🌾Kansas

The Sunflower State

Kansas sits at the geographic center of the contiguous United States — a marker near Lebanon, Kansas has claimed that distinction since 1918. The state is flat prairie in the east, rising gradually to high plains in the west, and it has been a landscape of wheat, cattle, and cowboys since long-drive drovers first pushed Texas herds to Kansas railheads in the 1860s.

Bleeding Kansas

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed settlers in the territories to decide whether to permit slavery through "popular sovereignty." The result was Bleeding Kansas — a five-year period of violent conflict between pro- and anti-slavery settlers. John Brown's 1856 massacre of pro-slavery settlers at Pottawatomie Creek was among the most infamous episodes. Kansas ultimately joined the Union as a free state in 1861, weeks before the Civil War began.

Cattle Drive Country

After the Civil War, Kansas railroads reached west to meet Texas cattle drives on the Chisholm and Western trails. The cattle towns — Abilene, Dodge City, Wichita, Ellsworth — became rowdy way-stations where lawmen like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Wild Bill Hickok kept uneasy order. The era lasted barely 20 years but it set the template for the American cowboy myth.

The Wheat State

German-Russian Mennonite immigrants who settled in Kansas in the 1870s brought with them the hard red winter wheat varieties that transformed the Great Plains into America's breadbasket. Kansas regularly leads the nation in wheat production. The state ships about 400 million bushels of wheat per year.

Brown v. Board

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that state-sanctioned segregation of public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The case began when Topeka father Oliver Brown tried to enroll his daughter Linda in the all-white Sumner Elementary School. Monroe Elementary, where Linda was required to attend, is now a National Historic Site.

Kansas Facts

• The geographic center of the 48 contiguous states is marked near Lebanon, Kansas.
• The Wizard of Oz is set in Kansas — specifically on a farm near the town of Liberal, which hosts an annual Dorothy Day.
• Dwight Eisenhower grew up in Abilene, where his boyhood home and presidential library are preserved.
• Kansas has more tornadoes per square mile than most states and sits squarely in "Tornado Alley."
• Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, in 1897.

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