Council Grove ? To Ken and Shirley McClintock, there is a higher purpose in restoring old buildings.

The couple spend time and money restoring buildings in an area of town known as Maple Camp. Right now, they are working on an 1860 home that had been converted to a gas station.

“People think we’re crazy because it’s such a sacrifice for us,” Shirley McClintock said. “Ken is an attorney, but a poor one because he spends so much time with his history that he so loves.

“But I believe there is an eternal purpose for saving these buildings. If nobody saves them, they’re gone forever. This is God’s project. It’s all about faith and love — faith and love of the past, faith and love of the future and bringing them together.”

In 1994, when the McClintocks found out that the gas station at Maple Camp was about to be destroyed, they tried to recruit someone in Council Grove to save it.

“It was a mess,” Shirley said. “It looked hideous. It was a dump. The yard was full of trash. People thought I was nuts, and I did, too.”

At the time, the building was believed to have been built in 1968. Ken, however, discovered an old court document that dated the building to 1860.

“When we found that, we knew we couldn’t let it go,” Ken said. “It was then that we knew the house was older than everybody in town thought it had been. This makes it the third-oldest stone house and the fourth-oldest house on the Santa Fe Trail.”

The house, originally built by Abraham and Mary Rawlinson, was purchased in 1870 by William Riley Terwilliger, a farmer, stockman, livery owner and member of the board of directors of the Council Grove Savings Bank. The home was converted to a gas station in 1927.

When the McClintocks bought it, a cement block wrap-around building hid the old stone home and cement covered the walls.

“We had to hand-chip every bit of paint off the stone,” Shirley said. “It was purple and pale green and had a coat of cement under it all.”

The McClintocks already have restored a 1930 tourist cabin, which now houses a massage therapy business. Next, Ken said, the couple will tackle the 1902 schoolhouse.

They also plan to restore an 1858 log house, a 1947 market and a World War II cabin. Raising money for the projects is a never-ending process.

“We move forward in chunks and pieces,” Shirley said. “If I looked at the whole thing, I’d get overwhelmed. So, I just look at it in chunks.”

The couple formed a tax-exempt corporation, the Historical Preservation Corp., when they purchased the property. With the help of a substantial donation, they were able to pay off the mortgage in 1998.