The landscape of eastern Kansas is varied and includes the glacial hills of the northeast, the Ozark Plateau of the southeast, and the subtly rolling tallgrass prairie of the Flint Hills. The land rises and flattens to meet the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Farms and ranches comprise most of the countryside.
The first tribes who lived in the land that would become Kansas survived largely by hunting, with the bison as their favorite game. This way of life continued for centuries but may have ended several hundred years before European contact: It's believed that a drought in the 1200s may have forced many Native Americans to move elsewhere. When the first Spanish explorer, Francisco Coronado, arrived 300 years later, the tribes in the area were farmers. This changed once the Spaniards introduced horses to the area. Once they had access to horses, the tribes of the Great Plains again became nomadic buffalo hunters.
After Coronado and a later Spanish expedition led by Juan de Onate in 1601, few Europeans ventured into Kansas for the next 200 years. And of those, most were French traders. When the U.S. gained control of the area with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, settlement began to take hold. During the 1820s, the Santa Fe Trail was opened across Kansas to allow trade with the Spanish settlement in what is now New Mexico. Wagon trains continued to follow the route through the 1880s.
In 1854, Kansas became a territory with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which also stipulated that the citizens of the territory would vote on whether or not to permit slavery. Kansas was soon embroiled in the bitter conflict that would ultimately lead to the Civil War. People on both sides of the issue flooded into the territory in hopes of controlling the state's destiny, and violence soon broke out. "Bleeding Kansas" became the territory's nickname as armed bands staged vicious attacks on their opponents. Among the combatants was John Brown who, along with his sons, murdered five pro-slavery men on the Pottawatomie River. Finally, in 1859, the abolitionists won out, and Kansas became a free state two years later.
Residents continued to suffer from the slavery controversy, however. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, the state contributed more soldiers who would die in the war than any other Union state, per capita. In 1863, a pro-Confederate force led by William Quantrill sacked the town of Lawrence, which had been a hotbed of abolitionist sentiment.
Following the Civil War and the introduction of the railroad, Kansas became the destination of great longhorn cattle drives north from Texas. Such celebrated cow towns as Abilene and Wichita became widely known. The Homestead Act and the desire for free land also attracted people to Kansas. More than 20,000 African Americans, popularly known as Exodusters, moved to Kansas from the South in the 1870s seeking land. Many African-American townships were settled during this time, of which only tiny Nicodemus remains.
The state continued to grow in spite of various problems: a plague of grasshoppers in 1874, Native American attacks on homesteaders and the activities of such outlaws as the Dalton Gang. Today, Kansas has settled down, but farming and cattle ranching remain two of its economic mainstays: It's the largest producer of wheat in the U.S. and one of the highest producers of beef. The aviation industry has long been a strong presence in Kansas, as have the natural gas and petroleum industries.
The main attractions in Kansas include cowboy heritage, pioneer history, Dodge City, Abilene, vast colorful skies, the Santa Fe Trail, the Flint Hills, amber waves of grain, Wichita, the history of space flight, and auto and greyhound racing.
Travelers who prefer a wide-open, leisurely, uncrowded atmosphere to the urban sprawl of major metropolitan areas will enjoy their visit to Kansas. Those travelers who feel that long-distance driving is tedious may find the state less to their liking.
Cawker City claims to have the world's largest ball of sisal twine.
The world's largest hand-dug well was built in 1887 in Greensburg. You can descend its depth by metal stairway.
The Davis Memorial in a cemetery in Hiawatha contains 11 life-size carved stone sculptures depicting a couple at various points during their lives.
A marker for the geographic center of the contiguous U.S. can be found about 2 mi/3 km northwest of Lebanon. The geodetic center (an important reference point in precise mapmaking) is located about 40 mi/65 km south on a private ranch.
In 1905, two University of Kansas professors discovered that Kansas had a plentiful supply of helium among its rich natural gas reserves. At the time of their discovery, helium had only limited uses, but during World War II, helium-filled blimps played a major role in protecting Allies against German submarines. Kansas is the nation's top producer of helium.
Kansan Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930.
Underground salt caverns near Hutchinson are used to store Hollywood films.
It is believed that the term "red-light district" originated in Dodge City, where railroad workers would hang their lanterns outside the brothels.
