Kansas' Cassoday Cafe owner dies

There are plenty of great places to see and wonderful people to meet in "flyover country." When I took my trip to Kansas last year, the Cassoday Cafe, named after the town of the same name, was one place I heard about and I planned to drop in.

But it was closed the day I drove through the Butler County town, which is located halfway between Topeka and Wichita. I later found out the cafe, pictured above in July, had been damaged in a fire the month before.

The cafe's owner, Dianna Carlson, died earlier this week at the age of 63 after a long illness.

More from the Wichita Eagle:

"It was everything you thought a cafe in a small town in Kansas might be like," said Deb Zenier, director of the Chase County Chamber of Commerce and member of the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway Committee.

"The verbal abuse going on could be poetry in motion. You'd see a cowboy come crawling in the front door and she'd land all over him and he'd throw it right back. It was that kind of familiarity that kept people coming back."

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Former Wichita Eagle columnist Bob Getz, now retired, described the decor in his column on July 26, 1996: "You've never seen so many pictures. Cows, cows, cows. Ranchers. Striking sketches of saddles and cowboy boots. And amid all the cows, a couple of other pictures really stand out. They're of Janine Turner, the actress from TV's 'Northern Exposure,' who starred in 'Stolen Women.' One of the two 8 by 10 glossies is signed in very nice handwriting: "Thanks for the great food! Janine Turner."

And in all that ambiance was Mrs. Carlson -- cooking, cleaning and washing dishes, if need be. There'd be locals -- but just as often as not, people from Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Georgia, Illinois and New York who had heard of the cafe and drove to experience it. Wal-Mart truck drivers especially enjoyed the cafe, friends said.

Just to the south of Cassoday, population 130, is El Dorado, hometown of Barack Obama's father, Stanley Dunham.

Speaking of trips, my Mississipi Manifest Destiny is still a go for next month. Because of my presidential campaign blogging, I'm way behind in my research for this next blog-o-vacation.

Related posts:

In search of the real El Dorado, Kansas

Marathon Pundit's My Kansas Kronikles

The Flint Hills

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