Garden of Eden
305 E 2nd St, Lucas, KS
Lucas, KS
A retired Civil War soldier's log-cabin home of concrete, ringed by towering concrete trees hung with wild political and biblical sculptures, the strangest and grandest folk-art vision in Kansas.
In the small town of Lucas stands one of the most extraordinary works of folk art in America, the Garden of Eden, built over decades by a Civil War veteran named Samuel Perry Dinsmoor. Beginning in 1907, when he was already past sixty, Dinsmoor raised a home shaped like a log cabin but built entirely of concrete, and then filled its yard with a forest of towering concrete trees hung with a wild sculptural sermon in cement.
Dinsmoor was a schoolteacher, farmer, and fiercely opinionated populist, and his Garden of Eden is part biblical story, part political manifesto, and part sheer imagination. Adam and Eve, the devil, angels, and a stark scene depicting labor crushed by lawyers, doctors, preachers, and bankers all rise from the concrete. It is unlike anything else, a self-taught visionary's life work made permanent in stone-hard cement.
What Guests Love
- The astonishing concrete trees and sculptures crowding the yard and rooftop
- A home built entirely of concrete logs by a self-taught Civil War veteran
- The bold, strange political and biblical scenes told in cement
- Lucas itself, a whole town given over to grassroots and folk art
Worth Knowing
- The site includes a mausoleum where the builder is entombed; treat it respectfully
- The sculptures are outdoors and can be viewed from the yard; interior tours are offered
- Lucas has several other folk-art stops worth combining into a visit
- This is one of the country's most celebrated works of grassroots art, so give it time
Details
Lucas, KS
Learn about Garden of Eden
The man who built it
Samuel Perry Dinsmoor was born in Ohio in 1843, served as a Union soldier in the Civil War, and later taught school and farmed before settling in Lucas. He was a man of strong opinions, a populist who distrusted the powerful and sympathized with working people, and he poured those beliefs into his art. He began building the Garden of Eden in 1907 and worked on it for more than two decades.
Rather than build with the local post rock or ordinary lumber, Dinsmoor chose concrete, molding it into logs for his cabin and into the trunks, branches, and figures of his sculptures. Using tons of cement, he created a structure and a sculpture garden that would outlast wood or stone, an enduring monument to one man's vision and stubbornness.
A sermon in cement
The sculptures tell two great stories at once. One is biblical, beginning with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, complete with the serpent, and moving through scenes of angels and the devil. The other is fiercely political, and Dinsmoor's masterpiece here is a tableau he called the Crucifixion of Labor, in which a working man is shown crucified by a lawyer, a doctor, a preacher, and a banker, the powers Dinsmoor believed preyed on ordinary people.
Everywhere the concrete trees rise overhead, their branches hung with figures, flags, and symbols, so that the whole yard becomes a walk-through allegory. It is provocative, eccentric, and deeply personal, the work of a man determined to leave his beliefs literally set in stone for anyone who came after to read.
The mausoleum and the legend
Dinsmoor built his own tomb on the property, a concrete mausoleum where he arranged to be entombed after his death in 1932, his body visible through a glass lid in a coffin he also made. His wish was that visitors could still see him, and the mausoleum remains part of the site, its own strange coda to the Garden of Eden. He treated his own death, like everything else, as a chance to make a statement.
That mix of showmanship, conviction, and craft is exactly what has made the Garden of Eden endure. It has been carefully preserved and is celebrated as one of the greatest examples of American grassroots art, drawing visitors from around the world to this small Kansas town.
Lucas, the folk-art town
The Garden of Eden gave Lucas its identity, and over the years the town has embraced it wholeheartedly, becoming a self-styled capital of grassroots art. Other quirky attractions and galleries have grown up around Dinsmoor's masterwork, so that a visit to see the Garden of Eden becomes a tour of an entire town devoted to the eccentric and the handmade.
The setting is the Smoky Hills post-rock country of north-central Kansas, where early settlers, lacking timber, split fence posts from the region's stone. This was long the land of Plains nations including the Kaw, or Kanza, and the Pawnee, whose peoples continue today. Nearby Wilson Lake, ringed by rocky bluffs, adds an outdoor complement to the art. Spring and fall are the most comfortable seasons to explore both the town and the surrounding country.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Evergreen Inn Motel & RV Park
Honorable Mention20001 W. US Highway 54, Pratt, KS
99 miles away|Learn More ›
Prairie Lodge Motel
Honorable Mention1219 Old US Highway 56, Council Grove, KS
113 miles away|Learn More ›
Things to Do Near Lucas
Downtown Lucas folk art
In town
A whole small town given over to grassroots art, with galleries, quirky public works, and a folk-art visitor center.
Wilson Lake
About 15 miles south
A clear reservoir ringed by rocky bluffs and post-rock outcrops, popular for fishing, boating, and camping.
Post Rock country
Throughout the surrounding area
The distinctive stone fence posts that settlers quarried across this treeless prairie, still lining roads and fields.