The 700 folks in this farming community are upset that their town had been included in a new traveler`s guide called ”Ghost Towns of Kansas,” by historian Daniel Fitzgerald.
”How dare he say we`re dead? We`re not dead!” exclaimed Ruth Schoenhofer, a resident of 40 years.
A newspaper review in the nearby Parsons Review tipped off the citizens. Word spread through St. Paul, as it can only in small towns. People got angry.
A sign went up at the American Legion Hall: ”Welcome To Ghost Town, U.S.A. All the ghosts are here!”
On the banks of the Neosho River, St. Paul has a post office, construction company, bank, fire department (with two trucks), tavern, a couple of beauty shops, three gas stations and a high school that in May graduated 19 seniors. It even has a leash law.
Mayor Gert Gallo thinks her town is downright lively. She worries that the inclusion of their town in Fitzgerald`s book may hurt its chances of wooing developers to build a $2 million regional nursing home there.
Fitzgerald, 29, an archivist at the Kansas Center for Historical Research in Topeka, said he was baffled and a little annoyed himself by the fuss.
He said he never claimed in his book that the town was actually dead. Instead, he said, he defines a ghost town as ”a shadowy semblance of its former self.”
Fitzgerald acknowledges a town pulse in St. Paul-no tumbleweeds blowing on Main Street, no creaking saloon doors. He said he had been there several times.
But nevertheless, he included St. Paul in his book because St. Paul`s regional importance and population has declined in the last hundred years.
Not everyone in town is upset by Fitzgerald`s book. Butch Wilson, the bartender at CJ`s tavern, is ambivalent on the subject.
”I get upset about a lot of things, but this isn`t one of them,” he said as popped the tab on a can of beer. ”I`ve been called a lot worse things than a ghost.”
