Portal:Kansas
The Kansas Portal  Kansas /ˈkænzəs/ is a Midwestern state in the central region of the United States of America, an area often referred to as the American "Heartland". It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa tribe, who inhabited the area. The tribe's name (natively kką:ze) is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south wind", although this was probably not the term's original meaning. Historically, the area was home to large numbers of nomadic Native Americans that hunted bison. It was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery issue. When officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854, abolitionist Free-Staters from New England and pro-slavery settlers from neighboring Missouri rushed to the territory to determine if Kansas would become a free state or a slave state. Thus, the area was a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided, and was known as Bleeding Kansas. The abolitionists eventually prevailed and on January 29, 1861, Kansas entered the Union as a free state. After the Civil War, the population of Kansas exploded when waves of immigrants turned the prairie into productive farmland. Today, Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, producing many crops, and leading the nation in wheat and sunflower production most years. Selected article The Kansas Turnpike is a 236-mile (380-km) freeway-standard toll road that lies entirely within the U.S. state of Kansas. It runs in a general southwest-northeast direction from the Oklahoma border, and passes through several major Kansas cities, including Wichita, Topeka, Lawrence and Kansas City. The turnpike is owned and maintained by the Kansas Turnpike Authority (KTA), headquartered in Wichita. The Kansas Turnpike was built from 1954 to 1956, predating the Interstate Highway System. While not part of the system's early plans, the turnpike was eventually incorporated into the Interstate system in late 1956, and is designated today as four different Interstate Highway routes: I-35, I-335, I-470, and I-70. The turnpike also carries a piece of U.S. Route 24 and U.S. Route 40 in Kansas City. Because it predates the Interstate Highway System, the road is not engineered to current Interstate Highway standards, and notably lacks a regulation-width median. To attain the reduced risks of head-on collisions which were designed into Interstate-standard roadways, the Kansas Turnpike now has continuous, permanent Jersey barriers in the median over its entire length. On opening, there was no fixed speed limit on the highway; drivers were merely asked to keep to a "reasonable and proper" limit, although shortly afterward signs were erected in certain stretches indicating a maximum speed of 80 miles per hour. Around 120,000 drivers use the turnpike daily. The road features numerous services, including a travel radio station and six service areas. One of these service areas is notable for the presence of a memorial to University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, who died near the current highway's route. The turnpike is self-sustaining, deriving its entire revenue from the tolls collected and requiring no tax money for maintenance or administration. (Read more...) Spotlight city Greensburg is a city in central Kiowa County, located in Southwest Kansas, in the Central United States. The population was 1,574 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat and most populous city of Kiowa County. Greensburg is also home to the world's largest hand-dug well. On May 4, 2007, Greensburg was devastated by an EF5 tornado that traveled rapidly through the area, leveling at least 95 percent of the city and killing 11 people. The tornado was estimated to be 1.7 miles (2.7 km) in width and traveled for nearly 22 miles (35 km). Ninety-five percent of the city was confirmed to be destroyed, with the other five percent being severely damaged. The National Weather Service estimated winds of the tornado to reach 205 mph (330 km/h). This was the first tornado to be rated EF5 since the update of the Fujita scale. The tornado had caused EF5 damage to at least one well-built home in Greensburg, and also is the first "5" classification since May 3, 1999, when an F5 tornado ripped through Moore, Oklahoma, as part of the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. Greensburg was named for D. R. "Cannonball" Green, who owned a stagecoach company and who helped to form the city. Selected picture Credit: Edwin Olson A view of the Flint Hills in eastern Kansas. Important dates in Kansas' history
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Laura Cobb was born in Atchison, Kansas on May 11, 1892, and moved with her family to Mulvane, Kansas (near Wichita) the following year. She graduated from Mulvane High School in 1910, taught school for a time, entered the nursing training program at Wesley Hospital in Wichita in 1915, and graduated from that program in 1918. Cobb served as a nurse in the United States Navy from July 5, 1918, to July 21, 1921 (including brief service at the Canacao Naval Hospital in Manila at the end of World War I), and then worked in civilian hospitals in Iowa and Michigan for three years. She rejoined the Navy in April 1924 and served in naval hospitals throughout the US in the 1920s and 1930s. After serving for more than a decade in a naval hospital in Washington DC, rumors of war prompted her to request "to go overseas because someone had to go." She was subsequently transferred to the naval hospital on Guam in April 1940, where she received a commendation for "continuous duty for forty-eight hours, during which she repeatedly risked life and limb in her efforts to insure the safety and comfort of the patients..." during the typhoon of November 3, 1940. (Read more...) Kansas newsWikinews Kansas portal
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