Tall Grass Prairie Preserve/Z Bar Ranch, Strong City: :
Safari museum, Chanute. This museum’s name is unfortunate and does no do justice to it; it is culturally sensitive and remarkably environmentally aware for the times: http://www.safarimuseum.com/
Grand Centeral Hotel and Grill, Cottenwood Falls. Stay here and eat at the grill. Best steak I’ve ever had: http://www.grandcentralhotel.com/
Pawnee Indian Museum, Republic. This place is interesting, and it’s unfortunate it is so remote that no one ever visits. The curator will be very glad to see you: Pawnee Indian Museum - Kansas Historical Society
Several good museums at Fort Riley, including Custer’s House. The old officer’s housing is beautiful. Yes, they will let you on the fort. A polite guard at the gate will look at your driver’s license, then help you find the museums.
I’m from northeast Kansas and have traveled all over, but the most spectacular sunset I’ve ever seen in my life was in the Flint Hills in southeast(ish) Kansas (not that far from Hutchinson). There were dozens of cars pulled over along I-35, and people sitting sitting on their hoods just captivated by it. I joined them. I used to drive for a living (cars and trucks) and went through that area a lot on the way to Texas, or to I-40 or I-10 to go west.
You wouldn’t think an area that extends for miles and miles and miles with no particular description other than low, rolling hills, grasslands and no tall trees would be particularly scenic, but it’s strangely mesmerizing. I wouldn’t want to live there, but I’m glad I got to go through it fairly often.
You may not get up to northeastern Kansas but if you do, if you’re into prison and/or military stuff, Leavenworth, “First City incorporated in the state of Kansas” (founded in 1854) is the place to go. There’s the United States Federal Penitentiary that you always hear mentioned in old gangster movies (“Y’r goin’ to Leavenworth, Lefty!”) and it’s where Robert “Birdman of Alcatraz” Stroud REALLY did all of his work with birds during his 30-year stay before he was transferred. He wasn’t allowed to keep birds in Alcatraz. “Bugsy” Moran and “Machine Gun” Kelly were a couple of other famous inmates. My brother got lost when he was a little kid, walked and walked, got to the prison, and started crying because he thought he’d walked all the way to Washington and was at the Capitol. Unfairly, it was a go-to reason to razz him mercilessly for years.
The Kansas State Penitentiary in nearby Lansing is where the In Cold Blood killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock met and, after the murders, were executed. I lived a mile away from there and went to junior high and high school just down the street from it. It’s a creepy looking place, but when I was a kid I used to think it was an English castle. I was a stupid kid.
There are several other correctional facilities in the area, including the United States Disciplinary Barracks, (the “U.S. military’s only maximum-security facility”) at Fort Leavenworth, “the oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C.” (founded in 1827). For a Fort, the land it’s on is actually quite beautiful, and you can drive all around it on winding roads flanked by trees. Particularly beautiful and moving is the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery. There have been burials there since 1844 (the first person buried there was a woman, Clarinda Dale, according to this site), and it’s on the National Register of Historic Places. My mom is buried there and my WWII and Korean War veteran dad will be buried on top of her casket when he goes.
Melissa Etheridge was born in Leavenworth, if you’re a fan. I was born there too, but I can’t sing. Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickock both lived in Leavenworth, as did Fred Harvey, “credited with creating the first restaurant chain in the United States” in 1873, and making “The Harvey Girls” famous. The C. W. Parker Carousel Museum is there.
Last summer, my wife, child, and I ate at Jillian’s Italian Grill in Hutchinson, an excellent restaurant right next to the railroad.
If you are really interested in the history of space exploration, be sure to leave plenty of time to enjoy the Cosmosphere. The exhibit does a great job of putting each advance in its historical-political context. And, they simply have a bunch of amazing objects (lots of real Soviet stuff!), well displayed (like that Gemini rocket, which you can see from below as if at the base of the launchpad). When we visited, we happened to walk in on a session of primary school kids having a conversation with astronauts (projected on a big screen) who were on the International Space Station! In real time!
Wow, there’s a lot of good suggestions here, i’ll need to remember these for my next roadtrip through Kansas. I only went through there once, in 1997, and my route was controlled by a need to be in Denver for my brother-in-law’s graduation, so we pretty much stuck to towns along or close to the I-70. There are cute local history museums in Goodland and Colby, we enjoyed those. I’d recommend skipping the Barbed Wire Museum in LaCrosse. We thought it sounded off-beat and quirky, but it really did nothing to make the subject interesting. It’s pretty much for people who are into barbed wire already.
My brother went out to the Flint Hills a few years ago to watch a controlled prairie fire. Said it was absolutely beautiful, and a definite must-do for anyone with the opportunity.
Thanks to all who have responded. I really appreciate people taking the time to post all those links.
My mother has seen Big Brutus but I haven’t.
I’ve heard of the Safari Museum but have never been there.
Thanks to Kansas Beekeeper for the hotel and grill recommendation.
I’ve never seen the Garden of Eden but it sounds fun.
I’m a Kansan who is NOT into Oz though. All the time I was in the military and mentioned my home state, I’d get comments like “How’s Dorothy?” I wanted to choke people who all thought they were being funny and original.
I was checking places to eat and in Salina there was a Korean food place. If we go through there I’d like to look it over, I haven’t had good Korean food since I left Michigan in 1989.
One thing I can recommend, if you ever get to Kansas, is viewing some of the glasswork of Mitsugi Ohno, on display at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.
The man was a genius. If you read the article, he was the first person, maybe the only, to blow a representation in glass of a Klein Bottle. My sister owns one of the Klein bottles he blew, and I don’t want to think of what it cost her. Her only regret is that when he made it for her, he came to her house to deliver it personally and she wasn’t home. So other arrangements had to be made. I own one very small and simple piece he made, a lovely statuette of two cranes. It was a gift When I last moved it was the final thing I transported. It is so thin and delicate I didn’t even want to wrap it, so a friend drove me home while I held it in my hands.
This is a guy who was so good that when the Emperor of Japan visited the United States, he made our government’s official gift, a replica in glass of a Japanese castle.
You can visit Coronado’s give-up/turnaround spot in his search for the cities of gold at Coronado Heights. It’s just south of the Swedish stronghold of Lindsborg.
Thank YOU, Baker, for suggesting, a few years ago when someone asked about local eateries in Topeka, Bradley’s Corner Café (including their pies to go). We’ve eaten with family and friends a few times since then (we’re in Lawrence – we’ll get that Dopefest going this spring, I swear!)
And I have a friend who works in Manhattan who will love the Klein bottle thing, so thanks for that, too!
