Garden of Eden

Samuel Perry Dinsmoor, a Civil War veteran and retired schoolteacher, began building a limestone 'log cabin' house in Lucas, Kansas in 1905 at age 64, then spent roughly two decades surrounding it with more than 150 concrete sculptures cast from 113 tons of cement. An outspoken Populist, Dinsmoor filled the yard with biblical scenes and pointed political allegory aimed at bankers, lawyers, and trusts. He built his own mausoleum on the property, where his body remains visible in a glass-lidded concrete coffin. Dinsmoor died in 1932, and the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.