The Spring Valley Heritage Site, is located west of Junction City at the intersection of K-18 and Spring Valley Road, features several historic buildings on site.
The restored 19th century one-room Spring Valley schoolhouse held classes until 1958 and was the last one-room school house in Geary County without plumbing. The working 1930s era water pump and pony barn are still on the grounds.
Frederich Wilhelm Lange was the first missionary sent to Kansas by the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod in 1861. He made is home with the C.F. Wetzel family and preached his first sermon in Kansas in the Wetzel Log Cabin. Placed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places it is cared by the Geary County Historical Society and moved to its current location in 2003.
Group Tours
Explore the little cabin and experience what it was like to be a pioneer settling on the untamed prairie in an authentic one room log cabin. Group tours and activities can be arranged by contacting the Geary County Historical Museum.
Wetzel's Log Cabin Church
Wetzel's Log Cabin Church was built in 1857 for a former army dragoon, Louis Kettlehouse. After his death, it became the home of the C. F. Wetzel family.
It was in that same year, 1861, that the first congregation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, in Kansas was organized in the Wetzel's home.