While researching Sira’s summer school project, “KANSAS: 100 YEARS OF FREAKY & FASCINATING FACTS,” I tried to compile all 100 facts, 0-99. While I didn’t finish the entire list, here’s what I have so far. (Maybe you can help finish it.)
KANSAS: 100 YEARS OF FREAKY & FASCINATING FACTS
’00
1900 – Tea-totaling terrorist, Carrie Nation, stages her first raid at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, KS. She breaks every liquor bottles that can be seen.
1900 – L. Frank Baum writes the first Oz book, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and Kansas is never quite the same, to non-Kansans anyway.
’01
1901 – Kansas town infested with bedbugs.
’02
Nothing yet!
’03
1803 – Kansas dirt goes from French soil to US soil after the Louisiana Purchase.
1903 – The wild sunflower is selected as the state flower.
’04
1804 – Lewis & Clark go through northeast Kansas on their way west.
’05
1905 – 1st forward pass in football history thrown in game between Washburn U. and Fairmont College.
1905 – The battleship, Kansas, is christened with pure water (instead of traditional champagne) at insistence of Governor Hock, a strong believer in clean-living.
1905 – Kansas’s record low temperature: -40 degrees F.
’06
1806 Lewis & Clark return through Kansas on way east.
’07
1707 – In Out of Patience, the Stradivarius violin later discovered in Patience is made in Europe.
2007 – Greensburg, KS is 95% destroyed by tornado.
’08
1908 – Kansas legislature passes law against eating snakes in public.
1908 – KS legislature also bans sale of cigarettes for next 15 years, 1908-27.
’09
1909 – Kansas hosts 1st Int’l. Horseshoe Pitching Contest.
1909 – America’s 1st patented helicopter (tethered) flown by Purvis and Wilson of Goodland, KS.
’10
Nothing yet!
’11
1911 – Robert Stroud’s death sentence is commuted to life, and he’s moved from Leavenworth Penitentiary to Alcatraz. However, he was never “the Bird Man of Alcatraz” because he only kept birds at Leavenworth. He is hereby renamed the Birdman of Leavenworth.
’12
Still to come!
’13
1913(?) – Kansas adds Pond Day to promote education, along with Arbor Day and Fire Prevention Day. But Governor Capper draws the line at Gold Fish Day.
’14
Any ideas?
’15
Help Sira find one!
’16
1916 – Codell, KS gets hit with a tornado May 20th, then gets hit with another tornado on May 20th, 1917, and again on May 20th, 1918! Three times unlucky.
’17
1917 – Bone Dry Law passed. There will not be another shot-glass drink served or open saloon in Kansas for next 69 years.
1917 – Samuel Dinsmoor begins building his concrete Garden of Eden in Lucas, KS.
’18
1918 – Peggy Hull becomes 1st accredited (by the War Dept.) war correspondent.
’19
1919 – Tom Henry invents the Tom Henry candy bar (in Arkansas City, KS) that will become (in the 20s) the 1st O’Henry Bar.
’20
Your freaky fact here!
’21
1921 – 1st White Castle opened in Wichita by Walter Anderson, launching the fast-food era.
1821 – Santa Fe Trail established by 1st pack train journey, led by William Beckness, following the Arkansas River.
’22
1922 – 1st(?) municipal concrete swimming pool opens in Garden City: a half-block in size, holding 2.5 million gallons of water.
1822 – William Becknell leads 2nd train on Santa Fe trail, firmly establishing route.
’23
1923 – Kansas has highest motor vehicle ownership in US, with one car or truck for every five residents.
1923 – Kansas is the only state still banning the showing of the film, “Birth of a Nation” (released in 1915) which portrays the KKK as a heroic and patriotic force putting blacks in their place.
’24
Somebody help!
’25
1925 – Kansas refuses to grant the KKK a state charter.
’26
1926 – 1st woman sheriff in US, Mabel Chase, is elected in Kiowa County.
’27
1827 – Ft. Leavenworth, the 1st permanent white settlement in KS, is established.
1927 – After 15 years of banning the sale of cigarettes, cigarette sales re-legalized.
’28
1828 – 1st post office established in the territory.
1928 – Kansas native, Amelia Earhart is 1st woman to fly across the Atlantic.
1928 – 1st woman city manager in US in Kinsley, KS.
’29
Nothing yet!
’30
Still to come!
’31
1931 – Kansas claims 1st celebrity to die in a plane crash. Knute Rockne, famous football coach of Notre Dame, dies in crash near Bazaar, KS.
’32
1932 – Kansas has 10 straight days of 100+ heat, reaching 108 in Colby, and 111 in Hay on Sept. 5th. But also Aug. 23rd, is said to be 17th day in a row over 100, in ? Heat wave so hot, facts confused.
1932 – Laura Ingalls Wilder starts writing classic Little House series, beginning with Little House on the Prairie.
’33
1833 – Susan Magoffin becomes 1st woman to travel the Santa Fe Trail.
1933 – Dinsmoor finishes his concrete Garden of Eden.
’34
Help Sira find one!
’35
1835 – 1st Indian language newspaper in US, The Siwinowe Kesibwi (The Swannee Sun) is published in Kansas.
’36
1936 – Record high temperature of 121 degrees.
1936 – 36 days straight of 100+ heat. “They would not know rain if it hit them on the head.”
’37
1937 – More newspapers in Kansas than any other state. 4368 papers to be exact.
1937 – The cottonwood tree, known as a “working tree,” defeats the flowery hawthorn and redbud to become the state tree.
’38
Any ideas?
’39
1939(?) – 1st black woman to win an Academy Award is Kansas native, Hattie McDaniel, for “Gone with the Wind.”
’40
There’s gotta be sumthin!
’41
1541 – Francisco Vasquez de Coronado visits the land that will one day become Kansas, then has his guide strangled for taking him there.
1841 – Kit Carson hired and paid one dollar a day to supply 1000 lbs. of buffalo meat daily to Ft. Carson.
1941 – The bill outlawing eating snakes in public is repealed after 33 years. Finally, you can eat snakes in public without getting arrested.
’42
Nothing yet!
’43
1943 or ’44 – In “Stalag Sunflower,” German POWs work in western fields of KS to relieve worker shortage.
’44
Still nothing!
’45
Your freaky fact here!
’46
Somebody help!
’47
1947 – The song, “Home on the Range,” (composed in KS in 1873) adopted as state song.
’48
1948 – Sheplers, the world’s largest western wear store opens.
’49
1949 – The Pallasite meteorite dug up in Kiowa County field. The 1,000 lb. space rock on display at the Big Well in Greensburg. (Still?)
1949 – 1st woman Treasurer of US is Kansan, Georgia Neese Clark Gray.
’50
Nothing yet!
’51
1851 – John Soule, a newspaperman from Indiana, first uses “Go West, young man!” which soon sparks mass immigration to KS and other western territories.
1951 – Hays, KS gets 11 inches of rain in one night, causing major flooding.
1951(?) – Basketball legend, Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain, plays for Kansas University.
1951 – Brown V. Board of Ed. of Topeka ends segregation in schools.
’52
Help Sira find one!
’53
1953 – Frank Stoeber, of Cawker City, begins what becomes the largest ball of twine in world. Now(?) it weighs 17,554 pounds and could stretch to 1,325 miles.
’54
1854 – The Kansas Territory established, and legally opened to white settlement.
1854 – The guerillas war over slavery begins and turns Territory into “Bleeding Kansas” for next 11 years.
’55
1855 – The Wakarusa War in Lawrence, considered by some to be the first engagement of the Civil War.
1955 – On Memorial Day, a town-erasing tornado hits Udall, KS, killing 82 people.
’56
1856 – John Brown’s raid.
1956 – The Kansas Turnpike is opened with the highest speed limit in nation: 80 MPH speed limit.
1956 – Kansas Turnpike signs with green and white lettering set standard for US thruways to come.
’57
1857 – A settler plasters his cabin with gypsum, and has no idea that his discovery will one day revolutionize home-building.
1957 – 1st city in US to be 100% immunized for polio: Protection, KS.
’58
1858 – The “Jayhawkers,” a quasi-military group led by a dentist, terrorize KS, and pillage such important items as pianos and silk dresses.
1958 – 1st Pizza Hut opened by Dan Carney in Wichita. What is it with Wichita and fast food inventors? (See ’21, 1st White Castle.)
’59
1859 – The Kiowa Indians declare war on the US.
1959 – 1st all-female flight crew to space includes Kansas native! Miss Able, a rhesus monkey, born in Independence, rides a Jupiter rocket 300 miles into space along with Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey.
1959 – In Holcomb, KS, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith murder the Clutter family. The murders becomes the basis for Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.
’60
1860 – In April, the Pony Express’s 2000 mile mail route from St. Joseph, MO, across KS, to San Francisco begins.
1960 – Kansas becomes 1st state to make a tree census. And the tree population comes to 225 million.
’61
1861 – In November, The Pony Express goes bankrupt, because of Western Union Telegraph.
1861 – Kansas becomes state, with the motto: Ad Astra Per Aspera (To the Stars Through Difficulty).
1861 – Kansas women get right to vote in school elections “after” 1861.
’62
1862 – 1st black infantry regiment in US is recruited.
’63
1863 – Quantrill’s raid in Lawrence kills 150.
1963 – 1st Lear jet flown by a test pilot in Wichita. By 1966, Wichita becomes known as “Hollywood East” because of jet-setting stars like Frank Sinatra.
1963 – Kansas has highest death rate from auto accidents in US. (No wonder celebs wanted to fly.)
’64
Still to come!
’65
1965 – The Gallery of Also-Rans (those who lost presidential elections) opens in Norton, KS.
1965 – Richard Hickock and Perry Smith hanged for the Clutter family murders.
’66
Any ideas?
’67
1867 – US troops and Indians fight in 31 engagements.
1867 – Leaving “Bandit whites” such as Chuck-a-luck, and Magpie free to rob stagecoaches.
’68
1868 – 1st railroad crosses the state east to west.
1868 – Bill Cody earns name “Buffalo Bill” when he outshoots Bill Comstock in an 8-hour buffalo hunting contest. (Cody: 69, Comstock: 46.)
1868 – Indians make their own attempt to capture an iron horse, or locomotive, “alive” by stretching telegraph wire across the track, and holding on tight. The iron horse is not reined in.
’69
Somebody help!
’70
1870 – Crews from the Union Pacific Railroad lay track at the rate of a mile per day.
1870 – Kansas becomes 1st state to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment: Negro suffrage.
’71
1971 – After a seed travels to the moon on Apollo 14, Moon Tree is planted in Atchison, KS
’72
1872 – Trying to solve “the Indian problem,” The US govt. declares Kansas open for buffalo hunting. One hunter shoots 120 bison in 40 minutes. Hundreds of thousands are killed.
1872 – Grand Duke Alexis comes all the way from Russia for the buffalo slaughter.
’73
1873 – “Home on the Range” composed in KS.
1873 – Peak year buffalo slaughter claims 1,508,568 buffalos. The reason? “When buffalo is gone and the Indian is dependent on us, then we can handle them.”
’74
1874 – The great grasshopper invasion.
’75
Calling all freaky facts!
’76
1876 – Jim Crow laws in South create exodus of blacks, and the all-black town of Nocodeums, KS is founded.
1976 – Full-sized liberty bell made from Turkey Red Wheat for US Bicentennial.
’77
Drawing a blank.
’78
1878 – Last battle in KS between US troops and Indians (Cheyenne).
1978 – 1st woman elected to U.S. Senate (without riding into the Senate on her husband’s hearse) is Nancy Landon Kassebaum of KS.
’79
1879 – Toilet paper is invented in Kansas.
’80
1880 – Kansas is 1st state to include prohibition of intoxicating beverages in its state constitution.
’81
Nothing yet!
’82
Bring one on!
’83
Anything will do!
’84
1884 – 1st bullfight in US, July 4th, Dodge City, KS.
’85
1885 – Dr. S.S.N. Foote of Lebo, KS claims to invent an airplane (long before the Wright brothers).
’86
1986 – Liquor by the drink returns to Kansas after 69 years of bone dry drought.
’87
1887 – Kansas women gain right to vote in town elections.
1887 – 1st woman mayor elected in US, Mrs. Susanna Salter of Argonia, KS.
1887 – Biggest hand dug well completed and remains biggest ever, unless it was destroyed in Greensburg tornado of 2007(?).
’88
1888 – 1st all-woman city council elected in Oskaloosa, KS.
’89
Empty 80′s
’90
Uhh…
’91
1891 – 1st national penitentiary authorized by Congress to be built in Leavenworth, KS.
’92
1892 – The Dalton gang raids Coffeyville, KS, and pays dearly. Townspeople kill four gang members and wound fifth.
’93
Someone?
’94
Anyone?
’95
Fact-less streak!
’96
1896 – 1st carousel with a jumping horse mechanism is invented by Charles Parker of C.W. Parker Amusement Co.
1996 – Tall Grass Prairie Natural Preserve created via legislation.
’97
Just one more!
’98
1898 – World’s most famous clown, Emmett Kelly, is born in Sedan(?), KS.
1998 – Allis Chalmers Antique Tractor Museum opens, housing the world’s largest private collection of Allis Chalmers tractors.
’99
1899 – 1st Kansas U. basketball game played in Lawrence after Dr. James Naismith invents game in 1891 (in Mass.) and brings game to Kansas.
1999 – Kansas State Board of Ed. votes to leave Darwin’s theory of evolution out of its science standard for KS students.
Help Sira!
If you know a freaky & fascinating fact about Kansas, and want to add it, please send it to me at: brian@brianmeehl.com. Maybe we can finish the list together. (If you think one of the facts is wrong, please contact me as well.)
