(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . IAN: Kansas [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2026-04-06 I recently wrote about my home city, Wichita. Today I am writing about my home state, Kansas. The little dog is named Itzl. As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at, to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off Daily Kos. If you're not here, or anywhere else on Daily Kos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care! IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news! This is our current schedule of regular IAN diary writers: Monday: Youffraita Tuesday: bigjacbigjacbigjac Wednesday: Tippy and Dad Thursday: art ah zen Friday: FloridaSNMOM Saturday: FloridaSNDad Sunday: loggersbrat en.wikipedia.org/… I already knew most of that, but I like the way Wikipedia lays it all out. I also knew a lot of that, but not the dates so much. I truly knew about Bleeding Kansas. That is why our motto is: “To the Stars, With Difficulty”. To the stars is about the star of Kansas added to the flag of the USA, and the difficulty is about the fighting and killing, the killing and bleeding. Passage of the Homestead Acts in 1862 accelerated settlement and agricultural development in the state. 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 freedmen like Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, began establishing black colonies in the state. Leaving southern states in the late 1870s because of increasing discrimination, they became known as Exodusters. I did not know about that, the settling of Black folks into Kansas. I knew a lot of that, but not which famous name was at which town. In response to demands of Methodists and other evangelical Protestants, in 1881 Kansas became the first U.S. state to adopt a constitutional amendment prohibiting all alcoholic beverages, which was repealed in 1948. Anti-saloon activist Carrie Nation vandalized her first saloon in Kiowa in 1900. In 1922, suffragist Ella Uphay Mowry became the first female gubernatorial candidate in the state when she ran as "Mrs. W.D. Mowry". She later stated: "Someone had to be the pioneer. I firmly believe that someday a woman will sit in the governor's chair in Kansas." Our current Governor is a woman, Laura Kelly. Two Governors back, we had a woman, Kathleen Sebelius. (Both Democrats, by the way.) Kansas suffered severe environmental damage in the 1930s due to the combined effects of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and large numbers of people left southwestern Kansas in particular for better opportunities elsewhere.[33] The outbreak of World War II spurred rapid growth in aircraft manufacturing near Wichita in the so-called Battle of Kansas, and the aerospace sector remains a significant portion of the Kansan economy to this day. This is why Wichita is called the Air Capitol of the World. The western third of the state, lying in the great central plain of the United States, has a generally flat or undulating surface, while the eastern third has many hills and forests; the middle third is generally hilly, with more sparse vegetation than the eastern third.[35] The land gradually rises from east to west. Its altitude ranges from 684 ft (208 m) along the Verdigris River at Coffeyville in Montgomery County, to 4,039 ft (1,231 m) at Mount Sunflower, 0.5 miles (0.80 kilometers) from the Colorado border, in Wallace County. It is a common misconception that Kansas is the flattest state in the nation—in 2003, a tongue-in-cheek study famously declared the state "flatter than a pancake".[36] In fact, Kansas has a maximum topographic relief of 3,360 ft (1,020 m),[37] making it the 23rd flattest U.S. state measured by maximum relief.[38] Here in Wichita, we have lots and lots of hills. One neighborhood is called “hilltop.” Kansas is prone to severe weather, especially in the spring and the early-summer. Despite the frequent sunshine throughout much of the state, due to its location at a climatic boundary prone to intrusions of multiple air masses, the state is vulnerable to strong and severe thunderstorms. Some of these storms become supercell thunderstorms; these can produce some tornadoes, occasionally those of EF3 strength or higher. Kansas averages more than 50 tornadoes annually.[46] Severe thunderstorms sometimes drop some very large hail over Kansas as well. Furthermore, these storms can even bring in flash flooding and damaging straight line winds. I only copied and pasted a little bit about the climate here. That severe weather is the most dramatic point. Known as rural flight, the last few decades have been marked by a migratory pattern out of the countryside into cities. Out of all the cities in these Midwestern states, 89% have fewer than 3,000 people, and hundreds of those have fewer than 1,000. In Kansas alone, there are more than 6,000 ghost towns and dwindling communities,[48] according to one Kansas historian, Daniel C. Fitzgerald. At the same time, some of the communities in Johnson County (metropolitan Kansas City) are among the fastest growing in the country. 6,000 ghost towns! Ha! I am not surprised. If a town is so tiny you have no workplace for a job, and no supermarket to buy things, you need to take a road trip for everything. By far, the most significant agricultural crop in the state is wheat. Eastern Kansas is part of the Grain Belt, an area of major grain production in the central United States. Approximately 40% of all winter wheat grown in the U.S. is grown in Kansas.[74] Roughly 95% of the wheat grown in the state is hard red winter wheat.[74] During 2016, farmers of conventionally grown wheat farmed 8.2 million acres and harvested an average of 57 bushels of wheat per acre. That winter wheat is planted in September and harvested in May. Opposite of most crops. Kansas is known as the wheat state. Kansas is also home to three major military installations: Fort Leavenworth (Army), Fort Riley (Army), and McConnell Air Force Base (Air Force). Approximately 25,000 active duty soldiers and airmen are stationed at these bases which also employ approximately 8,000 civilian DoD employees. The U.S. Army Reserve also has the 451st Expeditionary Sustainment Command headquartered in Wichita that serves reservists and their units from around the region. The Kansas Air National Guard has units at Forbes Field in Topeka and the 184th Intelligence Wing in Wichita. The Smoky Hill Weapons Range, a detachment of the Intelligence Wing, is one of the largest and busiest bombing ranges in the nation. During World War II, Kansas was home to numerous Army Air Corps training fields for training new pilots and aircrew. Many of those airfields live on today as municipal airports I already knew a lot of that, but not all of it. Okay! That is enough! Have a great Tuesday. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/4/6/2376390/-IAN-Kansas?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/