Dancing with a fading past: Why hundreds flock to tiny Kansas town on Saturday nights

While the fiddle player sawed off the dizzy opening notes of Bob Wills’ “Take Me Back to Tulsa” on the stage in the back room, Charles Blagg was browsing the refreshments cooler up near the checkout counter.

It was a rainy Saturday night in April, and in a few hours, Blagg — 78, with a white Stetson to match his mustache — would be driving not quite to Tulsa but to his home outside Nowata, Oklahoma, about 110 miles south. He’s made the four-hour round trip to The Mildred Store several times over the past few years.

The century-old general store hosts a country music dance on the third Saturday of each month that regularly draws hundreds from across the region to this southeast Kansas town of 17.

“This is a rare type of place,” Blagg said. “No trouble, clean fun, and they got a good Western swing band, which is something I appreciate. Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Ray Price, George Jones, Loretta Lynn. That’s the real stuff. Coming here, it’s the way things used to be in towns like this.”

In the dance hall, surrounded by Wrangler-clad farmers two-stepping underneath a wagon-wheel chandelier, these Saturday-night shindigs feel like some long tradition here in Mildred. In fact, they’re a relatively new development. Regena and Loren Lance started hosting the shows shortly after they bought Charlie Brown’s Grocery nine years ago.

Married since 1984, they were raised in this part of the state: Regena just outside of town, Loren about 25 miles down the road in Stark. They remember when Charlie and Lucille Brown ran the place, back in the days when general stores bloomed like sunflowers across Kansas.

The store, which had been in operation since the 1940s, briefly closed in 2014. Charlie and Lucille’s grandson, Michael, had been running the place while battling health issues as well as the larger economic trends — dwindling populations, the Walmart effect — that have made operating independent businesses in rural America so challenging.

“We heard it was closing, and I’m just settin’ there on the couch mulling it over, thinking about how I don’t want to have to drive 30 miles into Iola or Garnett or Fort Scott for a dozen eggs,” Regena said. “And I said to him (Loren), ‘Well, I’m thinking about buying the store.’ And he said, ‘Well, that’s what I was just thinking.’”

Within a few months, Regena, a teacher, and Loren, a farmer, had second jobs as grocery store owners. There was work to do inside the tan-brick building: The shelves were nearly bare, much of the old equipment was faulty or inefficient, and many of the old regular customers had fallen off due to the store’s inconsistent operating hours.

One of the first things the Lances did was tape their cellphone numbers to the front door; locals know they can call if they have an after-hours emergency in this sparsely populated part of the state. They also held an auction to unload the 99 years’ worth of antiques (or junk, depending on your point of view) that had accumulated in the former garage and feed store connected to the grocer.

“We had two auctioneers going at the same time and 14 gooseneck trailers lined up out on the street,” Loren said. “There were old TVs, old stereos and VCRs, never-worn bib overalls, bathtubs of every color. A case of Billy Beer. An air compressor. You name it.”

Before long the space reclaimed its old-timey sparkle. Renamed The Mildred Store, it is a place to pop in for quick everyday staples like eggs, toilet paper or meat (which the Lances buy from Fanestil, an Emporia-based distributor). You can also find more specialty items here, like jams and jellies from the nearby Amish community; a bag of the special-recipe breading used by the former owners of the beloved Chicken Shack down the road in Moran; or a “Belt Buster” — sandwiches the size of softballs, piled high with over a pound of meat and cheese, wrapped in white paper towels — served at the deli counter at the back of the store. (At the Saturday night show in April, the evening special was pulled-pork sandwiches with chips for $7.99.)

Back in the days when Charlie Brown’s grandson Michael ran the store, musicians from around the way would sometimes stop in. Loren was one. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, he played guitar in weekend country bands around southeast Kansas, in places like Burlington and Blue Mound. Michael was a “John Prine type,” Loren recalled, who was bashful about his playing but loved the chance to jam with fellow musicians.

“We’d sit at the tables in the front when the store wasn’t busy and you’d have some farmers start singing, and of course I could play rhythm,” Loren said.

Loren and Regena thought they might like to revive the spirit of those old sessions in a more structured atmosphere. Loren put a country band together and started hosting a few small shows inside, then moved the performances outside, then built a permanent stage in the old feed store and put in central air and heat. It is now a bona fide dance hall, albeit a rustic one, with wood fencing leaned up against the walls and seating courtesy of several rows of orange church pews purchased for $100 from a church in Mound City.

It’s a six-piece band that plays that third Saturday of the month, though in April it was just five, owing to a death in a guitar player’s family. Loren handled rhythm guitar, lead vocals, backup harmonies and the occasional mandolin tune. Members of the band hail from surrounding towns, some close, others not. Lead guitarist Mike George came in from Humboldt, drummer Roger Bland from Gas City, bassist Esther Kennedy from Girard, and fiddle player Ricky Allen from Drexel, Missouri.

“There’s no script,” said Loren, who’d swapped out his mesh farmer’s hat for a Stetson by the time he hit the stage. “I usually couldn’t tell you what we’re going to play ‘till we get up there.”

That night, they cooked up a set list of country classics — George Jones’ “The Race Is On,” Brooks & Dunn’s “Neon Moon,” Merle Haggard’s “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive” — to an audience whose home addresses were as varied as their ages. A half-dozen high-schoolers done up in crisp jeans and tucked-in flannels and cowboy hats kept bouncing off the pews to join retirement-age farmers and ranchers swaying gingerly on the dance floor.

Jenna Schallert, 38, and Jason Pebley, 45, drove in from about 20 miles away. It was their third time coming to the show.

“This is the Saturday night draw around here — date night for us, getting away from our cows and chickens,” said Pebley, who operates natural gas pipelines and a 180-acre ranch outside Welda. “We just come to support our local barn stomp.”

Longtime friends Loring Leifer and Margot Patterson were in from Kansas City. Patterson had been told that her grandmother, Mildred Wagner, was the namesake of the town, and she and Regena were huddled in the snacks aisle, flipping through some printed-out pages of Mildred history.

“We’d been at an art show in Wichita, then stopped into Humboldt this afternoon, then realized it was the third Saturday, so we thought we’d check this out,” Patterson said.

Only about 100 made it out for the April dance — rainy weather, plus a couple of local high schools had prom that night — but often it’s twice that, or more. To accommodate demand from travelers and local workers servicing new wind turbines in the area, the Lances have opened an RV park adjacent to the store. It has eight hookups and three tiny cabins for guests. Regena also operates an Airbnb in Blue Mound — a Victorian mansion where she sometimes hosts murder mystery dinners.

“Growing up, Charlie and Lucille made it so you kind of knew the history of this place,” Regena said. “We’re trying to carry on those traditions and add a few too. We’ve got our hands full at this point, though. I think we’d fail if we tried to get too much bigger.”

She rose from her chair in the old garage, now filled with tables and chairs and laminated newspaper clippings from the store’s 100-year history. A customer was ready to check out up front. The band was warming up in the next room.

“I married a musician,” Regena said. “He thinks differently than I do.” She shrugged. “It’s not always a bad thing.”

Going to Mildred, Kansas

The Mildred Store is at 86 Third St. in Mildred, Kansas. The country music dances are held on the third Saturday of each month — the next one is May 20. Admission is free, and the music starts at 6:30 p.m. More info at themildredstore.com or call the store at 620-439-5424.