Kansas well more than a hole in the ground

GREENSBURG, Kan. -- The Big Well might not be the end point for most visitors who stop to take in the spectacle.

"They're on their way to somewhere else when they stop to see us," admits Debra Wilder, who helps run the attraction.

But don't think that diminishes local pride in the quirky, 69-year-old tourist stop, a 109-foot deep, hand-dug abyss -- the largest of its type in the world.

"It's our claim to fame," said Richard Stephenson, the museum manager. "People associate Greensburg and the Big Well."

Still, museum officials see increasing potential in their 1,000-pound meteorite -- it has traditionally played second fiddle to the well -- and efforts are afoot to bolster its profile.

"I don't think it's ever been marketed properly," Stephenson said, alluding to the potential lure of the museum's stony-iron hunk, known as Space Wanderer and discovered in 1949 by H.O. Stockwell.

Meteorite zone

Plans call for conversion of Stephenson's office in the rear of the Big Well gift shop into a meteorite zone, opening up more space for Space Wanderer and lending it a higher profile. T-shirts touting Kiowa County as a meteorite hot spot -- a 1,430-pound record-breaker was discovered last fall in Kiowa County -- also are in the works.

Nonetheless, the well itself is hardly being forgotten.

Some visitors might think of it as "a big hole in the ground," notes Wilder. "Then they get here, and they're, 'Whoa, it was better than we thought.' "

A team of cowboys, transients and others completed the Big Well in 1888. It originally served steam-engine trains passing through and later, until 1932, provided Greensburg with its drinking water.

When its usefulness ended, somebody came up with the notion to turn the cavity into a museum. So in 1937, the Big Well became a tourist stop. Visitors can traipse down 103 steps to the bottom of the 32-foot-wide chasm via a staircase placed smack dab in its center. Or they can peer down from above.

Items that have been removed from the bottom of the well include golf balls, shotgun shells and coins.

'We had to stop'

"We saw it on the map. We had to stop," said Randi Fulwider of Spring Lake Park, Minn., who was traveling through with her husband one day recently. "We've never heard of such a thing."

Glenn Boyce, another visitor, had seen the Big Well before. But he and his wife, heading home to Emporia after visiting Arizona, wanted to take another gander.

"There are lots of things to see in Kansas, but most people just drive on by," he said.

Stephenson, meanwhile, notes that the Big Well might not have the allure of such hot spots as the Grand Canyon. Nevertheless, it has its fans.

"It's what makes you stop in Greensburg," he said.