Old Runnymede

Pieces of Runnymede outlived the colony elsewhere. Its church, built in 1890, was moved to Harper in 1893 and stands at 11th and Pine Streets as the Old Runnymede Church, also called St. Patrick's Episcopal, listed in the National Register in 1973. The hotel was partly taken apart and carried into the newly opened Cherokee Strip at Alva, Oklahoma, where it is still in use after a local restoration. Among the young men who came in August 1891 was William Deane-Tanner, who as William Desmond Taylor directed Hollywood silent films and was murdered in 1922.

What the plaque says

Old Runnymede Two miles northeast of here, in 1890, stood a typical English village. Curving driveways led to English-style houses set among rows of clipped hedges. Near by were polo grounds, a steeplechase course, a race track, tennis courts and a football field. Red-coated hunters rode to hounds across the buffalo-grass prairie. Farms and or- chards were modeled after English estates and on the townsite a three-story hotel and other businesses were established. The promoter of all this British activity was an Irishman who persuaded wealthy families to send sons to the colony to learn American farming methods. In practice Runnymede strongly resembled a modern dude ranch. Although at one time a hundred young Englishmen lived in the settlement, a number of whom owned estates, it was a failure as a colony. When hard times came old Runnymede collapsed and most of its remittance men returned to England. Today wheat fields cover the townsite. Erected by Kansas Historical Society and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Caldwell and the Chisholm Trail — 30 mi