Metal-Fowler Filigreed Teardrop TB

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 115 days, in Europe it is 65 days. As of 7-Apr-22 this one has survived for 3.6 years and had been moved by 19 cachers, for an average drop every 70 days. Please keep it moving!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event where there is no security. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

While I have lived in Texas for nearly 50 years, I was born and grew to an adult in Kansas.  When I tell someone of my origins, they almost always respond in one of two ways:  “I have been there but I don’t remember much about it” or “that 400 mile drive across the state on Interstate 70 is really boring.”  There is more to the state than that.  The wheat grown there feeds the world, and the people are nice, but I will focus on the sometimes lawless history of the state.

Kansas achieved statehood in 1861, but it was far from civilized.  From 1850 until 1900 the region was a frontier, and at the center of important events in US history:  there was the westward movement of pioneers from Europe and the eastern US and the subsequent conflicts with Native Americans; the Santa Fe Trail crossed the state and the Pony Express and the Oregon Trail passed through a corner; there was a border war because Kansas was a free state and a center of the abolitionist movement, whereas neighboring Missouri was a slave state; and finally the several new railroads were extending westward into hostile territory and furthermore some of the railheads were the destinations of cattle drives from Texas.  Each trackable in this series of metal travel bugs is named for towns with interesting histories (at least to me), some of which have connections to my youth.

Fowler is a small town in Meade County.  It was laid out and platted in 1886.  The town was named for George Fowler, the original owner of the town site.  Fowler was a shipping point on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.

I have passed through a few times.  As far as I know there were no cataclysmic events occurring there, like other Kansas places in this series.  However, the Hutchinson News used to list the scores of high school games for all of western Kansas.  It was there I learned of the Fowler teams were the Gold Bugs.  I followed their competitions just because of the mascot name.  I assume some early Meade countians were required to read the strange Poe short story, as I was.