Kansas

C

Other Places to Visit

Many of the places of interest in Kansas are closely associated with 19th-century history, including Old Front Street and the Boot Hill Museum, in Dodge City, which is a replica of the city’s notorious Front Street as it appeared in the late 1870s. There are similar front street reproductions in Abilene and Wichita. The Dalton Museum in Coffeyville preserves relics of the notorious bank robbers, the Dalton Gang.

A number of museums and buildings in the state commemorate famous Kansans. In Medicine Lodge is the Kansas home of the ardent prohibitionist Carry Nation. Near Athol is the one-room cabin home of Dr. Brewster H. Higley, a pioneer physician who wrote the words to “Home on the Range,” now the state song. The famous aviator Amelia Earhart was born in 1897 in a white frame house still standing in Atchison. Perhaps the most noted person associated with Kansas is former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who grew up in Abilene. Adjoining his boyhood home is the Eisenhower Museum, which houses mementos of Eisenhower’s life and souvenirs of his presidency. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, opposite the museum, contains papers dating from his years in office.

Of scientific interest are the chalk beds of western Kansas, one of the richest sources of fossils in the country. In the Sternberg Memorial Museum at Fort Hays State University, in Hays in west central Kansas, is an outstanding collection of fossils taken from these deposits. Numerous fossils of reptiles have also been unearthed in northwestern Kansas near Oakley. The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, in Hutchinson, boasts a major collection of space artifacts. Places of geological interest in Kansas include Monument Rocks, Rock City, and the grass-covered sand dunes located just south of the Arkansas River in Finney and Kearny counties.

The Bartlett Arboretum, near Belle Plaine, has several thousand kinds of trees, shrubs, and flowers growing in a formal garden. In Gage Park in Topeka is the Reinisch Rose Garden.

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D

Annual Events

Of the many fairs held in Kansas each year, the most outstanding is the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson, held in September. In October maple leaf festivals are held in Baldwin and Hiawatha and the Apple Butter Festival in Newton. Kansas Day, the anniversary of statehood, is celebrated throughout the state on January 29. On Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, homemakers from Liberal, Kansas, and Olney, England, compete in the International Pancake Race, which is held simultaneously in the two communities. The Messiah Festival, an internationally known music festival, is presented during Easter Week by Bethany College, in Lindsborg. Of national interest are the Kansas Relays, which are held in April on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence. Early in June the Flint Hills Rodeo is held in Strong City. In the summer months nearly every community in Kansas hosts a festival. A parade and carnival has marked the Richmond Free Fair for more than 70 years, while the Frontier Day celebration in Haddam has occurred more than 125 times. Also in July is the Kansas City Indian Club Powwow, a gathering of Native Americans; and Dodge City Days, with a rodeo, car races, and concerts. In August the Central Kansas Free Fair, which includes the Wild Bill Hickok Rodeo, is held in Abilene.

VII

Government

The present constitution of Kansas was approved by the electorate in 1859, about 16 months before the state entered the Union. Proposed amendments to the constitution must be approved by two-thirds of the state legislature or by a constitutional convention. To become effective they must be approved by a majority of the electorate voting on the amendment in a general election.

A

Executive

The head of the executive branch of the state government is the governor, who is elected to a four-year term jointly with the lieutenant governor and may succeed to office once. The governor may veto legislation, but the legislature can override a veto by a two-thirds majority vote in each legislative house. Other elected executive officials include the secretary of state, the attorney general, the treasurer of state, and the commissioner of insurance, who are also elected to four-year terms. There are many state boards and commissions, most of whose members are appointed to office by the governor.

B

Legislative

The state legislature is made up of two houses: a 40-member Senate and a 125-member House of Representatives. State senators are elected to four-year terms, and state representatives are elected to two-year terms. Regular sessions of the legislature are convened annually at Topeka on the second Monday in January. The governor is authorized to call special sessions. There is a legislative coordinating council composed of leading members of both houses of the legislature.

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