The Flint Hills Special Has Arrived
Welcome to the Flint Hills Special, your digital history magazine. Please scroll down the listing of stories or search for specific subjects while exploring Kansas history from the comfort of your home.
Gandy Dancing on the Rock Island, McFarland, KS
-by Greg Hoots- McFarland, Kansas was a railroad town, literally. The town was located, designed, and platted to accommodate the intersection of various lines of the Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific Railway, […]
A Cowboy’s Dream
-by Tom Aniello and Family- I am an aerospace engineer by education, but I always wanted to be a cowboy like my grandfather, Edward H. Brinkman. This is the history of the […]
Photo Friday, August 28, 2020: Ditman Grocery, Alma, Kansas
It’s Photo Friday! I have a great photo for you today. It’s a view by Alma photographer, Gus Meier, of four employees of Ditman Grocery in Alma, standing in front of the […]
Photo Friday, August 14, 2020: Real Photo Postcard, Paxico, Kansas, 1905, “Born in Africa”
It’s Photo Friday! I have a great photograph for you today. It’s a real photo postcard which I added to my collection last week, taken in Paxico, Kansas, circa 1905. It’s an […]
The Life and Times of Hickory Jones
-by Greg Hoots- Elmer Jones was born on January 17, 1878 in Bowling Green, Kentucky. His path to the American West is undocumented, but by 1895, the seventeen-year-old youth had arrived in […]
The Early Career of Photographer, Dave Mathias, 1955-1965
-by Greg Hoots- David “Dave” Mathias was born on May 6, 1937 in Reading, Pennsylvania, the son of David and Margaret Mathias. When Dave was five-years-old, his parents divorced, and for seven years he attended a series of elementary schools, as his mother moved several times during and immediately after World War II. In 1949 […]
Photo Friday, July 10, 2020: Banner Photo, Mid-Kansas Milling, 1904
-by Greg Hoots- Times have changed. Numerous times, in my role as a photo historian, I’ve heard people say, “we don’t have any old photos, my folks never owned a camera.” Other […]
Photo Friday, July 3, 2020: Eskridge City Park Bandstand, 1915
It’s Photo Friday! I have an interesting photo for you today. Last week I acquired this real photo postcard produced by M. L. Zercher of Topeka, showing the bandstand at the City […]
Steinmeyer Bros. Garage, Alma, Kansas
-by Greg Hoots- In the 1910s, a wave from the future swept across America. The automobile arrived in the cities and small towns, alike. Ten years earlier, most people had never seen […]
Phelps Oil Company, West Plains, Mo.
-by Greg Hoots- I was born at Christa Hogan Hospital in West Plains, Missouri in the middle of the 1950s. I don’t remember any of the event, although my mother had a […]
