Wonder All Around Us

A stop at the gravesite of a Kentucky Derby champion reveals how Atlas Obscura turns ordinary drives into unexpected discoveries. Somewhere in Kansas, a well-traveled man asked me if I was driving long distances to hit the state's biggest attractions. I paused. That wasn't really how I was thinking about this trip at all. As I settled into driving south to north through the plains states, I discovered something. Wonder doesn't actually require huge detours when you travel with the Atlas Obscura app. Wherever I was headed, there was something unexpected and interesting practically underfoot. So I showed him. I pulled up the app right there. “Look. Fifty feet from where we're standing, there's an all-electric house.” And just a few minutes away, a horse graveyard. I had already failed to stop at Mister Ed's grave in Oklahoma, sorry Mister Ed, so I wasn't going to miss this one. The Lawrin gravesite sits at the end of a quiet residential cul-de-sac in Prairie Village, a tidy suburb of Kansas City. It's tucked behind a black wrought-iron fence on a small, well-tended rectangle of green. You would never know to turn into this neighborhood, wind down its meandering streets, and pull up to this spot without Atlas Obscura. But here's what's interesting about Lawrin. He was the only Kansas-bred horse ever to win the Kentucky Derby. In 1938, Lawrin crossed the finish line with jockey Eddie Arcaro in the saddle and a four-leaf clover tucked under it for luck. The entire 200-acre Woolford Farms where he was born and trained is now Prairie Village. All that's left of it is this small, immaculate patch of grass at the end of a cul-de-sac. While I was there, I met a man in his 90s who lives in the house across the street from the grave. He told me his favorite story about that 1938 Derby finish. In the final stretch, he said, Lawrin and his jockey glanced back. The second-place rider was closing fast. They nearly lost. But then they refocused and surged ahead. “Never look back,” he told me. “When you turn around like that, the horse thinks it's coming to the end. He starts to slow down. Just keep going.” Then he shared a bit of horse burial trivia. Racehorses are usually buried with only their head and heart because their bodies are simply too large. Head and heart. I turned that over as I walked back to my car. It turns out the full tradition actually includes the hooves too. Intelligence, spirit, and speed, all interred together. And if there was one thing Lawrin had in abundance, it was speed. Two minutes and four and four-fifths seconds worth of it, to be exact. That's what wandering with Atlas Obscura does for you. You stumble onto wonder in places you never would have found on your own. If you have suggestions for places I should see in the states I still have left, email me at CEO@atlasobscura.com. My map so far:

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