Kansas: Home on the Range - the Real Thing.
Home, home on the range...these are more than just words in the Kansas state song. They are words that describe the experiences and down home hospitality visitors will discover in Kansas.
Remember the song? When Dr. Brewster Higley wrote these words on the banks of Beaver Creek near Athol, Kansas, in 1872, he was writing about his Kansas experiences of blue skies and endless prairie. Over the years Higley's song became popular across America and was performed by singers ranging from 1920s cowboy singer Vernon Dalhart to Gene Autry and even Frank Sinatra. In 1932, President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed it his favorite song and his enthusiasm spread across the country. That same enthusiasm for the song is part of the real “Home on the Range” experience offered in Kansas today.
At the heart of it all. No other state in the nation can claim a more varied past in American history than Kansas. Located in the geographic heart of the U.S., Kansas conjures up /images/ezine of cowboys, Old West gun fighters, pioneer trails, cattle drives, frontier forts, and American Indian culture. And all of these /images/ezine exist today in tourist attractions found across the state.
The larger-than-life cowboy legends. Wichita grew from a cattletown to the largest city in the state. A visit to the Old Cowtown Museum living history complex or the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon Supper for all you can eat barbecue and cowboy entertainment will have you humming Home on the Range all the way home. Also visit the Hopalong Cassidy Cowboy Museum and see cowboy memorabilia Hollywood-style. Few towns capture the spirit of the American cowboy as Dodge City. Stroll the streets of the Boothill Museum or settle in for an evening of entertainment at the Marchel Ranch and Wild West Show. Abilene was the end of the line for thousands of longhorn cattle driven from Texas on the Chisholm Trail, established by Kansas native Jesse Chisholm.
Go for a roundup. At the J.L. Canyon Ranch in Brookville, city slickers can experience cowboy life during the ranch's spring cattle roundup or fall cattle drive. Whether spring at the rodeo in Pretty Prairie, or fall at the Kansas Championship Ranch Rodeo in Medicine Lodge, the rodeo is the perfect place to experience the thrills of thundering hoofs as cowboys take on bucking broncos
and raging bulls. The Old West still lives in many other Kansas communities as well; Caldwell, the "border queen," and Ellsworth, "the wickedest town in the West," help keep the cowboy image alive year round.
Walk with the legends. With the cowboys came some of America's famous lawmen and gunfighters. Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid, and the infamous Dalton brothers crossed paths in Kansas. The Dalton Defenders Museum honors those gunned down by the brothers in the 1892 bank robberies in Coffeyville, and their hideout tunnel in Meade is open to the public. The Jesse James Museum in Wichita is dedicated to the theory that the famous outlaw faked his own death and moved to Kansas.
Travel the trails. The settling of the West brought pioneer traffic on the Santa Fe, California, Oregon, and Smoky Hill trails and with it a frontier military history. Fort Leavenworth, Fort Riley, Fort Hays, Fort Larned, and Fort Scott were gatekeepers to the American West and have excellent museums and living history programs on 19th-century military life. Two of the forts, Fort Scott and Fort Larned, are National Historic Sites. Black cavalry soldiers were stationed in Kansas and two black cavalry monuments are at Fort Leavenworth and in Junction City, home of Fort Riley. Travel the Frontier Military Scenic Byway for a history driving tour.
Visit “People of the Wind.” The state is named after the Kanza Indians, meaning "People of the South Wind", who once inhabited our state. While many of the early tribes were forced to move to Oklahoma, four nations remain in Kansas. The state's American Indian culture is honored in many museums, including the Mid-America All-Indian Center in Wichita, the Pawnee Indian Village Museum near Republic, the Native American Heritage Museum near Highland, and the El Cuartelejo Pueblo Ruins near Scott City. The Kaw Mission in Council Grove and the Shawnee Indian Mission in Fairway are state historic sites with living history programs. Indian pow wows are held across the state. The Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence offers a self-guided tour, including its Medicine Wheel Earthwork.
Feel the tallgrass prairie. Most of America's virgin tallgrass prairie is located in the Flint Hills region. Walk in the prairie in Kansas and you will experience one of the four untouched tallgrass prairies left in the world and the last one in North America. The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Strong City, the only unit of the National Park System dedicated to the tallgrass prairie, and the Konza Prairie Natural Area near Manhattan are just a few of the places to experience the beauty of the prairie.
The Cimarron National Grassland near Elkhart offers experiences in a short grass ecosystem.
Drift to the sunset. In Kansas, you can hike or take a guided tour through the prairie or have an adventure in a covered wagon as it crosses the prairie by day and makes camp by night under the starlight Kansas sky. At Cottonwood Falls, climb on the back of a 1950s wheat truck for a Prairie Drifter excursion into the prairie at sunset. The nearby Cassoday Café is a good place for food and gossip and has been serving both to ranchers and cowboys since 1879.
Run with the bison. Kansas is still home on the range for American bison. Two state wildlife refuges, the Finney Game Refuge in Garden City and the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge in Canton, offer guided tours into the prairie to view these magnificent creatures up close. Other herds can be viewed up-close at the Smoky Hill Bison Company near Lindsborg, or from a distance at Big Basin Preserve near Ashland, Fort Hays, and north of Pittsburg.
As you drive through the rolling hills of the prairie and past amber fields of grain, take time to stop in one of the small Kansas towns that welcome visitors with famed Midwestern hometown hospitality symbolized in the song as well.
Details Kansas Department of Commerce, Travel & Tourism Division, 1000 S.W. Jackson Street, Suite 100, Topeka, KS, 66612-1354. 1(785) 296-2009 or
www.travelKS.com
