photo by: Bremen Keasey

The sunflower field at Grinter Farms, 24050 Stillwell Rd. in Leavenworth County. The field is open to the public as the sunflowers begin to bloom close to the peak time of year.

Thousands and thousands of guests have come to Grinter Farms’ golden sunflower fields over the years to take photos, but at first, all Ted Grinter wanted was for people to stop taking his crops.

When the flowers at the farm a few miles northeast of Lawrence started to bloom each year, in late August to early September, Grinter and his family would notice people stopping by the field, taking pictures or taking flower heads. Around 30 years ago, Grinter said he felt fed up with people taking the heads of the flowers, telling his wife, Kris, he was done.

But she suggested putting out a donation box near the field, just to “see what happens.” And, sure enough, people started putting in donations.

“I don’t feel so bad about people taking them (now),” Grinter said.

This time of year is peak season for the sunflowers at Grinter Farms, about 4 miles south of Tonganoxie on Stillwell Road. Grinter still doesn’t charge admission — asking for just a $1 donation if you plan to take a flower head with you — and he doesn’t plan to change that anytime soon.

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Grinter Farms has drawn visitors both from the U.S. and internationally — people from as far away as Europe, Asia or Australia. But if it weren’t for an international incident in the ’70s, it’s possible the farm wouldn’t have started growing sunflowers in the first place.

Grinter said his family first moved to the land in 1947, but they didn’t grow sunflowers back then. But in 1973, the U.S. was targeted for an oil embargo by OPEC, which led to a spike in gas prices and even gas shortages across the country.

It also led Grinter’s grandfather to start thinking about alternative fuel.

He had the idea of growing sunflowers and processing their oils to create biofuel. Unfortunately, Grinter said, the closest processor that would help them make biofuel was in Goodland, all the way on the western side of the state. That meant they they had to find something else to do with the sunflowers they grew. They settled on selling them as birdseed, which Grinter has now been doing for nearly 50 years.

“I’ve been bagging and selling them ever since then,” Grinter said.

Although the main crops on the family’s farm are soybeans and wheat, there is still plenty of space for the sunflowers. Grinter said they were growing around 30 acres of sunflowers this year. The portion that is open to the public is about 10 acres, while there are 20 acres growing in a different field, and Grinter estimated there are about 750,000 seeds out across those fields.

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Just passing by and seeing the fields makes some people want to stop, but it was social media that really helped the farm grow into a popular photo op.

Before, the farm would get calls from potential visitors, but in the mid-2010s Grinter said his daughter suggested they post the information to Facebook.

The page took off. It soon had thousands of followers, and visitors were coming in from all over the place — including many places Grinter never would have expected before the farm had an online presence. Grinter said he has talked with visitors from China, Australia, Ukraine and Czechia. Just this past week, Grinter said a woman from New Zealand who was writing a novel about someone who grew up on a sunflower farm stopped by to research and learn more about what life on the farm was like.

Perhaps the most hectic time for the sunflower farm was in 2016, when the farm’s popularity, combined with Labor Day traffic and construction work in the area, caused traffic to back up on U.S. Highway 24-40. As the Journal-World reported, Grinter Farms asked what the Leavenworth County Sheriff’s Office would suggest they do — the sheriff’s office advised that they close for the day, and so they did.

Looking back on “Carmaggedon,” as Grinter called it, he said it was a “fiasco” and quite stressful dealing with the crowd and needing to work with state troopers and police to try to close down the field.

In recent years, Grinter said more people in the area have planted similar farms, which “takes some of the pressure off.”

The farm has also been featured on multiple national TV programs, including “Good Morning America” and “CBS Sunday Mornings.” The attention is something the family couldn’t have imagined when the sunflower operation started.

“It’s wild,” Grinter said.

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Despite the prominence that Grinter Farms has gained, the operations have not changed much over the years. The field is still open to the public and there’s no admission fee, just the suggested donation box.

Grinter said he and his wife have both felt adamant about not wanting to charge an entry fee to see the flowers. They don’t want to add any costs for families who might want to visit.

“We’re free,” Grinter said. There’s people who have sunflower festivals and stuff, but there might be $5 to park. We’re not going to do that.”

The $1 donation for each head taken is on the honor system, and Grinter said most of the time, people honor that request and donate. But the family does sell some actual merchandise, as well. Their Sunflower General Store is open during sunflower season, with a bakery selling cinnamon rolls and other treats as well as products from local businesses and artists. Any bit of money they make from it helps feed their “sunflower habit,” Grinter said.

The little sea of gold doesn’t last long — each year, the peak blooms are only there for about three weeks, normally ending in mid-September — but it has had a lasting effect on some people. Grinter said there are two women who come up to the farm each year from Dallas. Despite the fact there could be “thousands of acres” of sunflowers elsewhere that they could visit, they always come back to visit Grinter Farms.

These kinds of stories are the point for Grinter and his family, not whatever money the sunflowers could make.

“We’re not trying to get rich off it; just trying to keep us going,” Grinter said.