Small Town of the Week - DeSoto, Kansas!

Congratulations, DeSoto, Kansas! You are the Ben Bartley Small Town of the Week!

How did DeSoto win? I lived in DeSoto from age 3 to age 7. This was my house:


I went to kindergarten at DeSoto Elementary. I think DeSoto Elementary has been renamed.

Founded in 1857, DeSoto was named for the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. Several families of settlers first established the town around a steam saw mill on the Kansas River.

I went back to DeSoto when I finished college. I had not been back since I was 7. Hills that looked HUGE when I was 7 now looked tiny. I remember everything as much further & bigger. I remember the walk to kindergarten seemed like miles, when it was actually only blocks.

I wonder what "hill" is currently in my life. Those "hills" that seem huge to me today will probably look tiny 20 years from now. Maybe my "hill" is finishing my first feature film. Maybe my "hill" is children or my mortgage or any number of things in my life I consider "big". But they probably aren't that "big" 20 years from now.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me if I had stayed in DeSoto. I probably would be a Kansas Jayhawk fan. Thank God I moved.

(You heard me, brother-in-law, Gar!)

In Summary: DeSoto is awesome; hills get smaller the farther you are from them; I have a brother-in-law named Gar. Yes, "Gar". And he is a KU fan. Despite that, I still love him.