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Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
Virtual Tour Curing Room
 
The exact use of this limestone building is still under investigation. The hooks in the ceiling suggest that it was
used for curing meat, but with a lack of smoke and soot residue it therefore lends itself for curing
salted meat via hanging from the rafters or salted down in barrels. It may have also been used as a
summer kitchen or laundry house.

West side of summer kitchen.

Front view of the curing room.

Summer kitchen in proximity to the ranch house.

 

Northeast view of the curing room, which is due north of the limestone ranch house.

 

Doors to the summer kitchen.
Inside the summer kitchen.
Inside the summer kitchen.
Door to the inside.
View of the east wall, inside the limestone building. Note one of three round windows for ventilation. Inside on display are implements used in butchering; lard press, sausage stuffer, hog scrapers, knives, saw, meat hooks, large iron kettle, and other tools.
Inside the curing room.
Aerial photo of the Flint Hills at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve  

Did You Know?
Kansas was once the bed of a vast inland sea. The unique, stairstep landscape of the Flint Hills was formed through a process of differential erosion. Erosion washed away the soft shale layers and left the tougher layers of limestone and flint to form the hilltops and prominent benches.

Last Updated: February 02, 2008 at 20:52 EST