There are places in America that begin as a private idea and end up large enough for strangers to walk through. Not because a government planned them. Not because an art school approved them. Usually, somebody simply had a lot of time, a strong opinion, and no interest in being talked out of it. In Lucas, Kansas, a farmer named Samuel Perry Dinsmoor built one of those places. Beginning in 1904, at the age of 64, he turned his property into a concrete landscape of biblical figures, political allegory, oversized trees, and a mausoleum for himself and his first wife. It became known as the Garden of Eden. Today on Strange America, we are going to Lucas, where one man’s homemade worldview became a preserved piece of American art.
In this episode:
• The Kansas Farmer Who Built His Own Concrete Garden of Eden
Sources & further reading:
• S.P. Dinsmoor’s Garden of Eden: https://www.gardenofedenlucas.org/
