Junction City will soon be part of the Kansas African American Trail.

The Geary County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (CVB) voted to recommend the approval of a $3000 expenditure to help pay for the installation of two signs for the historical trail’s stops in Junction City.

Jim Sands, Board member, said that an additional $1000 will come from a grant.

“Initially, out of the 14 or 15 points in Kansas, we were going to get one sign…[now] we’re going to get two signs; we have a lot more than that [as far as] historical sites in our city, but at least we’re on the map for the Kansas African American Historical Trail,” said Sands. “We’ll get people in [town] and once we get them in they’ll see the rest of it with our city efforts.”

One large sign will be placed at Rathert Field and another smaller sign at the Buffalo Soldier monument on 18th Street.

Sands noted that a lot of research has gone into the history of Rathert Field. “The people that played there; I looked at all the other [stadiums] and ours is one of the higher up [on the list] for baseball stadiums; there’s 12 stadiums from the works project – WPA – which was brought together to try to help with diversity and bring the African-American league into baseball.”

The deadline to install the signs as part of the historical trail is September 2018.

Other cities that will be on the trail include Nicodemus, Minneapolis and Dunlap, amongst others.