Full script: the history of Cherryvale, Kansas
In the 1870s, a family ran a little roadside inn near Cherryvale, Kansas. Travelers stopped in for a meal. Some of them were never seen again.
The Benders homesteaded beside the Great Osage Trail, the only open road heading farther west. Their cabin was split in two by a canvas wagon cover. Up front: a small store, a kitchen, and a dining table.
Kate Bender, the daughter, called herself a healer and a psychic. She held séances and gave lectures, and her fame drew customers to the inn.
By 1873, so many people had vanished along the trail that travelers began to avoid it. Then a doctor named William York went looking for two missing neighbors, and never came home.
His brother, Colonel York, rode out to the Benders' inn with armed men. Days later, a search party found the cabin empty. The Benders had fled.
Under a bed, a trap door had been nailed shut. Beneath it, a cellar soaked with blood. In the apple orchard they found the graves.
It is believed the guest of honor sat with his back to the canvas, over the trap door. Someone behind the curtain struck. The body dropped into the cellar.
At least a dozen travelers were killed. A one-thousand-dollar reward was offered for the family's arrest. What happened to the Benders has never been known.
