Overbrook is 'just the right size'

The Topeka Capital-Journal, Jan 25, 2002

Story by John E. Chambers

Special to The Capital-Journal

OVERBROOK --- "Just a real good bedroom community" is how Mayor Jack Young describes the city of Overbrook.

With an official population of 947 (the state budget office uses the figure of 1,008), Overbrook is "just the right size. It is big enough to have what we need, and small enough to raise kids right," Young says.

Although Overbrook is sometimes described as a bedroom community because of its proximity to Ottawa, Lawrence and Topeka, it does have over 75 sales and retail businesses listed in a Pride Committee folder.

The town is within half an hour or three-fourths of an hour driving time from Greater Kansas City and Topeka for anything not available to residents in Overbrook.

City Clerk Cheryl Brown makes the point that Overbrook, which sits astride the old east-west Santa Fe Trail, is a town "with a wonderful history." That is a fact that fascinates Police Chief Ed Harmison, who is a local historian. He is conversant with the city's history and historical sites, and he has written a local history of the Santa Fe Trail.

Overbrook was laid out in 1886, Harmison said. Farmers W.T. Coffman and Jasper B. Fairchild each set aside 30 acres for a town site on the trail that had been followed by migrating wagons and freight wagons between 1822 and 1872. Depressions that mark the old trail site still are visible in the town cemetery, and to the east and west of Overbrook. The Santa Fe Trail High School, where the town's high school students attend school, is located on the trail a few miles west of town.

Also running through the town in its early days was the Kansas- Nebraska-Dakota Railroad. Overbrook was named for the Pennsylvania hometown of the foreman of the railroad construction crew that built the railroad. Other names considered for the town were Sunflower City and Jasper City.

The first business in town was a grocery store. Overbrook also had the only railroad depot around in those early days, and people moved in from neighboring communities, swelling the population. Area farmers shipped cattle by rail and road. By 1888, the town had two general stores, two blacksmiths, two carpenters, a confectioner and a barber. Coffman added five additions to the town and Fairchild added one.

The city delayed incorporation until March 8, 1948.

Overbrook is located seven miles east of US-75 highway, along US- 56 highway, in northeastern Osage County. It has a mayor/council form of government with a five-member city council. Council members include Bruce Smith, president, and Jim Gates, Jason Florance, Rich Hamit and David Gerisch.

Young has been the mayor for about a year. His home town was Richland, but he "pretty much grew up" in Overbrook and attended high school there. Brown has been city clerk since 1992. She had been the assistant city clerk since 1988. She came to Overbrook in 1973 after having lived in Corning and Topeka.

Other officials, in addition to Mayor Young and City Clerk Brown, are City Treasurer Max Friesen; City Attorney Stephen Jones, of Lyndon; and Municipal Judge Larry Corsen.

The city has five full-time employees, six to eight part-timers, and an average of six summer workers at the municipal swimming pool. Bob Sisson, the maintenance superintendent, is one of the full-time employees.

Chief Harmison, who is a former fire chief, has an assistant police chief, Everett Dannar, and six to eight part-time officers.

Fire protection is provided by Osage County Fire District No. 5, a volunteer department that covers 182 square miles, including the city of Overbrook, with 25 firefighters, including emergency medical services. The department, based in Overbrook, has nine fire and rescue vehicles, including a two-year-old nontransporting ambulance. The department is equipped with a Jaws of Life and two defibrillators. It is considering the purchase of a new pumper/ rescue vehicle.

Ambulances are provided by American Medical Response from Topeka or Osage City, with a minimum response time of 25 minutes, Harmison said.

Usually, Overbrook's first responders have patients "packaged" and ready to transport when an ambulance arrives, he said.

Overbrook has two city-owned utilities --- water and sewer. The main source of the city's water is five wells. It also buys water from Osage County Rural Water District No. 5. The city uses an average of 2 million to 3 million gallons a month --- higher in summer and lower in winter. Storage consists of three elevated tanks - -- 50,000 in one city tank and 75,000 gallons in a second --- and 500,000 gallons in the RWD 5 tower.

Sewage is processed in a four-cell lagoon system. The lagoon has a capacity for a population equivalency of 1,200. The sewer system is equipped with two lift stations.

Commercial utilities include Westar Energy for electricity and natural gas; Sprint for telephone; Osage Waste Disposal of Carbondale for trash pickup; and Galaxy of Topeka for cable service.

Overbrook has an assessed valuation of $4,663,006. The city tax rate for 2002 is 27.25, the second lowest in the county. Estimated expenditures for 2002 total $838,981. The city has a debt of about $365,000 to $370,000 remaining from a general obligation bond issue of $395,000 for rebuilding the municipal swimming pool.

The city is served by two banks. Kansas State Bank, chartered in 1889, is the oldest bank in Osage County. Its original location was the building which is now the city hall. It also has a branch bank at Scranton. Kansas State Bank has 13 employees. The bank has total assets of $35 million. Its president is Derreck Dahl.

J.A. Cordts is the president of First Security Bank, originally established as the Farmers State Bank in 1897. Cordts is the fourth generation of an Overbrook banking family. The bank became First Security Bank in 1978.

Cordts became president of the bank in January 1998. He had been affiliated with the bank since 1978. The bank has six employees. It has $23 million in total assets.

Another long-standing business in Overbrook is O'Bryhim's Thriftway, a grocery store now owned by a third generation O'Bryhim, who is Clifford E. O'Bryhim. He has owned the store for 22 years. The store was started by his grandfather, Clifford C. O'Bryhim, and also was owned by his father, B.E. O'Bryhim. The store draws customers from about a 15-mile radius, the current owner estimates.

Perhaps the biggest employer in town is Brookside Retirement Community, which operates a nursing home with 63 beds and an assisted living facility with 20 apartments. Brookside is owned by Midwest Health Services of Topeka. It has about 80 full-time and part-time staff members.

A unique feature of the Brookside facilities is a Memory Cafe, an inhouse type of restaurant. Kathy Lantz is the administrator for both Brookside facilities.

The Overbrook Housing Authority operates an apartment facility with income/age based rents.

Another major business in Overbrook is the Overbrook Co-op Association, a branch and hub of the Ottawa Co-op, which last June bought the bankrupt FCCA (Farmers Cooperative Association) in Overbrook.

The Ottawa Co-op owns 14 branches in all. On Jan. 2, it began making the Overbrook branch one of its hub operations. The Ottawa Co- op conducts all of its operations through two hubs, Ottawa and Overbrook. Each hub can schedule its own custom applications of fertilizers and chemicals, disperse customer checks and provide other services. Those services also include grain handling and storage as the main business; bag feed and seed sales; liquid and dry anhydrous ammonia sales; rental of fertilizer applicator buggies; and refueling for company trucks.

The co-op has grain storage of nearly a million bushels in Overbrook and 7 million in all its branches. Ralph Schaffer is the branch manager.

Overbrook also has a lumberyard, custom meat processor, sale barn, convenience store, veterinarian, funeral home, self-service laundry, computer services shop, cabinet shop, woodworking shop, two propane dealerships, two garages, an auto parts store, a tire sales and repair facility, four restaurants/bar and grills, three truck lines and other businesses.

One business that draws customers from a wide area, even tourist buses, is Overbrook Quilt Connection, a quilt shop opened by Roxane Fawl and Carolyn Meerian in a new building April 16, 1994. The building has 4,320 square feet of floor space for merchandise display (including more than 1,000 bolts of fabric), class space and 12-foot- high wall for displaying dozens of quilts.

Although the city doesn't have its own economic development organization, it cooperates with the Osage County Economic Development.

An Overbrook Pride Committee fosters community improvements, as does a Community Betterment group.

Overbrook's health care facilities includes the Kansas Medical Clinic, which is owned by the Kansas Medical Clinic in Topeka. That organization took over the clinic in July 2000 from St. Francis Health Center. It is staffed by doctors Qaiser A. Sufi, Shekhar Challa and Jerry H. Feagan. Dr. Shazia Arain, who also is the medical director at the nursing home, is at the clinic on Tuesdays, too. Physician's assistants are Elisa Drake and Charley Wurm.

The clinic has its own laboratory. It also has access to specialists and a laboratory in Topeka.

A feature started by the clinic's new owners is a Patient Assistance program. The office manager, Sheila Musil, helps patients with pharmaceutical bills who are on fixed incomes, on Medicare or who lack medical insurance. She fills out applications to pharmaceutical companies to get free medications for those patients. The clinic now has 65 patients receiving that help for a total of $10,000 savings a month, or $110,000 a year, Musil said.

Overbrook has one dentist, Bruce Cole.

The Overbrook Attendance Center, a kindergarten through grade eight school that is part of Santa Fe Trail Unified School District 434, is another major employer. It has 314 students and 55 employees. The school is affiliated with Three Lakes Special Education Cooperative, and some of the USD 434 employees also serve the cooperative.

Gary Foulke, the principal who is in his first year at Overbrook, said the school's configuration allows some "real nice partnerships with cross grades." Younger students can be challenged by what they see in the junior high school activities.

The school has a well-equipped computer lab, and all teachers have computers in their rooms. The district is networked, so all teachers have access to e-mail and Internet services. Students start training on computer keyboards in kindergarten.

The school building is the former grade school building with an addition built five years ago.

Foulke was a fifth- and sixth-grade multi-age teacher at Sunflower School in Lawrence before going to the Overbrook school.

Overbrook has a public library, which was established in 1928. It is a member of the Northeast Kansas Library System. It is fully automated. Its 910 patrons checked out 13,266 books and 1,049 videos last year. The library has 13,000 volumes, 500 videos, as well as magazines and large print books.

Its three patron computers and two staff computers all are on the Internet.

The library has a summer reading program and a preschool story hour.

The Friends of the Library conducts an annual used-book sale.

Marilyn Anderson is the library director. She has one part-time assistant and also is aided by "three very faithful volunteers."

Overbrook has four churches in town. They are a Bible Church, Church of Christ, First Christian and United Methodist. Two churches outside of town are Lapeer Catholic, 7 1/2 miles northeast of town, and Washington Creek Church of the Brethren, 11 1/2 miles northeast of town.

Among the many other organizations are: Rotary, Overbrook Ball Association, American Legion Post 239, Shriners, Overbrook Senior Citizens, Flower Club, Hobby Club, Santa Fe Trail Quilt Guild, Tennis Association, Aramanth Club, Cosmos, Fidelis, Ridgeway Lodge, Searchlight and Thimble Club.

Summer recreation in Overbrook centers around Jones Park. There is a swimming pool that was completely rebuilt three years ago, a skateboard facility, tennis court, small shelter house, two ball diamonds and a tee-ball area. Overbrook Ball Association operates the summer sports program on city property.

Fishing enthusiasts in the Overbrook area have many options. The city's new lake on the east side of town may be opened to fishing this May. It has been overstocked with fish to the level of an 80- acre lake, and the city feeds the fish and oxygenates the water to maintain their health and growth. A city fishing license is required to fish in the lake.

The major annual event, which takes place in mid-August, is the Overbrook Osage County 4-H Fair, which is more than 100 years old.

A citywide garage sale takes place in April. A Fourth of July celebration features a fireworks display set off by the volunteer fire department and funded by donations. Christmas activities include Santa's arrival by sleigh; a residential and business lighting contest; a Tables of Pride event; and a Parade of Homes.

Considering all that Overbrook has to offer, Chief Harmison said, "It's just a wonderful little town to bring up a family."

Built in 1890 by the Methodist Episcopal Church and enlarged twice, this now-empty church building also became the home of the Osage County Quilt Factory after the United Methodist congregation built a new building in 1983. The quilt factory closed about two years ago.

Overbrook Mayor Jack Young and City Clerk Cheryl Brown stood in front of the Overbrook City Hall. The city hall is located in a former bank building that was built in 1897 and still contains the ornamental woodwork that graced the bank's interior.

Overbrook Police Chief Ed Harmison is a former fire chief for Osage County Fire District No. 5, which is based in Overbrook. Harmison also is a local historian.

Shirley Simmons, owner of Shirley's Cafe for 39 years, shook a basket of french fries in the cafe kitchen.

These entrance signs at the east (and also west) edge of the city, along US-56 highway, are evidence of the Overbrook Pride Committee at work. The limestone sign bears testimony to the city's Santa Fe Trail history, as does a series of black iron figures atop a ridge a few miles to the east.

See OVERBROOK, page 2

Overbrook: Once home

to only railroad depot

See OVERBROOK, page 4

Overbrook: Motto says city is not to be 'overlooked'

See OVERBROOK, page 5

Overbrook: Education a priority in this town