Bridge to the northwest corner of the Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie Park at the junction of Highways K99 and K18. This route is included in the Flint Hills Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Master Trail Plan and will connect Mount Mitchell with the Kansas River National Water Trail and the Great Plains Gravel Route.

According to cell phone data, Mount Mitchell received 3,220 visitors in 2022. The majority of visitors came from Pottawatomie, Riley, and Wabaunsee Counties. Tax-deductible contributions to assist in replacing the destroyed monument or for other improvements to the park can be made by check to Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards, PO Box 136, Wamego KS 66547 or click here to make your donation!