In the decades after the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S.’s economic frontier expanded westward. In 1833 the military built a fort on the north bank of the Arkansas River, then the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico. First called Fort William and later renamed to Bent’s Fort, after William and Charles Bent, two brothers from St. Louis who led a trade caravan to Santa Fe in 1829.

In the late 1800s, thousands of European Americans attempted to establish permanent settlements in Northwest Kansas. Among those who survived and prospered were the Pratts, a family of immigrants from Yorkshire County, England. Between 1878 and 1882, Abraham Pratt and his two sons, Fenton and Tom, settled on adjacent tracts of land in the South Solomon valley. The Pratts were ambitious, hardworking, and inventive, and unlike many, when they came to this country, they had money.

Perhaps no single plant was more useful to the early day inhabitants on the High Plains than the spiky yucca, or soap weed, as it was commonly called. Pioneers learned from the Native American tribes that the roots could be used as soap, especially good for hair shampoo. The process of making the soap was a long one, involving digging the sticky green roots, then pounding them on a wooden board until they were softened. The resulting pulpy mass was put into water to soak. The juice and water mixture that was drained off became soap in a community where store bought goods were rare and costly.

While the Indigenous populations of the plains are the first peoples to live on and migrate across the landscape, the opening of trade with Santa Fe in 1821 marked the beginning of a series of treks across the Kansas plains by a variety of travelers. Those seeking fortune in the gold fields of California or Colorado, or those wanting a better life on their own piece of ground were also joined by immigrants and Civil War veterans who took up land under the provisions of the Homestead Act, and by the cowboys who drove their herds from Texas to Abilene and Dodge City. Many who crossed or stayed in Kansas brought their heritage with them in songs. Sung around campfires, to restless cattle herds, or in one-room schoolhouses, they offer an insight into Kansas history and of the characters and events that shaped the state.

An almost forgotten episode in Kansas history concerns the establishment of a National Forest Reserve in the sand hills south of the R-Kansas (also called the Arkansas) River.

Early-day travelers on the Santa Fe Trail developed a shortened route that took them through the Southwest corner of Kansas. Known as the Cimarron Cutoff, or Dry Route, the sixty-mile stretch between the Arkansas and Cimarron Rivers was a perilous route for men and animals in dry seasons, when wagon trains often ran out of water.

Black Mesa State Park in the Oklahoma Panhandle has been called the geological wonder of North America.

Though the town of Windthorst never really became a reality, the magnificent church that was the centerpiece of an entire community is very real and well worth a trip to Ford County in southwestern Kansas.

In 1928 the commissioners of Kit Carson County, on Colorado’s Central Plains, made a forward-thinking decision that at the time was met with disapproval and dismay by many of their constituents. They purchased a carousel that had operated for many years at Elitch Gardens Amusement Park in Denver.

The first settlers on the Great Plains had little time for fun amidst the hardscrabble toil that made up their daily existence. Yet out of this era came some of our most precious, and now fading, traditions. Box suppers, church socials, spelling bees, and barn dances each held the common essentials of food, music and neighbors that made life on the plains not only bearable, but also downright enjoyable. And of those events, none was more anticipated than the dances.