When Mexican immigrants began arriving in Humboldt in the early 1910s, they were drawn by whispers of steady work and safety from the Mexican Revolution. Families began arriving on foot, by rail, and sometimes by sheer faith.
The Monarch Cement Company, the Santa Fe Railroad, and the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) Railroad all offered steady work, and that promise was enough to pull families north across the border.
Monarch Cement’s smokestack rose like a beacon on the prairie, promising stability to those fleeing chaos. Along a dirt stretch that would come to be known as Cement Road, they built lives, raised families, and wove their stories into the heart of a small Kansas town.
“The way my parents came, they just walked over,” recalled Maria Dolores “Lola” (Perez) Cruz, who was born in Humboldt in 1939 and grew up along Cement Road, a stretch of 12 houses built by Monarch to house its immigrant workers.
“In those days, that’s the way it was. They were escaping a war, and they landed in Kansas of all places, in this little town called Humboldt.”
THE FIRST Mexican families to arrive — the Ramirezes, Garcias, and Sanchezes — initially lived in shanties near Coal Creek on the south side of the Monarch plant before the company-built homes were finished.
The Katy Railroad provided boxcars for its workers, and Santa Fe built a row of houses south of the Humboldt depot.
Over time, some railroad families took jobs with Monarch, where appointed receiver H.F.G. Wulf had a vision of building a “stable, loyal workforce.”
“He said to make the Monarch Company successful, he needed a stable group of workers,” Cruz said. “And to do that, you build houses for them.”
Those homes — initially only four small rooms — became the heart of a tight-knit community. In the early 1950s, Monarch added kitchens, bedrooms, and screened-in porches.
“We grew up outdoors,” Cruz said with a laugh. “It didn’t matter whose backyard you were in, there was always an adult around. We played in the woods, by the creek, even on the highway and the railroad tracks. In a way, it was idyllic.”
BUT WHILE the children’s memories shimmer with warmth, life for their parents was marked by hard work and quiet perseverance.
“It was segregated housing,” Cruz said. “We Mexicans lived there, and if you did move into town, you lived where the African Americans lived. There were only certain places where we were allowed to live.”
Her parents, Teodoro and Maria Eufrocina Perez, worked both at the Monarch plant and as janitors for its administrative offices.
Many of the women in the Cement Road community also worked, some in Monarch’s bagging department, while others took jobs in factories in Parsons or at poultry plants in Chanute.
During World War II, Cruz’s mother helped organize local women to work for the Red Cross and served as an interpreter for immigrant laborers.
