Take a walk through antebellum Kansas with this Eagle Scout's tour of Tecumseh

TECUMSEH — Here, in this overlooked brick building now serving as a post office, was a general store that was a center of trade for the sleepy town of Tecumseh, Carter Vincent points out.

Right next door, an old barn structure is all that remains of the original medical practice, whose physician has long since passed but whose legacy is best seen in the hundreds of babies he helped deliver through the turn of the 19th century.

Less than a block away are the sites of several firsts for Shawnee County — a first courthouse, a first church — that served as the foundation for the area's eventual future as the seat of Kansas' state government.

These pieces of history could be easily missed when walking by, much more so when driving. But it's history that Vincent, a freshman at Shawnee Heights High School, is keen to preserve through his Eagle Scout project.

Carter Vincent's Eagle Scout project is a walk through time

Vincent, now an Eagle Scout at Tecumseh United Methodist Church's Troop 18, had always known he wanted to join the Boy Scouts because of the experiences and opportunities for leadership it provided.

But it wasn't until COVID struck that he began forming an idea for his eventual Eagle Scout project, which is a capstone of the various leadership and organizational skills Scouts learn throughout their years in troops.

"During COVID, my family and I traveled around the state, and we learned about the history in these little towns," Vincent said. "I combined my love of history and my love of walking, which I grew during COVID, to feature historic Tecumseh."

As he began his research, he talked with Roy Bird, a local retired librarian and author of several Kansas history books, including as a co-author on "Things Ended and Things Begun: A History of Tecumseh, Kansas" by Douglass Wallace.

Using that book, Bird's guidance and other research, Vincent spent over a year putting together a 3-mile historic walking trail that loops through 10 historic sites around Tecumseh.

Bird said he was impressed with Vincent's passion for keeping history alive, particularly through such a labor- and research-intensive project.

"(The walking trail) maintains the stories, the facts and the atmosphere," Bird said. "We talked some about why Tecumseh was important, because at one time, it was very important. That was antebellum pre-Civil War days. It was a southern town, and a lot of people are unaware of that. They know about Bleeding Kansas, but here’s something right here in Shawnee County that was a way to give new life to that information."

With support from the Tecumseh Kiwanis Club, signage provided at discount from FASTSIGN and tools lent from the Kansas Department of Transportation, Carter led a group of Scouts to install signage with information and scannable QR codes that allow anyone to find out more about a particular site.

He said the online component is especially helpful for many of the town's historic sites, which are simply plots of land now that their structures have long faded away.

"Even in Tecumseh, a lot of times, these kinds of monuments aren’t there anymore," Vincent said. "By walking past these, you can create a mental image in your head of the way these places used to be, and you can connect with people form the past."

There'd be no Topeka without Tecumseh

At the site where Tecumseh North Elementary School sits, a portion remains of the 90-year-old historic high school, which itself was built on top of the original Shawnee County Courthouse.

In those days, Vincent explains, settlers had seen the Kansas River landing as a potential county seat, and Tecumseh served that purpose for the first three years of Shawnee County's history.

But it was a pro-slavery town, and when the Civil War ended slavery as an American institution, power, attention and resources shifted to the free-state town of Topeka just up the river, Vincent said.

The courthouse was eventually sold, jobs left and trains no longer stopped by the once-bustling town. Today, Tecumseh is an unincorporated community of about 700 people that sits in the shadow of Topeka, Carter said.

However, he sees Tecumseh as just as integral to the history of Topeka as a county seat and a state capital.

More: How eighth-grader Carter Vincent helps history come alive at the Combat Air Museum

"A lot of times, what pushes people and places to become what they are today is having that competition," Vincent said. "In cross country, I’m always striving to be faster than my PRs and when I’m racing against other people, I always push myself to do better. That’s what allowed these communities to grow, because they were in competition with each other over people, resources and power."

For all its blemishes, Vincent hopes his project can spur more people to remember history or perhaps learn it for the first time.

"Nowadays, there are a lot of older people here in Tecumseh who are aware of the history, but my generation isn’t as aware of it," he said. "In order to keep it alive, we need to pass it down, to make us think about all that came before us and the roots of our communities."

View Vincent's online guide for his historic walking tour of Tecumseh at sites.google.com/view/tecumseh-historic-walking-tour/home.

Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com or by phone at ‪785-289-5325. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Historic tour of Tecumseh is Carter Vincent's Eagle Scout project