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, …
In south-central Kansas, Derby is an outlying suburb of Wichita, with a population swelled by the McConnell Air Force Base, which sits to the north of the city. Until the base was founded in the 1950s Derby was a sleepy agricultural community of no more than a few hundred. Today the economy is supercharged by …
In east-central Kansas, this college town is set on upland prairie by the Flint Hills, a long range running through much of the state. For some 160 years, the city has been home to Emporia State University, the third-oldest public university in Kansas, and long associated with the teaching profession. One person who raised Emporia’s …
This village in Chicago’s western suburbs is relatively young, as little more than a collection of farms with a few subdivisions until the late 1950s. Glendale Heights was incorporated in 1958 and today is a modern, residential community, in a townscape scattered with ranch-style homes, sprawling neighborhood parks and a couple of shopping centers. Like …
Home to more than 36,000, Addison is a village in DuPage County in metropolitan Chicago. Addison is crossed by two major arteries, the US 20 and I-290, putting it just 20 minutes from the Chicago loop. There’s never a shortage of things for families to do in Addison, with an indoor amusement center, the largest …
Furnished with beautiful architecture and long known as a creative hotbed, the wealthy lakeside city of Highland Park sits on the North Shore in the Chicago suburbs. One of the many great things about Highland Park is just how accessible the Lake Michigan shore is here, with a series of lakefront parks and a Lake …
Up in Chicago’s northern suburbs, Round Lake Beach is roughly equidistant to Milwaukee and downtown Chicago. Something striking about this place is the quantity of water, with the immense Chain O’ Lakes waterway a few minutes west and innumerable smaller lakes and ponds strewn across the area. The town’s eponymous lake has an enticing sandy …