Ramona Hotel

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In the early days, commerce thrived in Ramona. With the arrival of the railroad, one of the first buildings on main street was a boarding house, operated by the Ausherman family. The Aushermans came to Kansas from Pennsylvania in the early 1880s, and settled north of Ramona where the Rosebank church is now located (200th Street). They farmed and operated a postal station on the route from Abilene to Marion, and when Ramona came onto the rural landscape, they built a two-story hotel on the west side of main street.

The hotel offered accommodations for railroad workers who were building the railroad lines through Kansas. While the Missouri Pacific railroad went through Hope and Herington, the Rock Island headed south to Lost Springs and Lincolnville. In 1887, the railroad line reached Ramona; Tampa and Durham followed.

The hotel also offered lodging to traveling salesmen, called “Drummers,” who traveled by train with their trunks of merchandise samples, calling on Ramona merchants to take orders. The hotel also served meals for the traveling public, and the local business people, as well. It was a valuable asset to the community at that time. Eventually, the hotel was torn down by Henry Beltz, and the lumber was used to build a farm house northeast of town.

For nearly 100 years, Ramona had no hotel or boarding house, until 2000, when the California Sisters—Pat Wick & Jessica Gilbert—moved from California to Ramona, and turned the old Lutheran church parsonage, at 4th and D, into a bed and breakfast, called Cousins’ Corner. They opened their doors for business in 2001. Once more, the railroad—this time the Union Pacific—brought steady business.

A railroad crew came to the area to fix ties and repair crossings, and the crew supervisor heard we had a bed and breakfast. We were living in the house, doing remodeling, but when they asked to stay at the house, we had it ready for them within 12 hours, and my sister was ready to serve them bacon and eggs for breakfast.
Pat Wick

The sisters have operated their guesthouses for over a decade; their customers include railroad crews, itinerate constructions workers, folks who have roots in Ramona, and return for reunions and funerals, and city folks, who have no ties whatsoever to Ramona, but want to experience a slice of rural America.