Le Hunt, KS

Le Hunt has as many stories about it as it has spellings of it's name; Le Hunt, LeHunt, La Hunt, La Hunte, Lahunte, Lehunt and so on. No matter how it is spelled one thing remains clear about Le Hunt, it is a place lost in time and surrounded by mystery.

Le Hunt once the site of a cement plant that operated by the Porter Company from the mid 1800's until the depression years of the 1930's. It was a company town named after Leigh Hunt who was the contractor who built the plant. All the people that lived there or operated a business there worked for the company. Even the town Government was headed by the Plant Administrator, who was (for the majority of the towns life), a gentleman by the name of Perkins who is buried in the towns cemetery.

When the cement plant closed the town became deserted. Little remains except a few ruins, walls, foundations and sidewalks. The Le Hunt school is still intact and is now a private residence. Also the cabin of Silent Movie Western Star Tom Mix who was once the Town Marshall still stands across the road from the school. The old cement plant smoke stack can be seen from miles away but is slowly crumbling. One day it will topple and cease to be a landmark on the landscape.

In one wall of the old cement plant you can see an embedded wheel barrow and the impression of where an old pick ax was implanted as well as a shovel head. Just around the corner from that is the name "BOARS" inscribed in the cement wall. This is a tribute to a worker who fell into the wet concrete forms while the plant was being built and whose body remains sealed forever within those walls. His ghost is said to haunt the site.

The foundations of the sidewalks and homes that once lined abandoned county road 5000 can be seen through the heavy brush but the main attraction is of course the old cement plant. The plant and factory site sits on the side of a bluff and is very treacherous. If climbing the debris covered trails to the smoke stack and memorial wall take extreme care as metal rods and rails poke from the ground and underbrush.

The warehouse, which sits by the road, is divided into 3 sections. The walls are crumbling and covered in graffiti. Inside Oak Saplings and Red Cedar break through the concrete floor reminding the visitor that this was once and will again be their domain long after the last wall has fallen. As you look up the walls at the outline of where the roof once covered the plant you feel like you are carried back 100 years to the days when it was an active industry.

As you walk the old county road past the plant you pass the natural spring which served as the towns reservoir and water source. As you round the curve in the road which follows and old creek bed you soon come across the town cemetery. Stones have been vandalized with graffiti and pushed over.* Jasmine covers many of the graves and though the Sexton of the Sycamore Cemetery District tends the cemetery 3 times a year, grass does not seem to grow as rampant in this area as it does elsewhere in the area.

Walking the old county road past the cemetery you soon notice the Elk River running below. At one time a bridge crossed the river and the foundations of the bridge can still be seen but one has to look for them as the land and river are reclaiming them. On the other side of the river an old house and stable sits, a shadow of it's one time glory reflected in the remains of it's crumbling walled patio and grand porch. It was once the home of the plant Administrators but with the closing of the plant it was sold and for many years, due to it's seclusion, served as a brothel and road house.

Talk of a lone man walking the road at dusk, voices heard throughout the town site, a ghostly wolf dog with a black mask and an elusive goat man are just a few of the legends that surround the site. I can confirm that there is a heaviness that is felt around the plant especially behind the back wall of the warehouse. I and my wife Debbie have both heard voices from different locations within the plant site. Most prominently around the memorial wall. There is also evidence of Wiccan and Satanic rituals being performed at different locations around the site.

The mile long walk up the road through the old town site and to the plant is peppered with fascinating things to see if one just looks. From stable foundations to one remaining lamp post to remnants of a rock wall that lines the old county road. Le hunt has an adventure and mystery at every turn.

There is now a gate blocking the old county road to the site installed by the man who is leasing the property from the county. You now need special permission to enter the site and he is not really interested in allowing entrance due to vandalism by people who have no respect for the property. If you enter you enter at your own risk as the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department patrols the area on a regular basis.

Le Hunt, Kansas a town lost in time and slowly becoming part of the bluff from which it sprang.