Thousands of Johnson County residents, many Greater Kansas City residents, and a large part of the apple-cider-drinking world has had a love affair with the Louisburg Cider Mill for well over 30 years.

Because my Valley View Optimist Club will feature cider, cider doughnuts, and other products from the mill at the Overland Park Arts and Crafts Fall Festival in September, I have become friends with owner Shelly Schierman, and from her I learned about the business' history. I was enchanted with the almost Cinderella-like story of the Schiermans' romance and the most unusual overnight success of their business.

It began in Columbia, Mo., when Shelly O'Rear's old '53 Chevy broke down and Tom Schierman, who was passing by on his bicycle, stopped to help. Shelly was a journalism student at the University of Missouri, and she recognized Tom's name—and the handsome young man himself—as someone whose voice had enthralled her when she listened to the local radio station, where he was an evening disc jockey. He must have been charmed by her, as well, as he offered to get her a job at KOPN.

Their romance blossomed for a year before they decided to marry in 1977. It was still the hippie era and they had those leanings, so they opted for a simple ceremony at the county courthouse and immediately headed for Louisburg, Kan., where Shelly's father, Emmett O'Rear, had offered them a farmhouse and barn on 80 acres. They could live in peaceful natural surroundings for free. Emmett owned a home-building company, Southridge Construction, and offered a construction job to his new son-in-law and an idea to his daughter: Shelly and Tom could press apple cider and Shelly could sell it that fall for extra money.

Emmett was from Michigan and knew how the process worked, so he was ready to teach the couple how cider was made. The newlyweds pressed and bottled apple cider, put a homemade sign on the highway, and sold the cider out of their nearly 100-year-old barn for a little extra money.

The next year, in November 1978, a customer who stopped at the barn for cider complimented the taste and showed unusual curiosity about it.

A week or so later, Shelly and Tom's first baby, Alexis, was born. The day mother and baby were released from Shawnee Mission Hospital, Tom carefully drove his precious cargo the 26 miles or so down Metcalf Avenue to Louisburg and turned toward home onto Kansas 68. Suddenly he encountered a huge back-up of traffic. As the four-mile-long traffic jam slowly cleared, the young couple expected to see an accident ahead. Instead, they were astonished to see that all the vehicles causing the traffic jam were maneuvering to turn onto their property and park in their wheat fields.

The old barn was also teeming with customers jostling to buy apple cider from Shelly's mother, Mary. It turns out that the interested customer from the week before was the late Shifra Stein, a well-known columnist for The Kansas City Star (and frequent contributor to The Best Times). A large article with her byline had appeared in The Star that Sunday morning, extolling the taste of the Schiermans' apple cider and encouraging a drive to Louisburg as one of Stein's famous "Day Trips®."

Needless to say, cider demand far exceeded supply that day. And thus the Louisburg Cider Mill was firmly launched. The almost instant popularity of the cider and the sudden growth of the business brought changes to the old farmland and the family. Tom and Shelly were joined by Emmett and Mary in the business and worked hard in building it. The house was moved to the back of the property and, although it no longer has electricity, it is annually used as a haunted house and sometimes as a quiet place to get away from it all.

Eventually a nearby barn was moved onto the property and turned into a sales office and display floor, with modern equipment to take the place of the original sales counter in the barn.

By 1990 it was obvious that additional products were needed to generate sales during the off-season. Emmett had been in the habit of brewing a delicious homemade root beer that his family had always enjoyed. The recipe had been handed down from his great-grandfather. The family concocted a tale regarding the recipe from a historic kernel of truth about a '49er lost on the Santa Fe Trail, and called the product "Lost Trail Root Beer," with the story on the label. Its immediate popularity led to six other soft-drink flavors made of natural ingredients, brewed and bottled on the premises. Other complementary products, such as jams and jellies, were also incorporated into the product line.

The family was blessed with two more daughters, now grown. All three worked in the business when younger but are now pursuing other careers. However, middle daughter Clea, whose title is "manager of fun," comes home each year to run the pumpkin patch and corn maze, and Lilli and Alexis have expressed interest in someday running the business.

Although Emmett and Mary retired to Florida in 1980, Emmet got to see his idea grow to amazing proportions before he died in 2006. The mill has 10 full-time employees and about 50 seasonal staff. The business now uses a "Donut Robot 5," which can turn out 56 dozen doughnuts an hour, and the business used up 9.5 million pounds of locally grown apples last year.

A homemade highway sign is no longer necessary because the State of Kansas Travel and Tourism Division is more than happy to provide highway signage and directions to this business, which brought in 250,600 visitors last year—600 international, 50,000 out of state, 180,000 out of county, and 20,000 of us locals.

The store ships cider and other products from coast to coast, and the fame of the Louisburg Cider Mill has spread worldwide—in part by being featured on the Food Network for six years. In 2009 it was named one of the 10 best cider mills in the country by MSNBC.

As for Tom and Shelly, I am sure that they now subscribe to the theory that "If you make it, they will come." Who knows what they or their daughters will bake, brew, or press in the future?