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LeHunt
was once a small town supported primarily by the United
Kansas
Portland Cement Company. Little is left of the town beyond a
few old ruins of the cement plant and an old cemetery. Once a thriving
community, now the town can only be discerned from overgrown avenues
of trees, broken sidewalks and foundations hidden by grass and heavy
brush.
In the
1920’s the concrete factory was a thriving business but with the
advent of the Great Depression, it shut its doors and the small town
died with the plant.
The concrete
plant lies about ½ miles to the west of what remains of the old town
and can only be reached by hiking through the underbrush. While
trees and weeds try to choke out where the town's cement plant once
stood, the walls, ovens and giant smokestack of the factory are still
remarkably intact.
The old
cemetery lies about
½
mile north of
the factory site, with graves dating back to the late 1860s.
The old site of
the cement plant is said to be haunted by the ghost of one of the
workers by the name of Bohr, who died in a tragic accident at the plant. As the story goes, Bohr fell into a vat of concrete and
his body was never recovered. After this disastrous event, his
co-workers embedded his wheelbarrow, pick and shovel into a wall of
concrete that was under construction at the time. His name, as
well as his pick axe can still be seen at the factory ruins.
With the aid of
a sturdy vehicle, visitors can make their way down the rutty, dirt
paths. LeHunt is located northwest of Independence, immediately
east of Elk Reservoir in Montgomery County,
Kansas
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