Ice Age: Where There's Water, There's a Way

The Ice Age

Wisconsin shore St. Croix River Dalles

The Wisconsin glacial period lasted from about 85,000 - 11,000 years ago.  During this time ice covered most of North America north of 38 degrees north latitude to a depth of 2 miles.  As the ice sheet melted about 10,000 years ago, the meltwater filled parts of the basins of modern Lakes Superior, Huron and Michigan.  The natural drainage of this lake was to the east, but a lobe of the glacier blocked that exit.  Water from an area of ice sheet the size of Minnesota and a mile deep filled glacial Lake Duluth until water level was 400-500 feet above the level of modern Lake Superior.

Rounded and polished boulders

When the water overtopped the hills forming a natural dam on the southwest side, the water ran in torrents down the modern Bois Brule and St. Croix River Valleys for years.  The water cut easily through Cambrian sandstones, but ran over the top of harder rock.  South of here, the rush of water cut deeply into sandstone forming a huge waterfall.  The erosive action of the water cut away the foot of the fall and marched upstream and the lip broke loose, eventually cutting into the hard basalt that would form the narrow chute we call the Dalles of the St. Croix River.  The force of the water running by here is likened by park interpreters as that of a fire hose.  Only the water was full of sand, rocks and boulders.  These can be seen in the smoothness of the rocks polished by the action of that sediment-laden water.

But Doctor Hoffman, where did the sand, rocks and boulders come from?  Wow, great question, glad you asked.  As the Midcontinent Rift formed, water and cycles of freezing and thawing wore down the basalt and the dirt filled the rift valley.  In lakes and rivers of the rift valley, sandstones and shales were deposited.  Add to that the material that was scooped out by glaciers during the ice ages and deposited at the margins of the glaciers as they melted.  Turn on the jets from an overtopped glacial lake dam, and it scours out the loose stuff just like a power washer pushing dirt across your porch or driveway.

Fun Potholes

Small pothole cut through rock

As a torrent of water runs over a rocky bed, there are areas where eddies form.  These swirling circular currents will start to scour out a depression in the rock with the sand and rocks that it moves.  If a rock rolls into the depression and cannot move out, the water may be able to rock it and roll it around, smoothing the rock into a round grindstone.  These grindstones can then swirl around the perimeter of the hole, cutting it deeper.  Interstate Park has the highest known concentration of these features and some of the deepest known potholes.

Pothole

The flow of water out of Lake Duluth may have continued for hundreds of years.  Only when the Superior lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet melted did the water flow downhill toward the east.  One can only imagine how much water and force was required to carve out the St. Croix Dalles and these potholes.  It must have sounded much like it would standing at the bottom of Niagara Falls.  The small pothole figured above is only about six inches across and about two feet deep, tunneling through the entire rock layer.  There are over a hundred potholes in the boundaries of the park that are much larger than this.  We were actually standing in a twenty feet deep pothole when we took the picture of the left, which shows another pothole that was cut even deeper.

Grindstone

Conglomerates

Conglomerate on rocks

Scoured potholes, grindstones, a gorge cut through tough rock, and rounded boulders all point to a huge flow of water through here.  Not just water, but water full of boulders, rocks, pebbles, and sand.  How can we be sure? As we were hiking through the woods, we came upon some rocks at least 30 feet above the current level of the water covered with conglomerate.  This mixture of sand and pebbles solidified after one of these tremendous floods and cover the rocks in places.  The water flowing out of glacial Lake Duluth would have been chock full of this stuff, ideal for cutting through rock.  The pebbles in the photograph range up to about 1 inch in width.

Creation of the Park

The basalt in this area was perfect for making gravel for building material, a business venture proposed by a group of St. Paul businessmen in the 1860s.  Public interest to preserve the scenery was piqued and influential people like George Hazzard and William H.C. Folsom led the push for preserving the Dalles.  George Hazzard was a travel agent, Chamber of Commerce chair and secretary of the Red Rock Camp Meeting Association, which pushed for the combined Minnesota and Wisconsin park idea.   Folsom led the legislative push to establish the Minnesota side of the Park.  The Minnesota side was established in 1895 and was the second Minnesota State Park, while the Wisconsin side was established in 1900 as the first Wisconsin State Park.

Deep pothole

Rock with several small potholes

Getting There

Waypoint: Latitude 43.3936727 N; Longitude 92.6709847 W
Street Address: US-8/St. Croix Trail and Milltown Rd., Taylors Falls, MN 55084


On I-35 north of the Twin Cities, take Exit 132 to Taylors Falls (US-8 East).  The entrance to the Park (Milltown Rd) is in Taylors Falls just west of the bridge to Wisconsin.  There is another part of the park in Wisconsin (hence the name Interstate State Park)

Pothole filled with debris

Trail of the Whispering Giants: Tall Oak

Less than a half hours drive west from St. Joseph, Missouri - just off of US-36, is the Doniphan County Courthouse.  This is another thing I am a fan of - the old county courthouses positioned on a town square.  The Doniphan County courthouse is a beautiful brick building executed in the Romanesque Revival style that is common in Kansas.  The three story building is built on a limestone rock foundation, has round towers at each corner and is topped with a decagonal cupola.  The windows of the basement and first floors have stone lintels and the windows on the third floor have arched lintels.  The north and south ends of the building serve as main entryways and have limestone porches.

A very striking feature stands next to the courthouse; a carved wooden statue of an American Indian.  This is one of the "Whispering Giants" carved by Peter Wolf Toth, a Hungarian-born artist who settled in Akron, Ohio.  His art honors oppressed people, especially the American Indian.  He carved at least one of these statues for each state in the US.  Missouri's Giant stood in Forest Park, at a prominent intersection by the St. Louis Zoo.  Unfortunately, it was destroyed by a lightning strike in one of the thunderstorms common to the American Midwest.

Toth asks for no money for the sculptures, but they generally appraise at about $250,000.  All he asks is the community to provide a large log, a place to stay and meals.  Doniphan County's Giant "Tall Oak" is carved from a 250 year old Burr Oak tree and stands 27 feet tall.  Prior to carving, Toth meets with local Indian groups to get advice for the carving.  There seems to be no one single tribe represented by this sculpture, having some modern Pan-Indian features in regalia.  This is reflective of Kansas' complex history of native peoples.

"I study the Indians of the area, then visualize an Indian within the log.  It is a composite of all the native people of the state." -  Peter Toth

Prior to Euroamerican contact, several tribes called this region home. Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kansa, Kiowa, Osage, Pawnee, and Wichita tribes all had established permanent communities within the boundaries of modern Kansas. Even a band of Apache called Kansas home for a short while. When the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was signed, eastern tribes were forced to move to small reservations in this part of the Louisiana Purchase which was closed to most white settlement. Not only were these eastern tribes dispossessed of their lands, but many of the tribes within Kansas were moved, as well. The Pawnee, for example were pushed to a reservation of about 300 square miles in Nebraska, after centuries of living in an area the size of Iowa. Among these emigrant tribes were: Cherokee; Chippewa; Delaware; Illiniwek; Ioway; Iroquois; Kaskaskia; Kickapoo; Missouria; Munsee; several New York tribes; Otoe; Ottawa; Peoria; Piankashaw; Potawatomi; Quapaw; Sac and Fox;Shawnee; Stockbridge; Wea; and Wyandot tribes.

1846 Location of Indian Reservations in Kansas Territory

In 1854, Kansas was opened to white settlement, most Indian lands sold and the people removed again. The majority of the tribes listed above were sent to Indian Territory, which is now the state of Oklahoma. A few tribes remain. Within an hour's drive from my house are reservations for the Ioway, Sac and Fox, Kickapoo, and Potawatomi. This statue is but one reminder of the series of pivotal, complex events in the history of the United States that took place in Kansas. You know, the boring state.

The Fourth Courthouse

James White Cloud, Ioway Chief from 1866-1940

This is the fourth courthouse that has served the county. The first was a temporary building that was replaced in 1858 by a building on the courthouse square. After the second courthouse burned down on 12 March 1867, a third was build 1867-1868, but was outgrown and torn down to make way for the present building in 1905.

The architects of the chosen design were George Washburn and Sons of Ottawa, Kansas. This firm designed a number of notable buildings in Kansas. The builders were J.H. Wagenknecht of Wathena, who had the courthouse ready for a 04 July 1906 dedication with the largest crowd assembled in Doniphan County at the time: 6,000 to 8,000 people. These people knew how to throw a dedication; parade, fireworks, speeches and (I assume) food.

Six Degrees

This is one of the family courthouses. My Mom and Dad were married here, as was a sister, several aunts and uncles. Most  of the marriages worked, some didn't. This courthouse was my Dad's answer to wedding planning: Take $25 to Troy, get a marriage license, get married and have enough to eat at McDonald's afterward. I don't know that you could do any ONE of those things on $25 any more.

Getting There

Traveling west from I-29 and St. Joseph on US-36, turn left at Troy, KS and follow the signs to the Peter Toth Sculpture and the Doniphan County Courthouse.

Waymark: Latitude 39.786006 N; Longitude 95.088924 W
Street Address: 120 E. Chestnut, Troy, KS 66087.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Continental Rift

Wisconsin side of St. Croix Dalles as seen from Minnesota

One of my favorite questions to ask students in Biogeography or Evolution is "What evidence do you see around you of a changing Earth?"  It is an important question; one of the many that were just starting to be addressed as Charles Darwin set foot on the HMS Beagle.  Our time on Earth is so fleeting and the time required for massive change is so long, that it is no wonder that many people assume that the Earth is essentially as it always has been.  If only time machines were a thing.  Where are Doc Brown and Marty McFly when you need them?

Nadienne blending in

The evidence is there if you open your eyes and ask the right questions.  Many places exist that act as our time machine, allowing us to see structures on Earth that have been hidden for hundreds, millions, or even billions of years.  One of my favorite evidences for a changing Earth has to be Interstate State Park, which flanks the St. Croix River in Minnesota and Wisconsin, just north of the Twin Cities.  Here, Ice Age floods have scoured out a record of a time when the North American Craton (core continental crust) began to tear apart into new continents about 1.1 billion years ago.

Volcanic Rocks...In Minnesota and Wisconsin?

Pillow lava with flood basalt deposited on top

A lot of people are surprised to hear that there are deposits of basalt or other volcanic rock in places where there are no obvious volcanoes, but they are here.  When I walked down into one of the park valleys, even knowing that I was looking at basalt I was still a bit surprised to see signs of classic pillow lavas.  This lava breaks out to the surface underwater, and the water cools the surface of the lava, but the inside keeps flowing which causes big blobs of basalt to form as in the bottom half of the picture at right.

Bubble pattern shows successive volcanic episodes 

Reading the record in the rocks (yes, I do see the world in equation form and process diagrams), it is possible to see evidence for at least seven basalt flows at Interstate State Park.  When a basalt erupts to the surface, gases escape from the molten rock, and bubbles of gas are trapped in the thicker cooling rock at the surface of the deposit.  Looking closely at the rocks, you can see a layer of bubbles from one eruption, then see a smooth deposit with few bubbles from the next eruption, then the incidence of bubbles increases as you move upwards, until the cycle repeats itself.

Multiple volcanic episodes seen...bubbles...no bubbles...bubbles...no bubbles...bubbles

Some of those bubbles can be quite

Amygdules in basalt

large.  Over the course of a billion years, and under a pool of water like Lake Superior and its ancestral precursors, water percolates through the rock and drags minerals into these cavities.  When the concentration of mineral gets high enough, they crystallize.  Several of the rocks here contain amygdules of quartz and feldspar.  In the Lake Superior basin, many of these deposits are banded in beautiful reds and browns from iron, forming the famous Lake Superior agates.  These rocks were released from their lava prisons by cycles of freezing and thawing, then tumbled and transported south by glaciation.  We find them (rarely) in northern Missouri, and they are relatively common in the Mississippi River valley north of Missouri.

A large Lake Superior agate

The Midcontinent/Keweenawan Rift

Arms of rift in red with direction of rifting indicated

Most of the rocks in this volcanic system lie buried, but the metals that they contain create a gravity high that can be measured.  The system runs from Lake Superior east into Michigan, southwest into Kansas/Oklahoma and perhaps north to Lake Nipigon in Ontario, Canada.  The basalt ranges from two to twelve miles in thickness, and is buried by as much as six miles of sediment in some places.  Surface exposures are found only around Lake Superior and south through the St. Croix River valley.

The crust of the Earth is relatively thin and broken into a variety of continental and oceanic rocks.  These plates move with respect to each other, driven by the tremendous heat engine that is the mantle.  Seafloor spreads from an upwelling of magma that seeps through to the surface depositing igneous (volcanic) rock that is relatively dense.  Deposition of new material here will push two plates apart.  Heated magma will also rise and strike the bottom of the plate, dragging it along by conveyor action.  Eventually, two plates are going to collide with each other.  Oceanic crust is denser than continental crust, and tends to slip under the continental crust, pushing on the edge of the continent, elevating the continental edge.  A deep trench is evident where this subduction is taking place.  Gravity and density work together and pull the subducting plate downwards.

Stages of rifting - Midcontinent Rift stopped between steps  5 and 6

As the oceanic crust melts, the water in it superheats and may start melting the continental crust, far away from the subduction zone.  The rising plume of magma will cause a dome to form in the crust, eventually the heating by the magma will cause the lithosphere (crust and upper layers of mantle) to become more plastic and stretch.   The lithosphere will sag under the weight of the overlying crust, causing faults (breaks) to form in the crust, forming a series of valleys and ridges.  Magma may find its way to the surface in the region of the mantle plume or intrude into pre-existing rocks further away.  The valleys may fill with water, as with the Rift Valley Lakes in East Africa.

As igneous rocks are deposited in the rift, the rift widens.  If rifting continues long enough, a new ocean will open up, separating the continental land mass.  This process is easiest to see in East Africa, where a triple-junction has opened from a mantle plume under Ethiopia.  Extension of the rift to the northwest is tearing the Arabian peninsula free from Africa, and the Mediterranean Sea will be connected to the Indian Ocean, as well as the Atlantic. Rift extension to the southwest will separate the African Plate into the Nubian Plate and Somalian Plate, with an oceanic corridor between them.

East African Rift triple junction

Round and round

Pillow lava overlain by flood basalt

This predicts a cycle of events in which oceanic widening pushes continental landmasses together into a supercontinent.  Rifts that appear in the supercontinent results in oceanic intrusion and the landmasses float apart into separate continents.  Continued seafloor spreading pushes the landmasses together again and another supercontinent  forms.  Currently, spreading of the Atlantic Ocean basin is pushing the Americas away from Europe and Africa on the east, while the Pacific Ocean is closing on the west and the Americas and Asia are getting closer.  The 2011 earthquake in Japan caused Japan to shift closer to North America by 13 feet.  The usual rate of plate movements is about the same as the growth of your fingernails.

Rodinia reconstructed showing mountain building areas (green)

The Midcontinent rifting took place when the continents were assembling into the supercontinent of Rodinia.  Minnesota was located very close to the equator and directions were rotated about 90 degrees from present (west now was north then).  The mantle plume for the Midcontinent Rift was under present-day Lake Superior.  The rifting resulted in quite a bit of volcanic action which is evident on the surface in the north.  Pillow lavas which were deposited at the bottom of rift lakes were overlain by later flood basalts that erupted from fissures in the Earth.  From Iowa south, the volcanics rose up into pre-existing rocks, but probably did not break through to the surface.

Continental movement prediction for the next 250 million years

Rifting lasted for 15-22 (ish) million years, then stopped.  This break nearly opened up a way to the ocean; it is the deepest rift known to have healed.  Geology of the region suggests that the crust in this region thinned to 25% of its pre-rifting thickness.  The region of Lake Erie was about continents edge at the time of this rift.  The East Coast of North America was added through later collisional events.  During the formation of Rodinia, it is thought that the North American craton collided with the Rio Plato, Amazonia and Baltica cratons, resulting in the formation of mountains.  This mountain building episode is called the Grenville orogeny, and may have put enough pressure on North America to halt the spreading of the rift and reverse it.  Many blocks of reverse faulted crust can be found, being pushed upwards by compression.

Rio Grande Rift

Continents will continue to move, stretch and break as long as there is molten rock on the interior of Earth.  There is some thought that the New Madrid fault zone between Missouri and Tennessee is the product of a failed rift.  Active rifts abound, famously including the East African Rift.  The magnificent lava fountains of Iceland are formed by the Mid-Atlantic Rift reaching the surface of the water.  In North America, there are several active rift zones, including Death Valley and the Rio Grande River Valley.  Hotspot plumes of mantle trace a path in the Hawaiian Island chain and across Idaho into present day Yellowstone National Park.  Present models suggest that 250 million years from now, the landmasses of Earth will again coalesce into a supercontinent, this time called Pangaea Proxima.

Getting There

Waypoint: Latitude 43.3936727 N; Longitude 92.6709847 W
Street Address: US-8/St. Croix Trail and Milltown Rd., Taylors Falls, MN 55084


On I-35 north of the Twin Cities, take Exit 132 to Taylors Falls (US-8 East).  The entrance to the Park (Milltown Rd) is in Taylor Falls just west of the bridge to Wisconsin.  There is another part of the park in Wisconsin (hence the name Interstate State Park) just across the bridge at Taylors Falls.

Further Reading

Interstate Park - MN DNR

Midcontinent Rift System in Iowa - Aerial Surveys

Grave Matters: Walter Sutton

Sutton family marker by mausoleum in section 19, Oak Hill Cemetery

Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas has been called "Kansas' Arlington".  Buried here are legends of Kansas territorial and early state history.  Victims of Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, US senators, US representatives, generals, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, US Cabinet secretary, frontier doctors, publishers and sports legends are interred here.  Many of these are on the "must visit" list of historic burials.  While they are indeed interesting people and warrant discussion at another time, the most historically relevant figure buried here rests in a grave sharing a nice, but modest marker with his parents and siblings.  This person is Dr. Walter S. Sutton, the person who first realized that chromosomes were the carriers of genetic information.

Mendel's peas, Sutton's grasshoppers

According to science standards, every schoolkid in the US should have a grasp of Mendelian genetics.  Using garden peas as his model, Mendel devised a model of genetics that described inheritance by a model in which: inheritance is controlled by discrete factors (we call them genes); indviduals have two copies of each factor; alternate forms of the factor exist to give different trait appearances; these factor pairs are segregated during sex cell formation; factors are recombined randomly at fertilization and the assortment of factors for one trait does not affect the assortment of alleles for other traits.  Sutton examined the behavior of chromosomes during meiosis (sex cell formation) in male grasshoppers (Brachystola magna).  Among his discoveries were that: chromosomes existed in pairs (except for sex chromosomes); the chromosome number is halved during meiotic division; and maternal and paternal chromosomes could be separated from each other randomly.  That sounded a lot like Mendel's factors to Sutton.  This is found in a 1902 paper "On the morphology of the chromosomal group of Brachystola magna" followed up more explicitly in his 1903 paper "The chromosomes in heredity".

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio (or Walter Sutton)? 

Dr. Walter Stanborough Sutton

After the publication of his 1903 paper, Walter S. Sutton's publication record in genetics goes cold.  No follow up, no experimental elaboration of his theory, no concrete explanation for how chromosomes are involved in inheritance.  This is very odd for a scientist with an idea this big.  Sturtevant, Morgan, Watson, Crick, McClintock, Blackburn...all have follow up papers.  Not Sutton.  Why?  Did his situation change?  Mendel had no follow-up paper, but he became the abbot of his monastery.  Kicked out of research by a move to administration.  What about Sutton?

When trying to pick up a trail in research, it is often instructive to go all of the way back to the beginning and follow a paper trail back to where it went cold.  Finding a good clue can allow you to project the trajectory of a life past that point.  Walter Stanborough Sutton was born in Utica, New York on 05 April 1877.  The family relocated to Russell, Kansas when Sutton was young and took up ranching.  Life on the ranch suited Walter, and he learned how to fix and make machinery for working the ranch.

Walter Sutton sits next to his brother William B., who is holding the ball

Mechanical aptitude led Sutton to the University of Kansas in 1896, seeking a degree in engineering. His first summer break would be life-changing. An outbreak of typhoid fever in the family led to the death of his 17-year old brother, John. When Walter returned to classes, he began studies in biology with an eye toward a career in medicine. Working with C.E. McClung, Sutton earned his B.A. (Biology) in 1900 and M.A. (Zoology) in 1901. His master's thesis examined spermatogenesis in Brachystola magna.   Even with this fine record of achievement, Walter found time for recreation and played on the first KU basketball team for Dr. James Naismith.

St. Margaret's Hospital in Kansas City, KS

After graduation from KU, Sutton moved to Columbia University in New York on a postgraduate fellowship working with Edmund Beecher Wilson.  He wrote his two seminal works on the chromosome theory during this time.  In 1903, Sutton abruptly left Columbia, returning to work in the oil fields, suggesting financial motivations for the move.  During his work in the Kansas oil fields, he developed several apparatuses including a method of starting pump engines with high pressure gas and hoists for deep wells.  He would never complete his PhD in Zoology, although it seems he always intended to return to it.

Second Bell Memorial Hospital

In 1905, Sutton returned to Columbia, but this time in medical school.  Given credit for his graduate coursework, he graduated with an M.D. in 1907.  He stayed in New York in a surgical residence program at Roosevelt Hospital and then moved back to Kansas City, KS where he opened a surgical practice and joined the faculty of the University of Kansas School of Medicine as an assistant professor.  In 1911, he became an associate professor and entered the United States Army Medical Reserve Corps as a first lieutenant.  He worked at St. Margaret's Hospital and the second Bell Memorial Hospital doing surgeries.  Documenting his work, Sutton published papers on subjects such as irrigating the abdominal cavity during surgery for a ruptured appendix, delivering ether as anesthesia rectally and inventing a speedometer to monitor the speed of ether delivery.

Lt. Walter Sutton in France

With the outbreak of World War I, Sutton took a leave of absence from the university and joined the Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney Unit of the American Ambulance Hospital in Juilly, France on 08 February 1915.  Still a  young man, he was the head of the surgical staff, overseeing upgrades to the electricity, plumbing, heating and kitchen facilities.  He became proficient in repairing battle wounds of types that had never been seen before.  He noted that many of his patients had not been wounded with bullets or shells, but the force of explosions had turned human body parts into shrapnel.  His engineering background came in handy and Sutton developed new surgical instruments for procedures and developed a fluoroscopic method to find the location of shrapnel prior to doing surgery.

The hospital was located about 23 miles north of Paris and about 40 miles from the battle front.  A stream of Ford ambulances brought wounded every other day to this hospital.  By March 1915, the hospital contained 115 wounded with a capacity of 150.  Sutton himself was in charge of 44 patients. His stay was short.  Walter left France on 26 June and returned to the US on 01 July 1915.  He took up his duties at KU again about two weeks later.  Short though his stay was, he learned a great deal about the treatment of war injuries and contributed a chapter on the subject to Binnie's Manual of Operative Surgery.

“You would hardly believe it, but we had wounded men who were never struck by bullets or projectiles from the enemy’s guns. We had men wounded by being pierced with the shattered bones of their comrades. Men were blown to pieces and parts of their bodies acted as projectiles, killing and wounding others.” - Walter Stanborough Sutton

Walter S. Sutton

Sutton family marker

In September 1916, Sutton signed a contract with C.V. Mosby Publishers to write a book on surgical methods.  Unfortunately, the book would never be written.  Late in 1916, Sutton began suffering from bouts of appendicitis.  On 06 November, he came home early and went to bed.  On 07 November, he operated on three patients, but grew ill.  He was operated on for a ruptured appendix at about 3:30 PM that day.  Peritonitis set in and Walter Sutton died on 10 November 1916 at Christian Church Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri.

Mystery (to me) no longer

Christian Church Hospital at 26th and West Paseo in KC, MO

So the question of Walter S. Sutton and his sudden disappearance from the literature in genetics has been resolved for me.   He left genetics to study surgery, became an excellent surgeon and innovator.  His work made the treatment of wounds caused by modern weapons more effective.  Although Sutton intended to return to work on genetics, his premature death due to peritonitis after his appendix ruptured brought all of his work to an end.  It was a surprise to find out that he had such a tight link to the Kansas City area and was buried in Lawrence, Kansas.  Contrary to his death certificate which notes that he was buried in Highland Park Cemetery in Kansas City, KS here he lies in "Kansas' Arlington", a fitting resident.

Getting There

From I-70 (Kansas Turnpike) take Exit 204 (US-59, US-40) and head south.  You will find yourself on the main drag, Massachussets Street.  Turn left at 13th Street and then turn right onto Oak Hill Avenue into the cemetery.  The Sutton family plot is just east of the mausoleum in Section 19.

Waypoint: Latitude 38.960673 N; Longitude 95.211682 W
Address: 1603 Oak Hill Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66044

Walter S. Sutton's death certificate

Further Reading

Walter S. Sutton Memorial Book

Walter Sutton and Chromosomal Theory: 100 years

Tinker to Evers to Chance: The World's Biggest Baseball

World's Largest Baseball 

As you pull into the town of Muscotah, Kansas you are greeted with a sign that proclaims THIS is the birthplace of Joe Tinker of "Tinker to Evers to Chance" fame.  Now any good baseball fan knows that there are two great baseball poems worth remembering: Casey at the Bat and Baseball's Sad Lexicon.  The phrase "Tinker to Evers to Chance" from Baseball's Sad Lexicon recalls the Baseball Hall of Fame double play combination from the world beating Chicago Orphans/Cubs of the early 20th century: shortstop Joe Tinker to second baseman Johnny Evers to first baseman Frank Chance.  Joe Tinker was born in this tiny Kansas community on 27 July 1880 and spent two years here before the family moved to Kansas City, Kansas in 1882.

"Tinker to Evers to Chance"

How should you memorialize the town's favorite son; a professional baseball and pop culture icon?  Did you say with the worlds largest baseball?  If you did, then you would be correct.  In a little park, just off of US-159 in Muscotah is the world's biggest "baseball".  This enormous piece of sporting gear was constructed from a water tower tank, and has stitches made of rebar.  To complete the glorious kitsch is a miniature baseball infield complete with cutouts of three baseball players near first and second bases.  Yes, I see a little silhouetto of a man. Scaramouche...

Joe Tinker by the numbers

Born: 27 July 1880, Muscotah, Kansas

Died:  27 July 1948, Orlando, Florida

Teams

Chicago Orphans/Cubs 1902-1912 (National League)
Cincinnati Reds 1913 (National League)
Chicago Chi-Feds/Whales 1914-1915 (Federal League - defunct Major League)
Chicago Cubs 1916

Championships

National League - 1906, 1907, 1908, 1910

World Series - 1907, 1908
Federal League - 1915

Career Statistics

Games: 1,084
Batting average: 0.274
Hits: 1690
Doubles: 263
Home runs: 31
Triples: 112
RBI: 782
Stolen bases: 336
Starting salary (2015 value): $40,944
Total 15 year salary (2015 value: $1,511,277)

That Double Play Again/Baseball's Sad Lexicon by Franklin Pierce Adams

Tinker to Evers to Chance

These are the saddest of possible words:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,

Tinker and Evers and Chance.

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,

Making a Giant hit into a double—

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

The Honda for size

Nice words. Right lyrical on the ears. They were written in a pinch by Franklin Pierce Adams for his "Always in Good Humor" column in the New York Evening Mail. It was deadline time and he was running short of copy. Since the editor didn't care a bit for white space, Adams wrote this on his way to see his New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. These three guys were to Adams what Madison Bumgarner, Jose Bautista and John Lester are to Kansas City Royals fans. All on one roster. Shortstop to Second to First - double play.

Year in and year out, Adams' Giants fell to the pennant hogging Cubs (yeah, you read it right). The Cubs won the winner take all season pennant in 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1910, winning the World Series in 1907 and 1908. The 1906 Cubs won 116 games in a 152 game season.  This poem was printed first on 12 July 1910 - a year that saw the Cubs beating out the Giants for the pennant.

In 1908, Evers was the player that saw what would be immortalized as "Merkle's Boner".  With two out n the bottom of the ninth of a 1-1 game against the Giants, Moose McCormick was on third and Fred Merkle was on first.  McCormick appeared to score the winning run on an Al Bridewell single in the bottom of the ninth inning.  Seeing fans swarming the field, Merkle went to the dugout without touching second base.  Evers called for the ball and the umpire ruled Merkle out by a force out, nullifying the run. The umpire and National League president both called the game a tie because of darkness, forcing a replay, which the Cubs won. This was a source of consternation for the Giants, because it was customary for the defense not to appeal for a force-out on a walkoff hit.

Left to right: Tinker, Evers, Chance

Then as now, a bit of good marketing will make all the difference in the world to a product. While Tinker, Evers and Chance were not even the best double play combination of their day, the cadence was catchy and they became household names. All three were elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, despite their skimpy numbers by today's standard. They had great numbers for the deadball era and showed flashes of great defense. Baseball Reference ranks Tinker at #217 as a hitter all-time, Evers at #224, and Chance #385.  The poem didn't hurt. "Tinker to Evers to Chance"? Right up there with "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!".


Tinker did lead National League shortstops in fielding percentage during four seasons. He had hustle, as well, stealing home twice in a single game on 28 July 1910. In Chance's later years he switched to player-manager and then just manager of the Cubs. He still has the team's highest winning percentage as a manager. Evers would be the 1914 National League MVP and win another World Series title with the Boston Braves.

Me against my brother. Me and my brother against the world.

The inside of the baseball will eventually be a museum

While it might seem that these guys would be all buddy-buddy, that was far from reality. Tinker and Evers HATED each other. They had both come to the big leagues during 1902, and their falling out occurred quickly. The legend is that in 1905, while the team was waiting in a hotel lobby prior to an exhibition game in Washington, Indiana, Evers jumped in a cab and rode to the ballpark, leaving everyone else behind. When Tinker made it to the ballpark, he apparently called out Evers and the first of many fistfights ensued. That is likely not the whole story, but two things do seem to be universally agreed upon: people didn't much care for Johnny Evers and Joe Tinker loved to get into fights.

Evers would say it best later in life: "Tinker and myself hated each other, but we loved the Cubs. We wouldn't fight for each other, but we'd come close to killing people for our team. That was one of the answers to the Cubs success."

Adams wasn't the only one to put these guys into rhyme.  Ogden Nash put them in for the letter "E" in his Line-Up for Yesterday published in Sport Magazine in January 1949:

E is for Evers
His jaw in advance
Never afraid
To Tinker with Chance

Getting There

Muscotah is definitely a town that has seen better times.  Built (and rebuilt) to capture traffic from the Central Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1857.  The Delaware River provided power for the grist mill.  The town still has several old houses and older style churches with intricate woodwork that you just cannot find today.  Having worked at a full-service gas station in college, I can't help but notice the old service stations when passing through towns.  Muscotah's is a treat, with a sign, brands and prices of gas and oil that were available back when they filled 'er up, checked your fluids and washed your windshield when you bought gas.  Sadly, the old pumps have been pulled out.

I have to hand it to the townspeople for building an attraction that will hopefully continue to grow and bring many a baseball fan calling.  The museum in the shape of a baseball shows promise.  The easiest road to travel here is to travel to Hiawatha, KS on US-36 or US-73 and take US-73/US-159 south.  Stay on US-159 south at Horton, KS and you will travel directly into Muscotah.  The big baseball is in a park behind (just north of) the old service station at US-159 and Kansas Street.

Waypoint: 39.551195 N; 95.521636 W

Further Reading

Portraits of "Tinker, Evers and Chance"