On this website we have often talked about Walter Sharp, the iconic stone bridge builder of the Midwest. One aspect of his life and work not commonly realized was that he was a writer. Having worked in his younger years for Marsh Murdock, who would later go on the found The Wichita Eagle, Walter Sharp acquired a skill with the pen and an observant eye for the world around him.
Walter Sharp, A Story of Stone Arch Bridges, the Good Roads Movement and Decentralized Infrastructure is a collection of newspaper articles written by Sharp himself, interviews Walter Sharp participated in, and some particularly relevant articles on the life, work and history of the man himself. Covering a period of nearly 50 years (1880 – 1927), Walter Sharp unfolds a classic tale of Kansas, the West, the Good Roads Movement, the rise of big government, and more. With a distinct, witty style and an outstanding skill with the pen, Walter Sharp brings alive the era in which he lived.
Though roads and bridges and the early days of the Good Roads Movement, not surprisingly, a prominent theme, he covers all manners of topics, starting with a harsh winter in Marion — the same winter Laura Ingalls Wilder immortalized in her classic book The Long Winter. He goes on to cover one of his early business endeavors — The Marion Mineral Well, a health resort for the infirm! He writes of early days in Colorado, and his thoughts on Prohibition. He writes of the growth of El Dorado, the push for paved streets in El Dorado, and alludes to the bustle that surrounded the oil boom days. He covers various flood control schemes, proposed a lake for El Dorado, and promotes natural gas as a good source of fuel for the local towns.
Walter Sharp also goes in great depth about bridges, discussing the rise and fall of the stone arch bridge era in southern Kansas. He covers his invention of a concrete slab bridge which, ironically, helped to obsolete the stone arch bridge. In great detail Walter Sharp describes how Cowley County came to adopt the stone bridge, and some of the behind-the-scenes wrangling that took place behind these structures. He brings his accounts to a close with a detailed history of the stone bridge, and how government regulations made it impractical to build these bridges anymore, following up with an appeal to voters across Kansas to work together to turn the situation around. His final article is a peaceful one recommending a tour for readers of The Wichita Eagle who wanted to travel Cowley County and see some stone arch bridges.
Walter Sharp is a book for those interested in grassroots as well as the regulatory aspects of the Good Roads Movement. It also will appeal to lovers of history in general and those who are fond of stone bridges. For lovers of Kansas, he will bring alive the climate of the times about which he wrote. Read all about “Walter Sharp, Doer of Things!” For more information and to see some sample pages, click here.
Stone Arch Bridges 