This Kansas Main Street Feels Like A Movie Set

Stand anywhere on Broadway Street in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, and try not to picture the opening credits rolling. At one end sits a French Renaissance courthouse with a red mansard roof, towering over everything else. At the other end, a historic stone bridge arches over the Cottonwood River. Between them, three blocks of brick-and-limestone buildings from the 1880s line a wide brick street that looks almost too perfect to be real. For these reasons and more, this main street feels fresh off the set of a major motion picture.

A Three-Block Stage

Broadway Street is only three blocks long, and those three blocks pack in more authentic 19th-century Western architecture than most towns ten times its size. The buildings date back to the late 1800s when Cottonwood Falls was a ranching community that grew alongside the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. These aren’t reconstructions or careful restorations with vinyl siding hidden underneath. They’re the actual limestone and brick structures that went up when Kansas was still figuring out who and what it wanted to be.

The Chase County Courthouse at the head of Broadway was completed in 1873 with hand-cut limestone blocks from the Flint Hills hauled by horse-drawn wagons. The architect was John G. Haskell, who also designed the Kansas State Capitol. The 113-foot building has been in continuous use as a courthouse ever since, making it the oldest operating courthouse in Kansas.

Several buildings in Cottonwood Falls are on the National Register of Historic Places, including the courthouse, the Chase County National Bank building (completed in 1882), the 1888 Cartter Building, the 1914 Cottonwood River Bridge, and the Samuel N. Wood House. Walk down Broadway, and you’re basically strolling through a curated collection of regional history that happens to still function as a working town.

The Bridge That Completes the Picture

The historic stone bridge at the end of Broadway is one of only three remaining reinforced masonry, earth-filled arch bridges designed by Daniel B. Luten. Built in 1914 by the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company, it’s now a pedestrian bridge spanning the Cottonwood River, with the kind of graceful lines that make photographers pull over.

The dam just upstream was initially built from cottonwood logs in 1860 to power a sawmill and a gristmill. It was expanded in 1906 to generate electricity and is now constructed from cut limestone covered with concrete. The whole riverfront area has this timeless quality where you can easily imagine what it looked like 150 years ago because not much has fundamentally changed.

Shops That Don’t Break the Spell

Despite a modest population of just 850 people, Broadway Street is home to several shops and businesses that respect the aesthetic they’ve inherited. Prairie PastTimes Arts and Crafts occupies one of those limestone buildings and sells exactly what you’d hope: handmade goods and one-of-a-kind local crafts. For the same reason, many visitors also seek out Tallgrass Antiques for its vintage selection, antique offerings, and cozy, old-timey environment.

The Flint Hills Gallery showcases paintings of the surrounding prairie landscape by Judith Mackey and her granddaughter, Jessica Bell. Mackey spent 40 years painting exclusively outdoors, capturing the rolling grasslands that make this region unique. The gallery sits right on Broadway, and the paintings inside match the views outside of endless tallgrass prairie under massive skies.

Jim Roberts & Son Western Outfitters provides authentic working-ranch gear, not costume wear for tourists playing cowboy. You can buy boots, hats, and equipment that people in Chase County actually use on working ranches. This adds function and a genuine prairie feel to this movie set main street.

Three Places to Eat, Each One Different

HeBrews Coffeehouse serves specialty espresso drinks, home-baked goods, scones, biscuits, and cinnamon rolls. It’s the kind of local coffeehouse that knows your order by the third visit and actually bakes everything on-site. Open for breakfast and lunch, it’s where you start your day before walking Broadway.

The Grand Central Hotel & Grill is a destination. The building dates back to 1884, when it opened as the original Grand Central Hotel. It’s been operating continuously for 140 years through various names and owners until its reopening as the Grand Central in 1995. The restaurant serves fine dining with Western flair, including different cuts of steak, pastas, soups, salads, and burgers.

Doghouse Saloon opened in 2021 and immediately became the town’s favorite watering hole, with a full bar, pool tables, live music, and an authentic country bar atmosphere that locals and visitors both appreciate. This is where Broadway Street comes alive after the antique shops close.

Why It Works

Broadway Street is only three blocks, but those three blocks feel complete. You’ve got the dramatic courthouse at one end, the historic bridge at the other, and everything between is appropriately scaled limestone and brick from the 1880s. There’s no confused architectural mash-up, and no buildings from seven different eras competing for attention.

Even the connection to neighboring Strong City feels right, with its paved trail less than two miles long and authentic period light poles. Strong City hosts one of the first and largest PRCA-approved rodeos in the nation every year, drawing 20,000 people to a town of 388 residents. The whole region respects its ranching heritage without turning it into a theme park.

The Film Set That’s Actually a Town

NBC’s The Blacklist filmed parts of season 8, episode 13 in Cottonwood Falls. Disney’s 1985 Return to Oz set Doctor Worley’s clinic in Chase County Courthouse. The 2005 film Jarhead mentioned Cottonwood Falls in its script. Filmmakers keep coming back here because Broadway Street delivers something most places can’t, and that is an authentic piece of American history. You don’t need to dress the set, because the town is the set. And somehow, 850 people live here, going about their regular lives, while visitors walk around marveling at how perfect everything looks.