February 26, 2008

Ghosts in Kansas

Several days ago my husband and I were looking up information on local ghosts.actually started because I received an email notice from a website where I had posted about local ghost information last year.

The information was on a town called, Lehunt, Kansas. It's now a part of Independence, KS due to the town going belly up and having to close it's doors. For a long time it was a site where teenagers and cults would hang out. Then, several years ago they fenced the area off.

The only remains of the town are broken stones, a few abandoned buildings and a cemetery. It wasn't Lehunt that caught our eye that day, however. As we were looking up information for Lehunt, we ran across an interesting story that happened not too far from here. It happened right outside of Cherryvale, Kansas when families were traveling the trail to settle a claim. A family known as the Benders settled near Cherryvale and opened a store/inn for travelers passing by.

As the story goes when people stopped at the Benders' Inn, they were slaughtered. In the end it was the biggest Massacre to ever happen in the United States at that time. When I checked with my mother-in-law who knows the area better than we do, we learned that they built a restaurant where the Inn once stood. The restaurant didn't last for very long. The only remains of the massacre are kept in a museum in Cherryvale.

If you're a fan of ghosts like we are, you should definitely check out The Bloody Benders. There's a three page story on the family as well as photos.

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