Table of Contents and Introduction

Table of contents of the 2014 Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal, editorial information, and an introductory message from Christy Davis

A Moment Of Fortitude: The Chase County Courthouse

Can a building determine the fate of an entire community? The Chase County Courthouse did. Cottonwood Falls had been the seat of Chase County since 1859, but by 1871, with the Santa Fe Railroad making tracks between Emporia and Newton, the small city couldn’t chance its future on the battered log cabin that had served as the courthouse since the early days of the Civil War

A Future for Flint Hills Barns

Considering the way they are romanticized in countless books, photographs, and paintings, it might seem that there is an inexhaustible number of Kansas barns

All-Americans: Knute Rockne and the No-Glitz Man Who Tended His Flame

Introduction: On March 31, 1931, a star fell from the sky above a remote Kansas pasture and changed the course of history. President Herbert Hoover called the plane crash a “national loss.” And perhaps more importantly to some, cowboy humorist Will Rogers called one of the fallen “a national hero.

The Power of the Pump: Windmills in the Flint Hills

Introduction: Before the 1850s in America, windmills were merely metaphors for the quixotic. This changed in 1854 with the invention of the first commercially viable windmill, a so-called self-governing model that automatically turned to face the shifting wind

Flint Hill Nights, Flint Hill Lights

Introduction: It was the Age of the City. In the fifty years following the Civil War, during the Second Industrial Revolution, eleven million Americans left their rural communities and moved to bustling metropolitan areas

Oil Boomtowns

Butler and Greenwood Counties were both organized in 1855. But they would have to wait more than a half century to realize the promise of illustrious place names like “El Dorado” and “Prospect Township.” When World War I raised the demand for oil, prices spiked and investors came calling on area farmers and ranchers, who quickly learned that oil was a “better crop than alfalfa.

Introduction: Never Cuss the Rain

Introduction: When I woke up to the sound of sleet hitting my roof, I knew that I’d have to change the day’s travel plans. By 7:00 a.m. I had a message from rancher Matt Perrier. At his Greenwood County ranch ice was darting across the open prairie in gusts up to fifty miles per hour

Crossing Lines: the Chisholm Trail, the Railroads, and the Flint Hills

Introduction: The nineteenth century created the cattle business, but it also created cattle, or at least what we recognize as cattle today. Before then, bovines were products of their environments, giving each region a breed that had adapted to its local climate and vegetation. Then, in the spirit of “animal husbandry,” Victorians sought out and bred cattle that were built for one purpose: to produce beef