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Written by Doug Carder   
Wednesday, 28 January 2009 08:00

As a boy, C.J. Windisch used to collect a few coins from admirers while playing his fiddle at Louisburg’s annual carnival.

The melodious strains of his fiddle have long since scattered in the wind, but remnants of the carnival could be found decades later on the fairgrounds where Timbercreek’s recently constructed satellite parking lot now stands.

“I think the fairgrounds moved to the Timbercreek lot sometime in the 1890s. I have found a brass clown symbol and a lot of coins from the 1890s up to about 1907 or 1908 that suggests there was a lot of activity there,”
Louisburg resident Jack York said of the numerous times he combed the grounds with his metal detector.

York’s wife, Janet, is the granddaugther of C.J. Windisch, who told York stories about the carnival before he passed away in 1985 in his mid-90s.

“It was a different time. People are too busy with activities now, but back then people looked forward to putting on their finest and racing horses and competing in shooting competitions and eating the food that they could grow,” York said.


York said Windisch told him a man was shot at the carnival, and the location of the annual celebration moved soon afterward in the early 1900s to the city park across from the First Baptist Church on Vine Street.

“The oldest coins I have found at the park across from the church start around 1906 to 1908,” he said.

York said the original fairgrounds were located just west of the Louisburg Ford dealership at the junction of Kansas Highway 68 and U.S. Highway 69.

“Louisburg became a city in 1868, and I’ve found coins in Ron Cook’s front yard (west of the Ford dealership) from the 1860s and 1870s that showed evidence of the fairgrounds being located there,” York said. “I’m sure a lot of that history was disturbed when they expanded 68 (highway) years ago.”

Now, the time-honored celebration takes place on Labor Day each year in American Legion Park on South Ninth Street, where the celebration relocated in the 1980s.

“It’s changed locations a few times, but this celebration has always been a part of Louisburg’s history,” York said.

 

Look under the Photos tab for more historic photos submitted by Herald readers

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