Promised Land on the Solomon: Black Settlement at Nicodemus, Kansas

National Park Service - Rocky Mountain Region

During the last decades of the nineteenth century. hundreds of small agricultural communities appeared across the American Midwest and almost as quickly withered, leaving only scant remnants of their rich cultural heritage. Nicodemus. Kansas. i$ perhaps one of the most historically signiflcant of these towns, embodying the aspirations of blacks who had fled the Upper South during Reconstruction.In 1976, Nicodemus was designated as one of this country's National Historic Landmarks, a category of cultural resources recognized as nationally significant, possessing exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States. The U.S. National Park Service, the agency charged with monitoring the status of National Hlstorlc Landmarks, becameIncreasingly alarmed at the accelerating rate of physical deterioration in the town during the 1970s. In 1981, only a handful of longtime Nicodemus residents remained and many important historic structures were in an advanced state of deterioration or ruin. Serious efforts began In 1981 to record for posterity this endangered National Historic Landmark, and to provide direction for future historic preservation within the townsite. Members of the Rocky Mount<~ln Regional Office, National Park Service, developed the proposal to record the cultural landscape of Nicodemus. The goal was to document all known physical changes that have occurred at this townsite since its founding in 1877. Documentation format was to adhere to standards developed and monitored by the Historic American Buildings Survey, a National Park Service program that produces archival documentation of buildings through measured drawings, photographs, and oral and written histories. Seeking wider support than its own financial and administrative resources would allow, the National Park Service solicited and received joint project sponsorship, in addition to generous financial assistance from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Most Importantly, this project received the enthusiastic and generous support from the Nicodemus community itself.