Comprehensive information and links about Kansas

Kansas is a Great Plains state in the United States. The name is derived from the Siouan word Kansa meaning "People of the south wind." Located in the heartland of the country, Kansas is home to the geographical center of the contiguous United States. The state was first settled by Americans in the 1850s by abolitionists from Massachusetts, who attempted to stop the spread of slavery from neighboring Missouri. Kansas, which became a free state, was a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces collided. After the Civil War, the population of Kansas exploded as wave after wave of immigrants turned the desolate prairie into productive farmland. Today Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, leading the nation in wheat production.

table : History of Kansas

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado was the first European to be in present day Kansas, entering in 1541. In 1803, Kansas was secured through 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.

Kansas became part of the Missouri Territory until 1821. The Kansas-Nebraska Act became law on May 30, 1854 and established the U.S. territories of Nebraska and Kansas. Kansas Territory stretched all the way to the Continental Divide and included the site of present day Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo, but this part of it was cut off when it became a state. Fort Leavenworth was the first community in the area around 1827. To travelers en route to Utah, California, or Oregon, Kansas was a waystop and outfitting place. On March 30, 1855 "Border Ruffians" from Missouri invaded Kansas during the territory's first election and forced the election of a pro-slavery legislature.

Kansas entered the Union as a free state on January 29, 1861, making it the 34th state to enter the Union. Civil War veterans constructed homesteads in Kansas following the war. On February 19, 1861 it became the first U.S. state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages. On August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led into Lawrence destroying much of the city and killing hundreds of people.

Wild Bill Hickok was a deputy marshal at Fort Riley and a marshal at Hays and Abilene. Dodge City was a wide open Wild West town in the late 1800s. In one year alone, 8,000,000 head of cattle from Texas boarded trains in Dodge City bound for the East, earning Dodge the nickname "Cowboy Capital." Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp were both lawmen in Dodge City. The Santa Fe Trail traversed Kansas from 1821 to 1880, transporting manufactured goods from Missouri and silver and furs from Santa Fe, and wagon ruts from the trail are still visible today.

Kansas has been home to President Eisenhower, presidential candidates Bob Dole and Alf Landon, Amelia Earhart, and Carrie Nation. Famous athletes from Kansas include Barry Sanders, Gale Sayers, Wilt Chamberlain, Jim Ryun, Walter Johnson, Maurice Greene, and Lynette Woodard. Despite its agricultural reputation, Kansas is the home of Walter Chrysler of automotive fame, Clyde Cessna (aviation), Jack Kilby (microchip inventor) and George Washington Carver (educator

Law and government

The state capital is Topeka.

The top executives of the state are Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Lieutenant Governor John E. Moore. Both are elected on the same ticket to a maximum of two consecutive 4-year terms. Their current term will end in January of 2007, and they are able to run for re-election in 2006. The current Attorney General is Phill Kline; his office is also up for re-election in November of 2006.

The state's current delegation to the Congress of the United States includes Senators Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts and Representatives Jerry Moran (District 1), Jim Ryun (District 2), Dennis Moore (District 3), and Todd Tiahrt (District 4). Moore is the only Democrat in the delegation; all others are Republicans.

Kansas had 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). 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 first among the states to ban the concept of separate but equal schools.

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 infamous 1999 decision to eliminate the theory of evolution from the state teaching standards, a decision that was later reversed. In 2005, voters accepted a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. On November 8, 2005, a The Kansas State Board of Education, at the urging of intelligent design advocates, voted to add criticisms of evolution to the state science standards. [1]

Kansas has not supported a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. 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 were those containing the city of Kansas City and the college town of Lawrence.

Climate

Kansas contains three climate types, according to the Köppen climate classification: humid continental, semiarid steppe, and humid subtropical.

The eastern 23 of the state has a humid continental climate with cold winters and hot summers, with most of the precipitation falling in the summer and spring.

The western 13 of the state has a semiarid steppe climate. Summers are hot, and often very hot. Winters are cold in the northwest and cool to mild in the southwest. The region is semiarid, receiving on average only about 16 inches of precipitation per year. Chinook Winds in the winter can warm western Kansas all the way into the 60s, 70s, and even 80s.

The far south central and southeastern reaches of the state have a humid subtropical climate, with long, hot summers and short, mild winters and much more precipitation than the rest of the state.

Precipiation ranges from about 46 inchesyear in the southwest.

Kansas is the 9th or 10th sunniest state in the country, depending on the source. No state east of Kansas, including Florida, is sunnier on average. Western Kansas is as sunny as parts of California and Texas.

Snowfall ranges from around five inches in the fringes of the south, to 35 inches in the far northwest.

Frost free days range from more than 200 in the south, to 130 in the northwest.

Kansas is bordered by Nebraska on the north, Missouri on the east, Oklahoma on the south, and Colorado on the west. It is located equidistant from the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The geodetic center of North America is located in Osborne County. This spot is used as the central reference point for all maps produced by the government. The geographic center of the 48 contiguous states is located in Smith County near Lebanon, Kansas, and the geographic center of Kansas is located in Barton County.

The eastern part of the state, containing the suburbs of Kansas City (MO), Kansas City (KS), and the towns of Leavenworth, Atchison, and Lawrence, are usually considered a part of the Midwest.

The area roughly around Hutchinson and west is the general dividing line between eastern Kansas and western Kansas. Western Kansas is considered by many to be the West, rather than Midwest.

The southwest part of the state is often classifed as the Southwest US, due to the area once having been part of Spain, Mexico, and Texas (while the rest of Kansas was not), and other historical, cultural, and economic ties to New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado. Southwest Kansas even tried to secede from the rest of Kansas in the early 1990s.

The far southeast is a part of the Ozarks. The Kansas Ozarks are wooded, hilly, have a long mining history, and much rural poverty. The area is Southern in feel.

The state is divided up into 105 counties with 628 cities.

Kansas is one of the six states located on the Frontier Strip.

Topography

The state, lying in the great central plain of the United States, has a generally flat or undulating surface, and on a large scale is almost perfectly flat.[2]. Its altitude above the sea ranges from 750 feet at the mouth of the Kansas River to 4000 feet on the western border. (Mount Sunflower is the highest point.) The rivers flow through bottomlands, varying from ¼ to 6 miles in width, and bounded by bluffs, rising 50 to 300 feet. The Missouri River forms nearly 75 miles of the state's northeastern boundary. The Kansas River, formed by the junction of the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers, joins the Missouri at Kansas City, after a course of 150 miles across the state. The Arkansas River, rising in Colorado, flows with a tortuous course for nearly 500 miles across three-fourths of the state. It forms, with its tributaries, the Little Arkansas, Walnut, Cow Creek, Cimarron, Verdigris (which is the lowest point in Kansas at 680 feet), 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.

The disputed World's Largest Ball of Twine created August 15, 1953, in Cawker City, is still growing.Big Brutus, the World's second largest Electric Shovel resides in West Mineral. It is 160 feet (49 m) tall and weighs 11 million pounds (5000 t).S.P. Dinsmoor created the Garden of Eden in Lucas in 1905, and opened it up to tourists in 1908. The garden features sculptures of biblical scenes and political messages. One scene has being crucified by a doctor, lawyer, banker, and preacher. Dinsmoor even built his own mausoleum in which you can still see him today in his concrete coffin by paying for the tour. [3]Lucas, Kansas is also home to the Grassroots Art Center [4]. The museum features many works of art created by people with no formal training, and it sits only a block or two from the Garden of Eden.Monroe Elementary, the school Linda Brown attended when the historic case Brown v. Board of Education was filed, is now a National Historic site in Topeka.The Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant in De Soto, Kansas opened in 1942 to manufacture gunpowder and munitions propellants for World War II. The closed plant sits on over 9000 acres (36 km²) of land which was made up of more than 100 farms.The boyhood home of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Eisenhower Library, and his grave are located in Abilene, Kansas. The Greyhound Hall of Fame is located in Abilene. Abilene, Kansas is also the ending point of the Chisholm Trail where the cattle driven from Texas were rail loaded.Constitution Hall in Lecompton, Kansas is the location where the Kansas Territorial Government convened and drafted a pro-slavery constitution. (website)The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics houses the largest collection of papers for a politician other than a president. The institute is located in Lawrence, Kansas on the campus of the University of Kansas. (website)The Wizard of Oz Museum in Wamego, Kansas features Dorothy's House, a recreation of the farm house featured in the film The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, located in Hutchinson, Kansas is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute. The museum features the largest collection of artifacts from the Russian Space Program outside of Moscow. It is also home to Apollo 13, an SR-71 Blackbird, and many other space artifacts.The fifth largest collection of civilian and military aircraft in the United States is located at the Mid-America Air Museum.The Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, features exhibits of several fossils discovered by Charles Hazelius Sternberg as well as various temporary exhibits ([5]).Monument Rocks (Kansas), a series of chalk arcs and other formations. Kansas also has many other formations of this nature.

Major highways

The state is served by two interstate highways with six spur routes. I-70 is a major eastwest route connecting to St. Louis, Missouri, in the east and Denver, Colorado, in the west. Cities along this route (from east to west) include Kansas City, Lawrence, Topeka, Junction City, Salina, Hays, and Colby. I-35 is a major northsouth route connecting to Des Moines, Iowa, in the north and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the south. Cities along this route (from north to south) include Kansas City (and its suburbs), Ottawa, Emporia, El Dorado, and Wichita.

Spur routes serve as connections between the two major routes. I-135, a northsouthwest route, connects I-70 at Topeka to I-35 at Emporia. I-335 and portions of I-35 and I-70 make up the Kansas Turnpike. I-435 and I-635 serve a dual purpose as connections between the major routes and bypasses around the Kansas City metropolitan area. Other bypasses are I-235 around Wichita and I-470 around Topeka.

In January 2004, the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) announced the new Kansas 511 traveler information service.[6] By calling 511, callers will get access to information about road conditions, construction, closures, detours and weather conditions for the state highway system. Weather and road condition information is updated every 15 minutes.

The 2003 total gross state product of Kansas was $93 billion, an increase of 4.3% over the prior year, but trailing the national average increase of 4.8%. Its income was $29,438. The December 2003 unemployment rate was 4.9%. The agricultural outputs of the state are cattle, sheep, wheat, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, hogs, corn, and salt. The industrial outputs are transportation equipment, commercial and private aircraft, food processing, publishing, chemical products, machinery, apparel, petroleum and mining.

Kansas ranks 8th in oil production, behind only Texas, Alaska, California, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Production has experienced a steady, natural decline as it becomes increasingly difficult to extract oil over time. Since oil prices bottomed in 1999 oil production has remained fairly constant, with an average monthly rate of about 2.8 million barrels in 2004. The recent higher prices have made carbon dioxide sequestration and other oil recovery techniques more economical.

Kansas ranks 8th in natural gas production, behind only Texas, Alaska, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Production has steadily declined since the mid-1990’s with the depletion of the Hugoton natural gas field—the state's largest field which extends into Oklahoma and Texas. In 2004 slower declines in the Hugoton gas fields and increased coalbed methane production contributed to a smaller overall decline. Average monthly production was over 32 billion cubic feet (0.9 km³).

Kansas is the nation's second largest producer of beef cattle, behind only Texas.

The state sales tax rate has increased twice since January 1990—first from 4.25% to 4.9% in June 1992, and most recently to 5.3% in July 2002. Except during the 2001 recession (March–November 2001) when monthly sales tax collections were flat, collections have trended higher as the economy has grown and the two rate increases have been enacted. Total sales tax collections for 2003 amounted to $1.63 billion, compared to $805.3 million in 1990.

Revenue shortfalls resulting from lower than expected tax collections and slower growth in personal income following a 1998 permanent tax reduction has contributed to the substantial growth in the state's debt level as bonded debt increased from $1.16 billion in 1998 to $3.83 billion in 2006. Some increase in debt was expected as the state continues with its 10-year Comprehensive Transportation Program enacted in 1999. As of June 2004, Moody's Investors Service ranked the state 14th for net tax-supported debt per capita. As a percentage of personal income, it was at 3.8%—above the median value of 2.5% for all rated states and having risen from a value of less than 1% in 1992. The state has a statutory requirement to maintain cash reserves of at least 7.5% of expenses at the end of each fiscal year.

Major employers in Kansas include the Sprint Nextel Corporation (with operational headquarters in Overland Park), Raytheon (mostly in Wichita), Hallmark Cards (Topeka, Lawrence Kansas City), Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (Topeka), Applebee's (Overland Park), Payless Shoes (National headquarters and major distribution facilities in Topeka), Koch Industries (Wichita), Department of Defense (Ft.Riley

As of 2005, Kansas has an estimated population of 2,744,687, which is an increase of 10,990, or 0.4%, from the prior year and an increase of 55,863, or 2.1%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 76,138 people (that is 204,663 births minus 128,525 deaths) and a decrease due to net migration of 19,541 people out of the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 38,222 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of 57,763 people.

As of 2004, the population included 149,800 foreign-born (5.5% of the state population), and an estimated 47,000 illegal aliens (1.7% of state population).

Race and ancestry

The racial makeup of the state and comparison to the prior census:

table

The largest reported ancestries in the state are: German (25.9%), Irish (11.5%), English (10.8%), American (8.8%), French (3.1%), and Swedish (2.4%). 'American' includes those reported as Native American or African American.

Americans of British ancestry are common throughout Kansas, as are German-Americans. People of German ancestry are especially strong in the northwest, people of British ancestry and descendents of white Americans from other states are especially strong in the southeast. Mexicans are present in the southwest and make up nearly half the population in certain counties. Kansas City and Junction City are predominantly black. Many African Americans in Kansas are descended from the "Exodusters", newly freed blacks who fled the South for land in Kansas following the Civil War.

"Rural flight"

Kansas, as well as five other Midwest states (Nebraska, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota and Iowa), is feeling the brunt of falling populations. 89% of the total number of cities in those states have fewer than 3000 people; hundreds have fewer than 1000. Between 1996 and 2004, almost half a million people, nearly half with college degrees, left the six states. ). By state statute, cities are divided into three classes as determined by the population obtained "by any census of enumeration". A city of the third class has a population of less than 5,000, but cities reaching a population of more than 2,000 may be certified as a city of the second class. The second class is limited to cities with a population of less than 25,000, and upon reaching a population of more than 15,000, they may be certified as a city of the first class. First and second class cities are independent of any township and not included within the township's territory.

table cell

Education in Kansas is governed primarily by the Kansas State Board of Education. On August 9, 2005, the Board approved a draft of science curriculum standards that mandated equal time for the theories of "evolution" and "intelligent design" This echoes a previous decision in Kansas. In 1999, the Board ruled that instruction about evolution, the age of the earth, and the origin of the universe was permitted, but not mandatory, and that those topics would not appear on state standardized tests. However, the Board reversed this decision February 14th, 2001, ruling that instruction of all those topics was mandatory and that they would appear on standardized tests.

Kansas City T-Bones, Wichita Wranglers, Wichita Thunder, Topeka Tarantulas, Wichita Wings (defunct).Although there are no major professional sports league teams within Kansas itself, many Kansans support the sports teams of Kansas City, Missouri, including the Kansas City Royals, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Kansas City Wizards. Kansans outside the influence of Kansas City tend to support Denver teams.Two major auto racing facilities are situated in Kansas. The Kansas Speedway located outside Kansas City hosts races of the NASCAR, IRL, and ARCA circuits. Also, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) holds drag racing events at Heartland Park Topeka, situated in Topeka.