Recreation and Places of Interest

Kansas has a wide variety of interesting places to visit. They range from the fossil beds and unusual geological formations such as Rock City, on the High Plains, to the wheel ruts still discernible along the old Santa Fe and Oregon trails, to the many historic sites and buildings found throughout the state.

There are also numerous facilities for outdoor recreation in the state. Nearly every state park and recreation area in Kansas either includes or adjoins a water area, and almost all of them offer facilities for boating, fishing, and swimming. In addition, many of the state-administered park areas also have facilities for picnicking, camping, hiking, and horseback riding. Three national wildlife refuges are administered by the federal government: the Flint Hills refuge in the east, the Kirwin refuge in the north central part of the state, and the Quivira refuge in south central Kansas. Cheyenne Bottoms, near Great Bend, and other wildlife areas are administered by the state.

National Parks

Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka commemorates the landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which in 1954 overturned racial segregation in the nation’s education systems. The site is located at the Monroe Elementary School, which was attended by Linda Brown whose lawsuit against the school system brought about the supreme court ruling.

Other historic sites in Kansas preserve military forts used during the westward expansion. Fort Larned National Historic Site was an outpost established midway along the Santa Fe Trail to protect travelers and mail deliveries. Its stone buildings are among the best-preserved relics of the western wars with Native Americans. Fort Scott National Historic Site, first established by the United States Army to enforce the peace among settlers and Native Americans, played a role in the Mexican War (1846-1848) and was reopened during the Civil War. Fort Leavenworth, in northeastern Kansas near Leavenworth, dates from 1827 and is the oldest active U.S. military post west of the Mississippi River. It is the seat of the U.S. Army General Staff College. Fort Riley was established as a cavalry post early in the 1850s. It is also an active post. The first Capitol of Kansas lies within Fort Riley in northeastern Kansas. The building, located at what was then called Pawnee, served very briefly as the seat of the territorial government in July 1855. It is now maintained as a public museum. Also at Fort Riley is the United States Cavalry Museum.

The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve protects another kind of historic resource, the native grasslands that once covered a large portion of the interior of the United States. The preserve, dedicated in 1998, contains 4,409 hectares (10,894 acres) of prairie land located in the Flint Hills area of east-central Kansas. The National Park Service administers the preserve, which is part of the largest tract of tallgrass prairie still remaining on the continent.

State Parks

There are 25 state parks and recreation areas in Kansas and many historic sites. The largest recreation area is centered on Milford Lake, located in the central part of the state. Other large state parks include Fall River, Toronto, and Elk City, all located in southeastern Kansas; Cheney, Kanopolis, and Sand Hills, all in the central part of the state; Clinton, Perry, and Tuttle Creek, all in northeastern Kansas; Prairie Dog, Cedar Bluff, and Lake Scott, which are in the northwestern part of the state; and Glen Elder, in north central Kansas.

Pawnee Rock Park, a historic site in central Kansas near Great Bend, contains a sandstone mass 24 m (80 ft) high that was one of the most famous landmarks on the Santa Fe Trail. The John Brown Museum, at Osawatomie in eastern Kansas, includes the log cabin where the famous abolitionist often stayed. The site of a former Pawnee village, now containing an archaeological museum, lies in northern Kansas near Republic. The Hollenberg Pony Express Station, in northeastern Kansas near Hanover, is claimed to be the only pony express station in the country that has been preserved in its original, unaltered condition. It houses a small pioneer museum. Other state historic sites are the Iowa, Sac, and Fox Mission at Highland, the Shawnee Mission in Johnson County, the Kaw Indian Mission at Council Grove, Marais des Cygnes Massacre Memorial Park in Linn County, the Fort Hays Historical Park at Hays, and the Edward H. Funston House near Iola, home to two prominent Kansans.

Museums

Noted collections of European, American, and Asian art are housed in the University of Kansas’s Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence. The Wichita Art Museum, the largest art museum in the state, is known for its collection of American art. The Natural History Museum maintained by the University of Kansas contains exhibits of birds, mammals, and fossil skeletons.

The museum of the Kansas State Historical Society houses an extensive collection of archaeological relics and materials from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The society also maintains a number of the state’s historic sites and monuments. In addition, there are local historical museums and historic buildings in a number of Kansas communities. The Eisenhower Center at Abilene houses numerous mementos of the former U.S. president’s long career in government service.

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.