Chicken Annie's

Carole & I, along with Greg, were invited to spend the Fourth of July weekend at Frank & Bonna Crowl's summer home in Pittsburg, Kansas. Frank & Bonna are the parents of my son-in-law, John. They have a very nice home-away-from-home setting on about 10 acres near the edge of town and have hosted a large family gathering over the Fourth of July holiday for many years.

We have been invited to their get together for several years along with John & Becky with all of their expanded family, John's brother and his wife and kids from Nashville, Tennessee, and a number of other Crowl relatives. Many of my grand kids also invited a friend, so there was quite a crowd, especially lots of kids.

Carole, Greg, and I fired up "The Bus" and drove to Pittsburg for the festivities. We parked in the Crowl's driveway and settled in for a long weekend of fun, fellowship, and fireworks. "Kid watching" is always a popular activity as Frank has a 4-wheeler ATV and a golf cart for the kids to drive around the property. Also numerous yard games were set up, such as boche ball, blongo ball, and bean bag toss. Numerous board games were also available for the kids indoors. In addition, the kids had lots of fireworks to set off.

Pittsburg is known for several things: (1) the historic heart of the business forms printing industry, (2) the location of the main campus of Pittsburg State University, and (3) fried chicken.

Back in the 1930's and 1940's, southeast Kansas was principally a large coal mining area. The husband of a local lady, Annie, was injured in a mine accident and unable to work, so Annie started cooking chicken dinners to feed miners in her home to support her family. She started raising her own chickens and expanded the house to accomodate more people. She became known as "Chicken Annie".

Annie's sister, Mary, also started serving fried chicken in her home. Chicken Mary's was located just down the street from Chicken Annie's. Annie's children and grandchildren now run Chicken Annie's restaurant and several other copy-cat fried chicken restaurants have opened in the Pittsburg area over the years building the town's reputation for fried chicken.


Greg had not been to Pittsburg before, so we had to take him to one of the famous fried chicken restaurants for an authentic Pittsburg fried chicken dinner. We selected the original, Chicken Annie's.

We arrived in the late afternoon and the place was packed. We had to wait in line for quite a while and, I think, ended up being one of the last customers served. But the wait was worth it! Chicken Annie sure does know how to fry chicken.

And Greg got to experience the "original".