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Where Are We, Really?

Sue Clark (perpetualplum) / Flickr / Creative Commons

Wichitans today think of our city as part of the Midwest. Into the 1920s, however, Wichita saw itself as Southwestern, part of a region that included Texas and Oklahoma.

Cattle drives from Texas and railroad links confirmed this orientation. Promoters described the city as “Queen City of the Greater Southwest.” By 1910, Wichita saw itself as the capital of an “Empire of the Southwest,” a trade area consisting of Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle.

That started to change in the middle decades of the century. Arizona and New Mexico began to emerge as the heart of a distinct Southwestern identity, an identity shaped in part by promotional efforts of the Topeka-based Santa Fe Railroad and its affiliated Fred Harvey Company.

Meanwhile, Wichita came to embrace an identity rooted in being in the center of the country. A piece in the promotional book Wichita People noted that, "Whether you walk, ride a horse, fly a plane, buy a ticket on a bus, railroad or airline, you’ll probably go through Wichita if you cross the continent.” That our airport went by “Mid-Continent” was no accident.

By the time of the Kansas centennial, however, Wichita shifted its identity again and promoted itself as a Western city, a place of cowboy hats whose heritage included Wyatt Earp and cattle drives. Only in the later 20th century, when the western mystique started to wear off, did Wichita begin to truly think of itself as part of a large, ill-defined region called the Midwest.

Jay M. Price is chair of the department of history at Wichita State University, where he also directs the public history program.