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My Dad came to Kansas and my sisters stayed here, which drew me to the area I’ve called Kansas my home since I was 15 years old. Having grown up primarily on the East Coast, moving to Kansas was a change for me. But, I love Kansas and the people here. There are a lot of tornados, but the warning systems have improved tremendously over the past ten years, so most houses have basements to spend the spring and a lot of the summer in. Which is why most basements are finished with recreation activities for the kids. We spent several hours in our basement (the dungeon) during the Hesston Tornado which I think was the first F-5 we had ever experienced. Our Grandmother “Grow” was full-blooded Cherokee Indian and a native of Kansas. However, it appears she may have married a German immigrant (Grandpa Grow) Kansas From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
Kansas (IPA: /ˈkænzəs/) is a Great Plains state[3]
in the central region of the United States of America, an area often
referred to as the American "Heartland".
It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn
was named after the Kansa tribe, who inhabited the area.[4] The
tribe's name (natively kką:ze) is often said to mean "people
of the wind" or "people of the south wind", although this was
probably not the term's original meaning.[5][6] Residents
of Kansas are called "Kansans". Historically,
the area was home to large numbers of nomadic Native Americans that
hunted bison. It
was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of
settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the
slavery issue. When officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government
in 1854, abolitionist Free-Staters from New
England and pro-slavery settlers from neighboring Missouri
rushed to the territory to determine if Kansas would become a free state or a slave state. Thus, the area was
a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided,
and was known as Bleeding Kansas. The abolitionists eventually
prevailed and on January 29, 1861, Kansas entered the Union as a free state. After the Civil War, the population of Kansas exploded
when waves of immigrants turned the prairie into
productive farmland. Today, Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural
states, producing many crops, and leading the nation in wheat and sunflower
production most years. Geography
Kansas
is bordered by Nebraska on the north; Missouri on
the east; Oklahoma
on the south; and Colorado on the west. The state is divided up into 105 counties with 628 cities. It is located equidistant
from the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. The geographic center
of the 48 contiguous states is located in Smith County near Lebanon,
Kansas. The geodetic center of North America was located
in Osborne County until 1983. This spot was
until then used as the central reference point for all maps of North America
produced by the U.S. government. The geographic center of Kansas is located
in Barton County. Kansas is also one of the
six states located on the Frontier
Strip and one of several within Tornado
Alley. Topography
The
western two thirds of the state, lying in the great
central plain of the United States, has a generally flat or undulating
surface, and on a large scale appears almost perfectly flat.[7] However,
the eastern third is more hilly and forested. The land displays a gradual
slope up from east to west; its altitude above the sea ranges from 684 feet (208 m) along the Verdigris
River at Coffeyville in Montgomery County, to 4039 feet
(1,231 m) at Mount Sunflower, one half mile from the Colorado
border, in Wallace County.
Spring River, Kansas The Missouri
River forms nearly 75 miles (120 km) of the state's northeastern boundary. The Kansas
River (locally known as the Kaw), formed by the junction of the Smoky
Hill and Republican rivers at appropriately-named Junction City, joins the Missouri at Kansas City, after a course of 170 miles
(274 km) across the northeastern part of the state. The Arkansas
River (pronounced Ar-Kansas), rising in Colorado,
flows with a bending course for nearly 500 miles (800 km) across the
western and southern parts of the state. It forms, with its tributaries (the Little Arkansas, Ninnescah, Walnut,
Cow Creek, Cimarron,
Verdigris, and the Neosho), the southern drainage system of the state.
Other important rivers are the Saline and Solomon,
tributaries of the Smoky Hill River; the Big Blue, Delaware, and Wakarusa,
which flow into the Kansas River; and the Marais des Cygnes, a tributary of the
Missouri River. Climate
Storm clouds in northeastern Kansas Kansas
contains three climate types, according to the Köppen climate classification:
humid continental, semiarid steppe, and humid subtropical. The eastern
two-thirds of the state has a humid continental climate, with cold winters
and hot summers. Most of the precipitation falls in the summer and spring.
The western third of the state has a semiarid steppe climate.
Summers are hot, often very hot. Winters are cold in the northwest and cool
to mild in the southwest. Also, the western region is semiarid, receiving an
average of only about 16 inches (40 cm) of precipitation per year. Chinook
winds in the winter can warm western Kansas all the way into the 80
degree Fahrenheit (25 °C) range. The far south-central and southeastern
reaches of the state have a humid subtropical climate, with long, hot summers,
short, mild winters, and much more precipitation than the rest of the state. Precipitation
ranges from about 46 inches (1200 mm) annually in the southeast of the
state, to about 16 inches (400 mm) in the southwest. Snowfall ranges
from around 5 inches (130 mm) in the fringes of the south, to 35 inches
(900 mm) in the far northwest. Frost-free days range from more than 200
days in the south, to 130 days in the northwest. Thus, Kansas is the 9th or
10th sunniest state in the country, depending on the source. Western Kansas
is as sunny as parts of California and Arizona. In
spite of the frequent sunshine throughout much of the state, the state is
also vulnerable to strong thunderstorms, especially in the spring. Many of
these storms become Supercell thunderstorms. These can spawn tornadoes,
often of F3 strength or higher. According to statistics from
the National Climatic Data Center,
Kansas has reported more tornadoes (for the period 1st January 1950 through
to 31st October 2006) than any state except for Texas - marginally
even more than Oklahoma. It has also - along with Alabama -
reported more F5 tornadoes than any other state. These are the
most powerful of all tornadoes. Kansas averages over 50 tornadoes annually.[8] According
to NOAA, the all time highest temperature recorded in Kansas is 121 degrees F
(49.4 C) on July 24, 1936 near Alton, and the all time low is -40 F (-40 C) on
February 13, 1905 near Lebanon. Kansas'
all time record high of 121F/49.4C ties with North Dakota for the fifth
highest all time record high recorded in a state in the United States, behind
California (134F/56.7C), Arizona (128F/53.3C), Nevada (125F/51.7C), and New
Mexico (122F/50C). History
Main article: History of Kansas For millennia, the
land that is presently Kansas was inhabited by Native Americans. The first
European to set foot in present-day Kansas was Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, who
explored the area in 1541. In 1803, most of modern Kansas was secured by the
United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Southwest Kansas, however,
was still a part of Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas until the
conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848. From 1812 to
1821, Kansas was part of the Missouri Territory. The Santa
Fe Trail traversed Kansas from 1821 to 1880, transporting manufactured
goods from Missouri
and silver and
furs from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Wagon ruts from the
trail are still visible in the prairie today. In
1827, Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent
settlement of white Americans in the future state. The Kansas-Nebraska Act became law on May 30, 1854, establishing
the U.S. territories of Nebraska and
Kansas, and opening the area to broader settlement by whites. Kansas
Territory stretched all the way to the Continental Divide and included
the sites of present-day Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo.
Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, Kansas Missouri and Arkansas sent
settlers into Kansas all along its eastern border. These settlers attempted
to sway votes in favor of slavery. The secondary settlement of Americans in
Kansas Territory were abolitionists from Massachusetts
and other Free-Staters, who attempted to stop the spread of
slavery from neighboring Missouri. Directly presaging the American Civil War, these forces collided,
entering into skirmishes that earned the territory the name of Bleeding
Kansas. Kansas was admitted to the United States as a free state
on January
29, 1861,
making it the 34th state to enter the Union. By that time the violence in
Kansas had largely subsided. However, during the Civil War, on August 21,
1863, William Quantrill led several hundred men on a
raid into Lawrence, destroying much of the city and
killing nearly two hundred people. Until the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Quantrill's raid
was the single bloodiest act of domestic terrorism in America.[citation needed] After
the Civil War, many veterans constructed homesteads in Kansas. Many African Americans also looked to Kansas as the
land of "John Brown," and led by men like Benjamin "Pap" Singleton
began establishing black colonies in the state. At the same time, the Chisholm
Trail was opened and the Wild West era commenced in Kansas. Wild
Bill Hickok was a deputy marshal at Fort Riley
and a marshal at Hays and Abilene.
Dodge City was another wild cowboy town, and
both Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp
worked as lawmen in the town. In one year alone, 8 million head of cattle
from Texas boarded trains in Dodge City bound for the East, earning Dodge the
nickname "Queen of the Cowtowns." In part as a response to the
violence perpetrated by cowboys, on February
19, 1881,
Kansas became the first U.S. state to adopt a Constitutional amendment
prohibiting all alcoholic beverages. Law and government
[edit] State and local
politics
See
also: List of Governors of Kansas
The
top executives of the state are Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Lieutenant Governor Mark
Parkinson. Both officials are elected on the same ticket to a maximum of
two consecutive 4-year terms. Parkinson replaced John
E. Moore who served as Lt. Governor during Sebelius's first term which
ended on January
8, 2007.
Sebelius will not be up for re-election in 2010. The state's Attorney General is Democrat Stephen
Six, a former Douglas County District Court Judge who was appointed to
the post. The legislative branch of the state government is
the Kansas Legislature. The bicameral
body consists of the Kansas House of Representatives,
with 125 members serving two year terms, and the Kansas
Senate, with 40 members serving four year terms. Kansas
has a reputation as a progressive state with many firsts in legislative
initiatives—it was the first state to institute a system of workers' compensation (1910) and to
regulate the securities industry (1911). Kansas was also
one of the first states to permit women's suffrage in 1912. Suffrage in all states
would not be guaranteed until ratification of the 19th Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. The council-manager government was adopted
by many larger Kansas cities in the years following World War
I while many American cities were being run by political machines or organized
crime. Kansas was also at the center of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
a 1954 Supreme Court decision that banned racially segregated schools
throughout the U.S. Since
the 1960s, Kansas has grown more socially conservative. The 1990s brought new
restrictions on abortion, the defeat of prominent Democrats, including Dan
Glickman, and the Kansas State Board of Education's
1999 decision to eliminate evolution from the state teaching standards, a decision
that was later reversed.[15] In
2005, voters accepted a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. The next year, the state
passed a law setting a minimum age for marriage at 15 years. [16] Although
Kansas is considered to be one of the most Republican states in the nation,
there has been a long-running feud between the socially moderate (or
"mainstream") faction and the socially conservative faction of the
party. This battle is so heated that it is often said that there are three
parties in Kansas--Democrats, moderate Republicans and conservative
Republicans. It is possible for a Democrat to win by winning the support of
moderate Republicans and a few registered independents. Thus, recently,
Kansas has been warming to Democrats, re-electing a Democratic Governor, Kathleen Sebelius in 2006, with 58% of the
vote. Democrats also picked up six seats in the Kansas House of Representatives,
and Democrat Nancy Boyda defeated conservative Republican
Congressman Jim
Ryun in the 2nd Congressional District. Federal politics
See
also: U.S. Congressional
Delegations from Kansas
The
state's current delegation to the Congress of the United States
includes Republican Senators Sam
Brownback of Topeka and Pat
Roberts of Dodge City and Representatives Jerry
Moran (R) of Hays (District 1), Nancy
Boyda (D) of Topeka (District 2), Dennis
Moore (D) of Lenexa (District 3), and Todd
Tiahrt (R) of Goddard (District 4). Kansas has not
elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt won his first term as
President in the wake of the Great
Depression. Senator Sam Brownback carries the distinction of being the
politician elected with the highest percentage of the statewide vote in
Kansas history and was a candidate for the Republican party nomination for
President in 2008. Historically,
Kansas has been strongly Republican. In fact, the only non-Republicans Kansas
has given its electoral vote to are Populist James Weaver and Democrats Woodrow
Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon
Johnson. In 2004, George W. Bush won the state's 6 electoral votes
by an overwhelming margin of 25 percentage points with 62% of the vote. The
only two counties to support Democrat John Kerry
in that election were Wyandotte, which contains Kansas City, and Douglas, home to the University of Kansas,
located in Lawrence. State law
See also: Alcohol laws of Kansas The legal drinking age in Kansas is 21. In lieu of
the state retail sales tax, a 10% Liquor Drink Tax is collected for liquor consumed
on the licensed premises and an 8% Liquor Enforcement Tax is collected on
retail purchases. Although the sale of cereal malt
beverage (also known as 3.2 beer) was legalized in 1937, the first post-Prohibition legalization of
alcoholic liquor did not occur until the state's constitution was amended in 1948. The
following year the Legislature enacted the Liquor Control Act
which created a system of regulating, licensing, and taxing, and the Division
of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) was created to enforce the act. The power
to regulate cereal malt beverage remains with the cities and counties.
Liquor-by-the-drink did not become legal until passage of an amendment to the
state's constitution in 1986 and additional legislation the following year.
As of November 2006, Kansas still has 29 dry
counties and only 17 counties have passed liquor-by-the-drink with no
food sales requirement.[17] Today
there are more than 2600 liquor and 4000 cereal malt beverage licensees in
the state.[18] State agencies
The
state's investigative branch is the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
The Kansas Corporation Commission regulates public utilities, common
carriers, oil and gas production, telecommunications companies, and motor
carriers. The Kansas Department of Agriculture regulates the supply of
meat, milk and eggs among other agricultural goods and services. The
Secretary of Agriculture is Adrian Polansky,
who heads the department as well as operating Polansky farms. Notable residents
Amelia
Earhart (aviation pioneer), Carrie
Nation (temperance activist), former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, former Vice President Charles
Curtis, and former presidential candidates Bob Dole
and Alf
Landon called Kansas their home. NASA astronauts Ronald
Evans, Joe
Engle, and Steve Hawley also lived in Kansas. Despite
its strong agricultural reputation, Kansas was home to industrial and
intellectual pioneers Walter Chrysler of automotive fame, Clyde
Cessna and Lloyd Stearman (aviation pioneers), Jack Kilby
(microchip inventor, The Nobel Prize Winner in Physics 2000), George Washington Carver (educator and
scientist), Earl W. Sutherland, Jr. (The Nobel Prize
Winner in Physiology or Medicine 1971), and Vernon
L. Smith (The Nobel Prize Winner in Economics 2002). Also from Kansas are
General Richard Myers (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff,
2001-05) and Robert Gates (United States Secretary of Defense
December 2006 - Present). In addition, Kansas is the home of "Top
Cop" Vern Miller who raided an Amtrak train on July 20, 1972 and
confiscated all the liquor on board. He charged Amtrak with selling
liquor-by-the-drink, illegal in Kansas at that time and the case was
eventually declared al certiore, validating both the lower court's conviction
and the flamboyant Miller's stance that "If you don't like a law, get it
changed...don't break it." -- Wichita Eagle July 20, 1972 Kansas
was also home to Danny Carey (musician), Del Close (comdedian/actor),
Inger Stevens (actress),Vivian Vance (actress), Samuel
Ramey (opera singer), Louise Brooks (actress), Annette
Bening (actress), John Brown (abolitionist), Langston
Hughes (poet), Gordon Parks (photographer, movie director,
musician, author), Fatty Arbuckle (actor), William
Inge (writer), Dennis Hopper (actor), Buster
Keaton (actor), Coleman Hawkins (Jazz musician), Martina
McBride (Country Singer), Melissa Etheridge (musician), Kirstie
Alley (actress), Paul Rudd (actor), Charlie
Parker (Jazz musician), Steve Doocy (network journalist, author), Jeff
Probst (Survivor host), Survivor: Guatemala winner Danni
Boatwright, Phil Stacey (American
Idol Finalist) and William Allen White (editor). Famous
athletes from Kansas include George Brett, Barry
Sanders, Gale Sayers, John
H. Outland, Billy Mills, Jim Ryun, Walter
Johnson, Jackie Stiles, Caroline
Bruce, John Riggins, Maurice Greene, and Lynette
Woodard. Kansas was also home to coaches James
Naismith, Phog Allen, Dean Smith,
Adolph
Rupp, Lon
Kruger, Tex Winter, Mark
Turgeon, and Eddie Sutton. Famous
fictional residents include Marshal Matt Dillon from the TV show Gunsmoke,
Mary Ann Summers of Gilligan's Island, Dennis Mitchell (Dennis the Menace), Dean
and Sam Winchester from the TV show Supernatural, Clark Kent/Superman, Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell of Stargate
SG-1, Walter and India Bridge from Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, Jonas Nightengale
from Leap of Faith, and Dorothy
Gale from The Wizard of Oz. Landmarks
Konza
Prairie, in the Flint Hills Main article: List of Kansas landmarks See also:
List of Registered
Historic Places in Kansas
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Last updated: January 2008