Kansas history

Cursive handwriting is no longer a necessity in school or daily life. But the fancy flowing script will always have a connection to history, and being able to read cursive remains an important skill.

That’s why the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum is teaching cursive writing to young people. The museum offers free penmanship workshops throughout the year.

Sixty-four years ago, the United States Supreme Court handed down the decision to end legal segregation in the public school system as part of the Brown v. Board of Education case. A new mural is being unveiled Thursday in the Kansas Capitol in Topeka to commemorate that landmark decision.

Andrew Malan Milward, a Lawrence, Kan. native, received accolades from Stewart O’Nan and Lauren Groff for his Kansas stories, The Agriculture Hall of Fame. His latest collection, I Was a Revolutionary, expands Milward’s examination of his home state through the art of fiction.

Ivanpah, in Greenwood County, is today little more than a schoolhouse. I recently gave a talk about it for the Symphony in the Flint Hills.

Dating from 1879, the community owed its origins to a sheep rancher named A.H. Thompson and a newspaperman, Frank Presbrey. A few days before I was to give my talk, a random internet search uncovered a story that made my jaw drop.

Historians will always need to visit archives and libraries, although it is truly amazing how much information is available in digital form.

A few months ago, I was looking at a Sedgwick County mapping database and was surprised when a search for material on Delano turned up a document for the community of Elgin, platted in early 1871. A quick search turned up an almost identical plat for the community of Delano a few months later. Clearly, one replaced the other.

Recently, two students and I had a chance to work on a project that looked at the Kansas ancestors of President Barack Obama.

In the 1910s, a person in Kansas City who wanted to attend the University of Kansas-University of Missouri game in Lawrence only needed to take the trolley to the station of the Kaw Valley Interurban, where trains left every hour on the half hour.