By Andra Bryan Stefanoni

news@joplinglboe.com

PITTSBURG, Kan. — Loud boos and hisses filled Pittsburg’s Memorial Auditorium and Convention Center Saturday afternoon, but for the several hundred audience members attending the melodrama “Love Rides The Rails,” that just meant they were having a good time at the expense of the villain.

The production was part of the annual Little Balkans Days, an event started in 1984 to celebrate the heritage of Southeast Kansas. The area was nicknamed after the Balkans in Europe, where many of the community’s immigrant settlers — later employed largely by the railroad and the mines — originated.

This year’s event included numerous activities that were a nod to those early railroad and mining days.

Riding the rails

Approximately 250 people were on board the train for a 9 a.m. ride southwest to Chicopee, a ride that is a cooperative effort by Heart of the Heartlands and WATCO.

“This track was one that a lot of immigrants came in on to stay at the Europe Hotel in Pittsburg,” said Ron Morgan, a member of the Heart of the Heartland. “In the old days there would be coal smoke coming in all the windows. Now wouldn’t that be fun? But it beat riding a horse and it beat walking.”

Passengers heard such history from Morgan via a microphone during the 20-mile round-trip ride, and for many, like a group of students from China, it was a chance to slow down and see agricultural fields and wooded areas draped by autumn clematis and bordered by black-eyed Susans.

“I love trains, and I hardly ever miss a chance to see one or ride one,” said passenger Jonathan Dresner as he waited to board the train with his wife, Woody, and son, Max. “I grew up on the East Coast and loved listening to folk music, hobo music, train music.”

In front of the historic Colonial Fox Theater on Broadway, a marquee enticed passersby to take a tour of the theater, which is on its way to restoration and revival through the efforts of the Colonial Fox Foundation.

“We’ve had about 75 people come through already,” said Pat Jones, foundation member. “It is definitely generating more interest in getting it renovated, and it has been great to hear the memories of the people who used to go here. We’re taking those written narratives to compile and preserve — we have stacks and stacks of them so far.”

Book bargains

A few blocks away, a steady stream of festival-goers browsed tables of gently used books at the annual sale put on by Friends of the Pittsburg Public Library.

Now on the National Register of Historic Places, Pittsburg Public Library first opened its doors on Jan. 18, 1902, but the early days of the library, like the mines, was not without controversy.