Wilson, Kansas keeps a painted Easter egg 20 feet tall and 15 feet wide under a gazebo in Ed and LaVange Shiroky Park, at Avenue D and 27th Street, on the old alignment of US Highway 40 through town. The egg is fiberglass, weighs about 8,000 pounds, and is decorated in the traditional kraslice style of Bohemia in black, red, white and yellow. It was the town's project for the best part of thirteen years: the idea dates from about 2003, nine years of fundraising followed, and Hess Services of Hays fabricated the blank egg and delivered it in August 2012. It was sanded in the summer of 2013 and given a black base coat in 2014. The design was painted in the summer of 2015 by Christine Slechta, the art teacher at the Wilson school, working with more than fifty volunteers over some two thousand hours. Maico Industries of Ellsworth built the gazebo, and the egg was dedicated on 29 July 2016. The money came from a local trust, a grant from the Czech Embassy, a utility company's community fund and a regional foundation. The town began in 1871 as Bosland, a station on the Kansas Pacific Railway, and became Czech only afterwards: Francis Swehla settled there in 1874 and advertised the place in Czech language newspapers until Bohemian and Moravian families filled it. The State of Kansas declared Wilson the Czech Capital of Kansas in 1967, and the After Harvest Czech Festival is held on the last weekend of July. A marker beside the egg explains the colours, red for health and joy, yellow for good fortune, black for eternity, white for purity, and the double tailed lion of Bohemia.
Getting there
38.8241, -98.4727
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
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