Greensburg, Kansas was destroyed by an F5 tornado in May, 2007. The city council and Governor Sebelius decided to rebuild as a "green" town while Leonardo DiCaprio produces a 13-part series for Discovery channel affiliated (this flier is showing up around Greensburg now) Planet Green in June. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Mar 3, 2008 - 8 comments

Larry Schwarm is best known for his photographs of prairie fires and landscapes in the Flint Hills of Kansas. On May 5, 2007, he visited his hometown of Greensburg, Kansas to take photos of what was left after an F-5 tornado leveled the town the day before. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Jan 18, 2008 - 12 comments

Elizabeth "Grandma" Layton was coaxed by her sister at the age of 68 to take a blind contour drawing class in Ottawa, Kansas, in order to possibly help alleviate her 35-year bout with clinical depression. By the time of her death in 1993, her work (article includes quicktime link of Elizabeth discussing her work and photo gallery) had been shown in several museums, including the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art, and celebrated as an honest depiction of aging, mental health, and feminist issues (google book link) in the US. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Oct 4, 2007 - 15 comments

The Benders were a family of German immigrants who opened a store and restaurant in the newly formed state of Kansas in the late 19th century. Led by the spiritualist Kate, they also were some of the United States first serial killers. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Sep 25, 2007 - 37 comments

"A bad way to make a living." A series on the history and ecological impact of strip mining in southeast Kansas during the early 20th century that includes articles, photo galleries with sound files, and video slideshows about the region. The area, known as the "Little Balkans," because of the large Eastern European population that worked the mines, was a large mining community that has given the US the second largest electric shovel in the country, a home to one of the largest socialist newspapers in the country (called Appeal to Reason and founded by Julius Wayland) as well as the Little Blue Books series started by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius in 1919. Oh yeah, it was also --second paragraph-- the place that most of the bootleg alcohol that fueled the Kansas City Jazz Scene of that time was from as well. Of course, if you should ever find yourself in SEKS, and you eat meat, go to either Chicken Annie's or Chicken Mary's [transcript] since they're only a few miles apart in their modern incarnation. The legends you hear growing up there aren't always true, but it doesn't matter because the onion rings are fantastic. And yes, in some ways all Kansas has left is history.
posted by sleepy pete on Mar 22, 2007 - 9 comments