UREKA, Kan. — A telephone rings in the racing office. Lee Smith, light twinkling off the oversized belt buckle bearing his name, reaches across his cluttered desk to pick up the receiver. He sounds tired.

The caller wants to come on opening day, which is this Saturday. Smith scribbles on a Post-It note. He's in his third month as general manager of the troubled racetrack in southeast Kansas, and if things don't turn around, he could be forced to shutter the place he's loved for most of his 73 years.

There's a hint of desperation in his voice. Eureka Downs needs attendance this year. It needs a little of everything, maybe even a miracle. It lost a lot of money last season, and, after a barn fire in February killed 43 horses, it's in critical condition.

The meet has been shortened to 18 days. The lack of slot machines at Kansas horse tracks has sent prize money spiraling and the best trainers to Iowa and Oklahoma. The slots raise cash that's put into a pool for purses; without that extra source of revenue, folks statewide are suffering. Eureka Downs is fading away, and the town that supports it might not be far behind.

This place means the world to Smith. After all, it saved his life. In 1967, he found a growth in his throat. Convinced he was dying, he bought a horse trailer on credit, loaded up his family and came to Eureka Downs to enjoy his final months. They camped between A and B barns for the summer, savoring each moment. But by August, the growth had shrunk and disappeared.

Spring and summer wrestle. One day it's hot, the next a north wind rips through town, kicking up sawdust out at the track. Through it all, Eureka hangs on, as it's done since the Civil War. It was once called the safest place in the United States. Someone compiled all the Russian targeting data and found that the best spot to ride out a nuclear holocaust was right here, off U.S. 54.

Only they'd imagined the wrong enemy. Warheads wouldn't destroy their town; time and progress would. The oil boom of the 1920s waned and, in the '50s, most of the precious black gold was sucked dry. Phillips and Sinclair left. Two thirds of the people in the county followed. About 2,800 remain in Eureka today.

Outside town, once-great farms and homesteads rot. The land has won. Someday, all evidence of the pioneers will be gone, the prairie as barren as they found it. Standing by the track's remaining barns, trainer Betty Melson points across Jefferson Street toward town.

"You just drive down through those old neighborhoods," she says, "and there are beautiful old Victorian homes that are three stories with maids' quarters. Now they're falling down. Oh, for the days …"

Main Street is closing, one storefront at a time. Super D left. So did J.C. Penney, Western Auto, the department store, the large appliance store and on and on. Even McDonald's closed. So did the place that opened in its stead. And just a week or so ago, the latest incarnation in that location went belly up, too. Eureka Fine Books rents videos.

Even the once-fine Greenwood Hotel, ground zero for the big oil and cattle deals of bygone days, is boarded up. A local group is battling to save it, trying to rewrite the town's history.

"If they tear that hotel down, they might as well tear down the rest of the buildings on Main Street," Johnston says. "If we lose that hotel, we've lost Eureka."

Time caught up with many other little places in Greenwood County. Hill Top's gone. Kenbro, Teterville, Thrall, Burkett. Rocky Ford, Ivanpah, Utopia. All forgotten. Generations of lives and loves and losses blown away like topsoil.

They've been racing horses around here since 1872, and the first official race was at the 1904 County Fair. Three years later, as oil boomed for the first time, a bigger grandstand and expanded barns were added. More than 13,000 people showed up to opening day that year. It remains the largest crowd in track history, Johnston says. A living Roethke poem, it's been going downhill ever since.

But even in times of tragedy, the town rallied. On July 1, 1963, just three days before the start of racing season, the 60-year-old grandstand burned. Firemen raced over, limiting the damage. Even as the stands smoked, officials borrowed temporary bleachers from the Chase County Rodeo in Strong City. The town history reads: "Scores of public minded men worked around the clock to make the four-day meet a reality."

The whole time, the town tried to get pari-mutuel betting legalized. They failed in 1955, 1968 and 1978. Finally, in 1986, they succeeded, allowing gambling on horse racing in the state of Kansas. The future, for once, looked great. As they'd campaigned for this bill, the price of oil had been above $40 a barrel. Of course, by the time the track opened for pari-mutuel in 1989, oil had plummeted to less than $20 a barrel, barely enough to break even. Many out-of-town owners made their living with wells, and the track suffered.

The town's leaders fixated on slot machines to save them. They've been close, and many believe if their state senator, Peggy Palmer, would vote yes, Eureka and the track could be saved. The senator was in session and unavailable for comment.

So the track was already struggling when Eureka resident Jeff Dehlinger awoke before dawn on Feb. 5. He looked out his window and saw T Barn in flames. He dialed 911. It was 5:45 a.m. The news went out on scanners around town.

Outside of town, longtime trainers Glen and Betty Melson got the call. Glen threw on his boots and raced toward town. Four miles out, coming over a hill, he saw the flames reaching toward the sky, turning night to day. He knew. Melson picked up his cell phone and called his wife.

Sheriff's deputy Troy Mead was one of the first on the scene. He grew up at Eureka Downs, working for the Melsons. He knew how much they loved those animals. The wall of flames broke his heart.

Mead watched the fire suck up the sawdust and hay, flames bursting through the windows. Billowing clouds of smoke kept them from seeing inside the barn. A crowd stood by helplessly as animals burned alive, imprisoned in the barn. They'd find them later positioned in grotesque angles, hanging in the stable gates or twisted into the shed row.

At least two cats escaped; Mrs. Kitty and Morris took up residence next door. One horse, Smart Effort, managed to jump out of its stall and bolt for safety. They found him on the racetrack, burns over much of his body.

No one knew what to do. Forty-three horses had been lost. Jose Ibarra, a leading trainer, lost 23. He packed up and moved to Oklahoma, finding a steady paycheck with one of his owners. The Melsons lost eight.

"We sat at the kitchen table the next day just lost," Betty says. "We were having our coffee, doing our normal routine, and we didn't have anywhere to go. It was a helpless, lost feeling."

As Glen Melson had done since he was a little boy, sweating on the farm before and after school, he went to work. The town followed, like it did in 1963. Dozens of people showed up, converting the old barns into modern facilities. Someone provided a Bobcat. People sent bridles and halters and water tubs. The local feed store donated horse food.

"The small-town people are just so used to helping their neighbor," says Paul Treadwell, president of the Kansas Quarter Horse Racing Association. "And when they have a tragedy, they're right there. It's this lifestyle. The simple goodness of it all is just inspiring. It makes you feel good about life."

The state fire inspectors concluded that the cause of the fire was undetermined. Some whispered arson. Others blamed space heaters in the barn. A few suspected a meth lab had exploded. Officially, no one will ever know.

The "why" doesn't matter anymore. Just the "what next" does. The fire brought their problems into focus. The insurance issue is just one of myriad kicks to the shin, but it serves as an example. A typo left the policy protecting 5,000 square feet instead of five or six times more, so the track got a check for $89,943 instead of $312,999.

Smith is micromanaging the numbers, trying to cut the budget to pay for everything from insurance to paper towels. He's doing yeoman's work, but they're in the red. Even the Melsons, with a long history at the track, will have to make decisions at the end of the season. It'll be hard to stay. At Eureka, without slots to jack up purses, a maiden race is worth about $2,000. In Oklahoma, she says, that same race is worth between $9,000 and $13,000.

"It's gonna kill us," Betty says. "I'm afraid we won't make it through the season. The track will celebrate its 135th anniversary next year, and they probably won't be running races here."

The debris has been carried away, all but a few pieces of charred wood and a ribbon of fire scene tape. In the red barn, the Melsons get animals ready. There's birth in the air. Betty is bent over a cardboard box, oohing and aahing over Mrs. Kitty and her litter of children. The dad is Morris. They survived the fire and are now starting the cycle of life anew. Betty thinks that's appropriate.

The people of Eureka are trying. Convicts have come from the local prison to convert aging barns. Lee's doing his best. Even Smart Effort's burns are healing. There is a bit of the town's spirit in that tough horse.

"This is a horse that has recovered from stone-bruised feet and a broken metatarsal bone in his hock," Geerdes-Boller says, watching him on the walker.

Glen walks slowly into his barn, sitting down to have the last sip of his morning coffee. He doesn't say anything, being a man of few words. He swallows, then sighs and stands. He bends to touch his toes. It's back to work. Their exercise rider couldn't tame a big mount belonging to a local man named Dick Teichgraeber. Glen, a former champion jockey, gives it a try. It's like old times, Glen riding a Teichgraeber horse. Used to be, Dick was a dominant racing man. Now he's got just two in action.

Betty watches and remembers. She and a friend talk about the old man and his health. Dick's fighting cancer, lived longer than anyone expected. He's gonna die throwing punches.

"He's got a beautiful farm outside of town," she says. "Now it's falling down around him. You should go look at it. You wanna see what this town's going to look like in a few years? It's a shame."

Teichgraeber, now 77 and gaunt, is swallowed by his easy chair. He's almost died about three times, taking the brunt of chemo and everything else. His house is a shrine to all things big. A huge fireplace to his right. An enormous television in front of him. His very own putting green out back, and all of it surrounded by his ranch.

Outside, what's left of a once-thriving horse breeding and training business decays. He shut it down about 10 years ago, tired of throwing away money. Teichgraeber used to go walk up and down the barren shed rows, but he doesn't do it much anymore. It's depressing, seeing the tractors grown over with weeds and the tack still hanging on hooks.

Once, he had 100 or so horses here, with around 50 broodmares for breeding. They had cameras monitoring the entire deal. He had his own 3/4-mile track. Now, there's a rusted starting gate, abandoned equipment. In one of the barns, there's a rake, a hoe and a set of jumper cables on a stall door. That and nothing else but memories.

Teichgraeber spent much of his adult life fighting to save racing in Eureka. He's fought and fought, and, near the end, seems to understand that he has probably failed.

"I didn't want to see it lost," he says. "I wanted to see it continue. We always had the hope that we might get slot machines. We've never gotten it. That's what I'm afraid of. That we're gonna lose the track. The track is certainly worth saving. You've just got to have a way to save it, and I don't know how to do it."

He coughs. There's a hospital bed up against the wall, just in case. This year, he'll find out whether his beloved Eureka Downs will survive. Hell, maybe he'll be lucky and not live to see it sit abandoned, like the old schoolhouse down the gravel road from his house.

It's made of stone, and the walls have caved in, along with the roof. It closed in the '50s, a happier, more prosperous time. Vines grow on the outside. Close by is what's left of a swing set. Except there are no chains. No swing. No children. Just hills and grass and a herd of cows, slowing chewing. Gray thunderheads hang low and vengeful.

Down the gravel road, kicking up a cloud, a white hearse approaches. It's out of place here on the prairie. A string of cars trails behind, following a 62-year-old Eureka woman to her grave. When they stop a few miles down the road, a preacher stands above her casket. A tear is shed, and dirt is placed on top. As it is written: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

This is cache, read story here