Among the thousands of farms, homes and businesses served by Heartland Rural Electric Cooperative across twelve counties, there is exactly one incorporated city: Walnut, population about 200, tucked into the northwest corner of Crawford County.
Walnut was once a bustling railroad junction, home to a flour mill, an opera house, competing newspapers — even a washing machine factory.
In January 1907, decades before power lines reached most of rural Kansas, Walnut generated its own electricity. J.H. Wright and Wesley Wright fired up a couple of generators at the Walnut Electric Light Plant and ran lines around town.
The system changed hands and changed names but remained privately owned until Sekan Electric Cooperative, one of Heartland’s three predecessor co-ops, bought the electric assets of the Walnut Gas and Electric Company in the 1950s. With that, the people of Walnut didn’t just get a new power provider. They became member-owners of their utility — a fitting arrangement for a town that had been keeping its own lights on since 1907.
While the town’s population has shrunk, its spirit hasn’t dimmed.
“We’re kind of like a big family,” says Samantha Guy, Walnut’s city treasurer and events co-chair, a lifelong resident who lives in her childhood home. “Your neighbor is somebody that you can rely on for anything. You have a tractor that breaks down, somebody else will loan you a tractor to get done what you need to get done.”
Local history buff Don Wheeler would agree. He grew up in Walnut and now lives on the family farm his grandfather bought in 1934 — with grandkids four miles down the road.
“It’s just home,” he says. “And it’s got a nice little sense of community to it.”
You can see that neighborliness all over town: at the Walnut Express, where fresh local produce now stocks the shelves of a gas station that doubles as a lifeline grocery; at His & Hers Bar and Grill, where the Norris family serves up daily specials; at the revitalized Mike Fox Park, where a new gazebo and sidewalk anchor Main Street; and at the ball field, where a Heartland grant helped upgrade a batting cage that’s been busy with youth teams all summer.
The best day to see it for yourself is Saturday, September 5 — Walnut Days, held the Saturday of Labor Day weekend for 56 years running. The day starts with a 5K, followed by the parade on Main Street at 10 a.m. (short on distance, long on candy).
This year features a car show and an antique tractor show hosted by Little Feed and Implement in honor of what would have been the business’s 100th year, plus some 25 vendors, free inflatables, kids’ games, an antique tractor pull at 1 p.m., and free snow cones for kids. The Walnut Community Service Organization serves burgers and smoked sausage through lunch, food trucks roll in around 2, and a street dance with live music caps the night from 6 to 10.
Thanks to the Vulcan Lodge, the Kansas Masonic Cancer Alliance screening bus will also be on hand to offer free cancer screenings with doctors from the KU Medical Center.
Between 400 and 500 people are expected — more than double the town’s population. In Walnut, that’s just the family coming home.