The capital city of Kansas has set the scene for some monumental events in the nation’s history. Top of the list has to be Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which marked the death knell of “Separate but Equal”. This pivotal milestone in civil rights history is remembered by a National Historic Site at …
If you took a time machine back to 1990 Lenexa you’d find a lot of open fields where there are now dynamic city streets and residential neighborhoods. Lenexa’s population has almost doubled in that time, and places like The District testify to the city’s sense of momentum. Here, the Lenexa Public Market has become a …
Nicknamed the Little Apple, Manhattan is home to Kansas State University, which dates back to 1863 and was founded by the same free-staters who founded the city. The university and city are intrinsically connected, and nowhere sums this up better than Aggieville, a fun-loving district that took shape at the turn of the 20th century. …
A center for trade at the intersection of the I-70 and I-135 in Central Kansas, the city of Salina is in the middle of one of the largest wheat-growing areas in the world. Downtown Salina has the dynamism of a big city, with a top-notch history museum, a regional performance venue and award-winning community arts …
The story of this city in central Kansas begins in 1887 when one of the world’s largest salt deposits was discovered close to the Arkansas River. That immense seam was formed in the Permian Period, 275 million years ago when Hutchinson was at the bottom of the sea. Salt made fortunes for humble folk like …
An endearing college town, Lawrence is the home of the University of Kansas (KU), founded in 1865. The city is one of the state’s big tourist spots, adored for its historical preservation, cosmopolitan main street and a young joie de vivre KU is also on the map for its prodigious Jayhawks, especially the men’s basketball …
The first city to be incorporated in the Territory of Kansas, Leavenworth is on the Missouri River not far northwest of Kansas City. The settlement was predated by Fort Leavenworth, founded a little way up the Missouri River in 1827. Fort Leavenworth is the oldest active military installation west of the Mississippi, and is steeped …
With a population just shy of 30,000, this city in southwest Kansas is renowned for its meat industry. Ranching and beef are such a cornerstone of life in Garden City that there’s even a summer festival, Beef Empire Days. The city was cofounded in the 1870s by frontiersman and hunter Charles “Buffalo” Jones (1844-1919). Initially …
In the 1870s Dodge City surged to prominence, becoming the “Queen of the Cowtowns”, as a terminal for cattle drives from Texas via the Chisholm Trail. Some 150 years later, cattle are still a backbone of the local economy, as you’ll see at the vast spread of feedlots visible from the southeast side of town. …
This affluent suburban city is right against the Kansas – Missouri state line, a short way southwest of downtown Kansas City. Constantly growing, Leawood has more than doubled in population since the 1980s and stands out as a shopping destination for the metro area. That status has a lot to do with the outdoor mall, …