Historic Ritchie House — Attraction in Topeka

If the description of how Lyme is made doesn’t entertain you, maybe the racist tour guide will! The tour guide referred to a slave as “it”, and talked more about how to manufacture concrete in a quarry and the Congregationalist church than the Underground Railroad. He had historically inaccurate information about Native Americans and called them “primitive people.” Please don’t come here, it would be a better use of your time to read the Wikipedia article. Or go to the Brown v. Board Historical site down the street, that’s an amazing way to learn about the history of segregation and slavery. It was mostly the guide we had, he was the only one there and he may not have been the regular guide, but our group was severely disappointed in the quality of...

I had been discussing the Colonel Ritchie story with a friend in Arizona who was interested in the Underground Railroad and bleeding Kansas history. So since I was in the neighborhood I decided to snap a photo. The caretaker happened to arrive at the same time so I was treated to a full tour of the property. Kansas history from this period is very interesting and seeing this house very much still in original condition. The organization that owns the property has done a wonderful job of restoring and maintains everything. I recommend this as a stop on any historical journey people make to the area. Maybe not a destination, but well...

Online hours show open on FRIDAYS. We show up Fri and it's actually open Tues-Thurs with very limited hours (victim of Covid I'm sure). However, we still walked around for photos (such a cool bldg exterior) and you can call into a displayed number on a board and listen to a recording about the property. It wasn't a total loss but still quite disappointed as it was our only planned day in city. They do need to coordinate hours on all medias so more people will not only learn about this unique place, but also not LOSE...