From Far Away Russia

Early Years in Kansas

Before long we will be obliged to class them as among our best citizens. Encourage them to come.
--Hays City Sentinel, April 5, 1876

Railroads sometimes provided temporary housing until Russian-Germans could purchase land.

A communal house shelters Mennonites in this illustration (left) from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 20, 1875.

Temporary dwellings (right) at the Mennonite colony north of Newton, pictured in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 20, 1875.

Early Russian-German structures in Kansas often echoed European styles.

Within a few years, however, most families moved into standard frame houses made by local builders. The earlier structures were abandoned or used as farm buildings.

The Werth family (Volga Germans) in front of their house near Schoenchen, Kansas (left).

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