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.
Photo Friday, July 10, 2020: Banner Photo, Mid-Kansas Milling, 1904
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 times, I’ve heard, […]
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 […]
Bridging the Kaw
-by Greg Hoots- The Kansas River demarks the northern edge of Wabaunsee County, creating a meandering dividing line between the county and its neighbor to the north, Pottawatomie County. For more than […]
The Curious Case of Postcard Photographer, John Bowers
-by Greg Hoots- John Bowers was born in 1865 in Minnesota, the son of a farmer. In about 1879 John left Minnesota to move to Topeka, Kansas where he took residence with […]
The Peter Thoes Barn
-by Greg Hoots- Peter Thoes was born in 1821 in a small village on the river LaBelle Mosille on the western edge of Germany. After Peter’s birth, his parents, Johannes Thoes and […]
Sixteen Days in August and Other UPS Stories
-by Greg Hoots- Author’s note: I spent more than thirty-three years as a package car driver for United Parcel Service, working from the Topeka, Kansas center. I made many good friends while […]
The William Horne Barn
Many of the most historically significant barns have disappeared from the Wabaunsee County landscape throughout the 20th century, leaving a remaining few relics of their heyday scattered at the sites of former […]
Fifteen Minutes Till Doomsday
-by Greg Hoots- In 1938 two German chemists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, announced their discovery of nuclear fission and presented their theory to the world academic community. The importance of the […]
