"the Big Red Apple Near Wathena, Kansas"
From the Collection of Carol Hobbs, Hill City, Kansas
by Michael Boss
Gouache on Rag Board
8" X 12"
Kansas was no exception to the programmatic architecture movement. Billed by the Hunt Brothers as the largest apple ever grown, 30 feet high and 100 feet in circumference, the first Big Red Apple was built near their orchards in the middle 1920s. A raging fire leveled it in 1929, and a second Big Red Apple later burned in 1940. Each was a restaurant and had a dance hall as well.