Yellow brick road
The actual road is believed to be one in Peekskill, New York, where L. Frank Baum attended Peekskill Military Academy. According to a local legend, the Yellow Brick Road was derived from a road paved with yellow bricks near Holland, Michigan, where Baum spent summers. Ithaca, New York, also makes a claim for being Frank Baum's inspiration. He opened a road tour of his musical, The Maid of Arran, in Ithaca, and he met his future wife Maud Gage Baum while she was attending Cornell University. At the time, yellow bricks paved local roads. Yellow brick roads can also be found in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Albany, New York; Rossville (Baltimore County), Maryland; Montclair, New Jersey (Parkhurst Place and Afterglow Way); Bronxville, New York (on Prescott and Valley roads); Chicago, Illinois; Liberal, Kansas; Sedan, Kansas and Chittenango, New York, as well as a school in Abington, Pennsylvania, and abroad in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Keighley, Kansas
Until 1925, Keighley was a stop on the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, east of Augusta. That changed after the first oil strike. The small trading post grew to a community of 500 people and included a grain elevator, a hardware store, hotel, lumber yard, café, post office and general store. In 1927, Keighley District completed at a cost of $15,000 a brick school building. In 1926, a fire destroyed the lumber yard and hotel. The brick school house burned down and was replaced in 1948 by a school house of cinder block, which still stands. By 1934, the once busy roads of Keighley were again simply highways. Today, it is on U.S. Route 400 east of Leon, Kansas and west of Beaumont, Kansas.