What’s at Ensor Park and Museum? Johnson County radio enthusiasts might be surprised

Drive down U.S. 169, almost all the way to Spring Hill, and you’ll find a pocket of Olathe history. The Ensor Park and Museum, with its historic house and farm buildings, holds a more varied set of artifacts than you might think.

The home of former Olathe High School teacher Marshall Ensor and his sister Loretta Ensor has long attracted visitors with an interest in amateur radio history, as well as woodworking and early 20th century furnishings.

Normally, it’s open for weekend tours four months of the year. Because of the pandemic, it’s been closed for a while, but it will be open again on weekends from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in September and October. Visitors must wear masks inside the house.

Members of the Santa Fe Trail Amateur Radio Club and Johnson County Radio Amateurs Club have guided the free tours of the property and its contents for years.

“The transmitter and other radio gear that are here were built by Marshall and were used for many years,” said Marty Peters, secretary and treasurer of the Santa Fe club. “They figure into the broadcast of the lessons that he transmitted from 1929 to 1941. So the radio amateurs have a kind of a special place in their heart for this place.”

Ensor taught amateurs about Morse code, as well as electricity and electrical circuits, with the goal of preparing them to pass the test for an amateur radio license. He stopped teaching via radio when the United States entered World War II, and the government banned amateur transmissions for the duration.

Peters thinks those lessons, broadcast from the Ensors’ home radio station, helped as many as 10,000 people get their licenses.

The number of visitors to the property has dwindled in recent years, but Peters is hoping to change that. The house itself is an eclectic trove of items.

Just off the kitchen is a nook with tons of old radio equipment, including a crystal radio receiver and a spark gap transmitter. In the backyard, a massive radio antenna has been standing for at least 80 years.

A lot of the equipment is a hodgepodge of salvaged parts that Marshall put together himself.

“He tended to use parts out of old vehicles for a lot of things. It was (part of) farm life that you used everything that you had,” said Howard Cripe, volunteer coordinator for Ensor Park and Museum docents.

It wasn’t just Marshall who made a name for himself in radio. Loretta, too, was an accomplished radio operator, helping establish “the first radio station permanently located in a high school in the state of Kansas,” according to a 1940 letter she wrote.

Documents at the Ensor home also indicate that her radio transmissions were the first sent by a woman to reach across the Pacific Ocean.

During World War II, Marshall served in the Navy doing radio operations, and out in one of the barns are a group of radios that he took home at the end of the war when the Navy didn’t want them anymore.

One room over is a completely different world full of projects and machines involved with Marshall’s woodworking. A prize-winning craftsman, he taught industrial arts for 48 years at what’s now Olathe North High School, where Peters had him as a teacher.

Nostalgic sports fans can even see the light-up scoreboard Marshall made for the school to use between 1937 and 1940. Marshall and his students built much of the furniture inside the house, from tables and chairs to more unique pieces.

The city of Olathe has owned the property for about 15 years. It has committed to making the 40-acre farm into a passive park, but work on that probably won’t begin until after the 10-year parks and recreation sales tax renewal goes up for a vote in 2024.

Brad Clay, deputy director of parks and recreation for city of Olathe, said part of the work may include adding interpretive signs about the property’s history and possibly converting one of the barns into a shelter area where visitors can gather.

This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What’s at Ensor Park and Museum? Johnson County radio enthusiasts might be surprised."