High Plains History
Tuesdays: during Morning Edition (6:45 & 8:45 AM CT) & All Things Considered (4:44 & 6:44 PM CT).
Take a few minutes to step back in time and explore the historical events, places, persons, social movements, and humorous incidents from the centuries of human settlement on the High Plains. High Plains History is written by Skip Mancini with the assistance of historians, historical societies, and museums from across the region. It's produced by Skip Mancini, Lynn Boitano, and High Plains Public Radio.
Have a historical event you'd like to hear about on this show? Contact Lynn Boitano at lboitano@hppr.org, or call (800) 678-7444 to get in touch!
Fall 2025
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Despite significant omissions from our nation’s history books, early women settlers across the High Plains and the mountain states, recorded their experiences as participants in the transformation of the U.S. We find their words in diaries, in letters sent east, and in memoirs which we pick up today like heirlooms from an attic trunk. -
It’s undeniable that Charles Goodnight had a huge impact on the development of the Texas Panhandle. Primarily identified as a rancher, Goodnight’s lifetime activities and achievements are broad based and far reaching . Born in Illinois in 1836, his family relocated to Waco, Texas when Charles was 9 years old. He later liked to say that he came to Texas at the same time that Texas came into the U.S., joining the Union in 1845. -
Settlers in the American west traveled far to reach their new homes, and when they staked a claim, all members of the family, expectedly, became part of the homesteading workforce. Children had many chores – watering and feeding the stock, sweeping the dugout floors, helping with the cooking, washing dishes, or punching clothes on laundry day, an activity requiring the use of a plunger to agitate garments in a tub. -
Baca County in Southeastern Colorado has a colorful history that includes a wide diversity of cultures, landscapes, and ownership. Around 1000 A.D., a culture of hunter/gatherers named Apishapa (uh-PISH-uh-puh) roamed the grasslands and desert-like terrain. They fished in the rivers and streams that had carved out rock-lined canyons, and gathered seeds and grains from the High Plains. They left behind pictures, etched into the canyon walls, and their civilization was ultimately replaced by the nomadic Plains Indian tribes. -
This remembrance first aired on HPPR in 2019.Hello, I’m Dennis Garcia. I was born in 1951 in Garden City, Kansas. Even in a small town like Garden City, we get so busy we don’t see things that impact our daily lives. For me, it was the railroad. I’m one of 10 kids raised in a small wood framed house. Our home stood alongside the Santa Fe Railroad’s main line that went through town. We lived so close that by the time I was 10, I could throw a rock from my backyard and easily reach the tracks. -
When homesteaders left their forested hillsides of the East and arrived on the treeless plains, they must have wondered what in the world they would use to shore up the face of a dugout, put a fence around their land, or confine a milk cow. With few trees in sight to be used for lumber and fence posts, the new arrivals in one area of Kansas looked beneath their feet and found unlimited resources in the limestone that lay just below the topsoil. -
The founding of Amarillo and the city’s subsequent success as a center of trade and commerce in the Texas Panhandle was largely due to the coming of the railroads. In addition to bringing settlers and supplies to the vast grasslands of the Panhandle-Plains, the railroad was also responsible for naming the city. -
Black Sunday refers to a catastrophic dust storm that struck on April 14, 1935, during the Dust Bowl era in the United States. This event is recognized as one of the most severe dust storms in American history. -
What is now recorded as the last lynching in Kansas was, in April 1932, referred to by newspapers across the country as ‘justice’ for the brutal murder of a child. Richard Read, a Thomas County man, abducted eight year old Dorothy Hunter near the schoolhouse in Selden, where she had returned to pick up her lunch pail. -
What began as a grouping of canvas tents along the Canadian River in Hemphill County, Texas became the hub of rail traffic in the northern panhandle for more than fifty years.
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Despite significant omissions from our nation’s history books, early women settlers across the High Plains and the mountain states, recorded their experiences as participants in the transformation of the U.S. We find their words in diaries, in letters sent east, and in memoirs which we pick up today like heirlooms from an attic trunk. -
It’s undeniable that Charles Goodnight had a huge impact on the development of the Texas Panhandle. Primarily identified as a rancher, Goodnight’s lifetime activities and achievements are broad based and far reaching . Born in Illinois in 1836, his family relocated to Waco, Texas when Charles was 9 years old. He later liked to say that he came to Texas at the same time that Texas came into the U.S., joining the Union in 1845. -
Settlers in the American west traveled far to reach their new homes, and when they staked a claim, all members of the family, expectedly, became part of the homesteading workforce. Children had many chores – watering and feeding the stock, sweeping the dugout floors, helping with the cooking, washing dishes, or punching clothes on laundry day, an activity requiring the use of a plunger to agitate garments in a tub. -
Baca County in Southeastern Colorado has a colorful history that includes a wide diversity of cultures, landscapes, and ownership. Around 1000 A.D., a culture of hunter/gatherers named Apishapa (uh-PISH-uh-puh) roamed the grasslands and desert-like terrain. They fished in the rivers and streams that had carved out rock-lined canyons, and gathered seeds and grains from the High Plains. They left behind pictures, etched into the canyon walls, and their civilization was ultimately replaced by the nomadic Plains Indian tribes. -
This remembrance first aired on HPPR in 2019.Hello, I’m Dennis Garcia. I was born in 1951 in Garden City, Kansas. Even in a small town like Garden City, we get so busy we don’t see things that impact our daily lives. For me, it was the railroad. I’m one of 10 kids raised in a small wood framed house. Our home stood alongside the Santa Fe Railroad’s main line that went through town. We lived so close that by the time I was 10, I could throw a rock from my backyard and easily reach the tracks. -
When homesteaders left their forested hillsides of the East and arrived on the treeless plains, they must have wondered what in the world they would use to shore up the face of a dugout, put a fence around their land, or confine a milk cow. With few trees in sight to be used for lumber and fence posts, the new arrivals in one area of Kansas looked beneath their feet and found unlimited resources in the limestone that lay just below the topsoil. -
The founding of Amarillo and the city’s subsequent success as a center of trade and commerce in the Texas Panhandle was largely due to the coming of the railroads. In addition to bringing settlers and supplies to the vast grasslands of the Panhandle-Plains, the railroad was also responsible for naming the city. -
Black Sunday refers to a catastrophic dust storm that struck on April 14, 1935, during the Dust Bowl era in the United States. This event is recognized as one of the most severe dust storms in American history. -
What is now recorded as the last lynching in Kansas was, in April 1932, referred to by newspapers across the country as ‘justice’ for the brutal murder of a child. Richard Read, a Thomas County man, abducted eight year old Dorothy Hunter near the schoolhouse in Selden, where she had returned to pick up her lunch pail. -
What began as a grouping of canvas tents along the Canadian River in Hemphill County, Texas became the hub of rail traffic in the northern panhandle for more than fifty years.
