The Notorious Issue | Issue No 5 2023

EMBRACE FALL FUN IN TOPEKA!

From Cider Days’ largest fall festival in northeast Kansas to mesmerizing displays at Garden Glow in Ward-Meade’s botanical garden and a full range of family activities at popular spots like Gary’s Berries and Berry Hill UPick Farm, Topeka is brimming with your favorite fall festivities. Don’t let the season pass you by without experiencing the vibrant ventures awaiting you in the capital city!

Features

Notorious

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, criminals often broke the law on the Kansas plains—but some were rebels with a cause –and others were outlaws

‘City of Sorrow’

The Kansas town was a symbol of freedom and haven for those who fought slavery … so 160 years ago, Confederate sympathizers rode into Lawrence to kill its men and burn its homes

Departments

KANSAS DETAILS

Cuisine Fine Food and Good Eats 12 Kansas Air The Freshness of Outdoor Life 14 Heartland People and Places that Define Us 16 Behind the Illustrator A Conversation with KANSAS! Illustrators 18 Kansas Captured Authentic Life in the Sunflower State

WIDE OPEN SPACES

22 Kitchen Conductions!

Salina’s new symphonic director brings a love of life, music, and food

26 Food Crimes

Steady, there, put that ketchup down … you don’t want to commit something you might regret.

30 Yesterday’s Crimes Are Today’s Exhibits

A popular true-crime exhibit in Garden City presents artifacts and clues that helped solve historic cases

34 Elmer Tried

Some criminals evoke fear, others disgust … Elmer McCurdy might deserve some pity.

IN EVERY ISSUE

Reasons We Love Kansas Celebrating Unique Attractions ON THE COVER Figures representing a cold-hearted outlaw and a rebel with a cause confront one another in this illustration by

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HISTORY AUTHORITIES

The history of the Civil War and the Wild West is often shrouded in lore and legend, particularly when it involves notorious figures whose actions were shrouded in half-truths and exaggerations even during their lifetimes. For this issue, we tapped a trio of experts to help separate fact from pulp fiction. Will Haynes, a Ph.D. historian who serves as the director of engagement and learning at the Watkins Museum of History, guides us through the murky events of the Lawrence Massacre. Pat Ackerman, a Ph.D. professor and author at Kansas State-Salina, takes us through an overview of Kansans who fell afoul of the law for good causes. And, finally, Mike King, a nationally recognized educator who founded the popular Wild West podcast and authored six books about Kansas and Wild West history, takes us on a ride with some of the worst outlaws in the state’s early history.

BEHIND THE ILLUSTRATOR

For this issue, we’re switching up our regular “Behind the Lens” story to feature not a KANSAS! photographer, but a KANSAS! illustrator. Awardwinning digital caricature illustrator Torren Thomas has contributed to our magazine before, including a cover illustration on the Chisholm Trail and a customized film-poster illustration celebrating the work of Oscar-winning Kansas filmmaker Kevin Willmott. We are honored to include Thomas’ work once more in these pages and hope you enjoy his signature style.

AROUND THE STATE

CONGRATS!

Our congratulations go out to writer and historian Beccy Tanner, a regular contributor to KANSAS! magazine, on her 2023 induction into the Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame. The Kansas Press Association, which oversees the selection, commented in its announcement that “[f]ew journalists have done as much to promote a love of Kansas as Beccy Tanner….” We entirely agree with their assessment! Read Tanner’s story on page 28 to enjoy her wit and wisdom.

FREEDOM’S FRONTIER

Several of the stories in this issue overlap with the Bleeding Kansas period of history. For more information about stories, historic sites, and attractions related to this theme, visit Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area online at freedomsfrontier.org.

is one of his most beloved subjects.

From Top “The destruction of the city of Lawrence, Kansas, and the massacre of its inhabitants by the Rebel guerrillas, August 21, 1863.“ An illustration from the September 5, 1863, edition of Harper’s weekly. Torren Thomas’ mother, Aurelia Thomas-Ray,

I consider myself to be a history geek, or maybe more of an armchair history sleuth.

One of my areas of interest has always been true crime. Based on the number of podcasts, social media accounts and TV shows dedicated to this topic, it seems I am not the only one fascinated by true crimes.

Kansas history is filled with stories of the people who have run afoul of the law, from outlaws of the Wild West to those willing to defy power for a higher purpose—rebels with a cause, if you will. Our cover story in this edition introduces several individuals from both sides of that moral divide.

Of course, when we were brainstorming ideas, we realized there were many more historical figures whose lives could be told—more than we could fit into a single issue. Like the story of Boston Corbett, the reported killer of John Wilkes Booth. Did you know he lived in Kansas? Following the war, Corbett homesteaded near Concordia. Based on newspaper accounts, he was a complicated individual. But even though it was widely known Corbett could be spontaneous and extremely difficult, he was elected to be a doorkeeper at the Statehouse during the 1887 legislative session. That is, until he pulled a knife and revolver on a Capitol janitor. Following the incident, a judge sentenced Corbett to the state asylum, where he escaped, and then seems to disappear into legend.

Another story: Kansas played an integral part in the lives of famous bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde. The first bank Clyde Barrow robbed was in Lawrence; the couple spent time hiding out in Hugoton; and it’s famously known that the car they were ambushed in was one they had stolen from Jesse and Ruth Warren in Topeka.

I don’t think I’m alone when it comes to my fascination with true crime. When visiting the True Crime exhibit (read more on page 30) at the Finney County Historical Museum this spring, staff shared that the exhibit was originally meant to be temporary, but because of its popularity they’ve kept it running indefinitely. It’s clear that these tales have a grip on our curiosity.

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From fine arts to fine fare, evenings out to sporting spectacles, however you partake, you’ll feel Wichita’s energy at every turn. Because we’re a little bit fancy, a little bit funky and a whole lot of friendly. Come see the place we love. We have a feeling you’ll love it too.

WICHITA IS A VIBE

A Side of Murder

Dinner theaters stage crime-themed mysteries

STORY BY Cecilia Harris

Someone has committed a crime and you have to figure out who carried out the dastardly deed without allowing it to spoil your dinner! This is the premise of murder mystery theaters all over, with several in Kansas offering some exciting options.

Housed in a former tractor barn on the grounds of a Christmas-tree farm, the Prairie Pines Playhouse in Maize presents plays throughout the year and offers a three-hour comical murder mystery dinner five nights a week during the holiday season, beginning the Friday before Thanksgiving through December 23.

The actors perform on stage and interact with guests during the threecourse meal, according to Shannon Denney, theater office manager.

“We serve a three-course meal, and that’s all included with the ticket price. The actors bring out a salad and dinner roll, then after the first act they bring out the main course, and after the second act they bring out dessert,” Denney explains.

In addition to the salad and roll, the holiday meal includes turkey, ham, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a cake.

Prairie Pines Playhouse spring and summer productions feature a lighter meal that might include a salad with garlic toast, lasagna or chicken parmesan, mixed vegetables, and a choice of dessert.

And, of course, the plays change from season to season, but they are all original productions—a tradition that goes back to 2004.

“They are written in-house by the actors, and they are always murder mysteries, the ‘whodunit’ type,” Denney says.

Prairiepinesplayhouse.com | 316.303.2037

You never know who you can trust during Way Out West, a participatory murder mystery dinner set in Cactus Gulch in 1884. Once inside the Historic Rice County Jail in Lyons, guests are given a character to portray, goals to accomplish and scores to settle during the three- to four-hour private event to which you invite at least 10 and up to 30 fun- and mystery-loving participants. You choose the same meal for everyone you invite, selecting one of six entrees, two of six side dish options, and one of three desserts served with a mixed green salad and rolls or bread. The dinner is held in the two-story building constructed in 1929 as the Rice County Jail that housed the sheriff’s family and could hold more than 24 prisoners in cells on both floors.

thericecountyslammer.com

620.680.1839

MURDER IN THE MINE Strataca, Hutchinson

Thirty diners travel 650 feet underground via a two-ton hoist into the salt mine at Strataca to become detectives for the night during the Murder in the Mine mystery dinner theater offered three to four times a year. Meals are provided by local restaurants or caterers, with the main meal served after the first act and dessert offered after the second act. Diners are asked to participate, if comfortable, in the interactive dinner theater that offers adult humor; therefore, you must be 18 or older to attend. Guests also have access to the gallery and the gift shop. The next event will be December 1 and 2 with the theme “Holiday Homicide.” underkansas.org | 620.662.1425

Only Namethe is Suspect

With yurts, recreational programming and beautiful surroundings, HorseThief Reservoir steals the hearts of outdoor enthusiasts

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY

Michael Pearce

It’s no surprise motorists often slow as they top a small rise off Highway 156 between Jetmore and Garden City. Before them appears a sight so stunning that many might think it a mirage.

Seemingly out of place amid the high and otherwise dry plains sits HorseThief Reservoir with 450 acres of water. As well as being one of Kansas’ prettiest lakes, HorseThief Reservoir is also one of the newest and uniquely managed playgrounds in the state.

Framed by rugged canyon lands and broad expanses of native prairie grasses and wildflowers, the reservoir holds trophy-sized largemouth bass, saugeye and catfish. There is can’t-miss action on bluegills and crappies for kids. Powerboats have places to roar. Kayakers have quiet waters for paddling, too.

But it’s the shoreline accommodations that are becoming the reservoir’s major claim to fame, thanks to comfortable yurts at the heart of America’s “glamping” movement.

“I guess you could say we’re the yurt capital of Kansas,” says Audrey Rupp, the reservoir’s district manager. “It offers campers a unique experience.”

Based on the round, soft-sided, weather-proof structures first created on Mongolian steppes over 3,000 years ago, the modernized yurts are in great demand at high-end camping destinations from Maine to California.

HorseThief’s campground (not to be confused with the Horse Thief campground area of Kanopolis State Park) currently has five yurts and will soon construct five more, thanks to a grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce and Kansas Tourism.

HorseThief’s yurts are 30 feet across, sit on perfectly level concrete and come with beds and some furniture. Some have complete plumbing and bathing facilities. Those that don’t are within short walks of spacious shower houses.

The weather-proof yurts have heating and air-conditioning, making them usable year-round. They also have private picnic tables and firepits.

All not far from shore, HorseThief’s yurts are placed so campers can listen to the sound of waves rolling to shore while watching the stars through the skylight at the yurt’s peak.

Such moments of outdoors relaxation are among the reasons HorseThief Reservoir was created, according to Rupp.

She recalls there had been talk about putting a dam on Buckner Creek since the 1930s. Naysayers, especially within the past 40 years, said it would never get enough water to amount to more than an over-sized mud puddle.

But unlike most western Kansas streams and rivers, Buckner Creek has long flowed freely rather than go dry, even during years of drought. Finally, in 2005, citizens in Finney, Ford, Gray and Hodgeman counties passed a tax bond to create a watery playground in a part of the world once called “The Great American Desert.”

The lake is funded by the four Kansas counties and user fees, with few ties to state or federal governments. No water is pledged to irrigation or drinking water supplies.

Construction on the dam began in 2008 and was completed in 2009. The lake was half-full in 2010. Even with several years of severe drought, it filled to conservation level in 2016. That’s 450 surface acres to 39 feet deep.

Rupp says the lake has lost about seven vertical feet of water during the ongoing severe drought, but access is still easy.

Rupp, her board of directors and a very active group of volunteers do what they can to maximize recreation possibilities and the number of visitors.

The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks manages the fishery, which includes working with the habitat and regularly stocking the lake. There are miles of hiking, cycling and equestrian trails and a swimming beach.

Rupp notes a steady calendar of special activities—free movie nights, disc golf tournaments, music and kite festivals—is intended to keep the experience fresh for even the most regular lake visitors.

“We’re open year-round and stay pretty popular. We get a lot of hunters who stay and people who just like getting out any time of the year,” Rupp says. “We have people who want to come out and stay in our yurts around Christmas every year. You just can’t get a more peaceful setting than that.”

Opposite Camping options at HorseThief include spots for recreational motor homes and the camp’s permanent yurts.

Leavenworth Lore

Known nationally for its federal prison facility, Leavenworth also contains a wealth of historical attractions

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY

Haines Eason

Often called the state’s “first city,” Leavenworth has a rich history that includes being a gateway to the West, hosting the U.S. Army’s strategic base and becoming a bustling manufacturing hub. But the city is also intricately linked with the lore of the federal penitentiary— the “big house.”

Prisoners built the penitentiary’s original walls—40 feet deep and 40 feet tall—before the opening in 1903. It was a big foundation for big-time criminals who would need to pull off big capers if they were to escape.

Many tried. Some succeeded.

Frank Grigware, imprisoned for train robbery, busted out in 1910 by smashing through the prison gates with … a locomotive. Grigware made it as far as Canada, even becoming the mayor of Spirit River, Alberta, in 1916. In 1931, seven inmates held warden Thomas B. White hostage and escaped thanks to support from infamous gangsters Frank Nash and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.

LEAVENWORTH FIRST CITY MUSEUM

Such stories and more are told at Leavenworth’s First City Museum. On a recent tour, museum president Jewell West recounted a story of a friend of his, an individual who ran a staff credit union on the prison grounds. The man would occasionally encounter the notorious “Machine Gun” Kelly in the prison library. He remarked how the gangster had to observe strict guidelines against cussing.

“And it was kind of funny,” West relates, “because here, he’s a killer.”

Leavenworth city and prison historian Kenneth LaMaster is quick to point out that the city’s prison lore often overshadows compelling and inspiring stories from the city’s history.

LaMaster points to the town’s rich history and growth of its Black community, which is deeply connected to the influx of Exodusters after the Civil War. Leavenworth’s Black history also includes the presence of the famed Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Leavenworth. These stories and more are explored at the Richard Allen Cultural Center & Museum, a facility dedicated to sharing and honoring the presence and contributions of the African American community.

Open on Thursdays, 1–4:30 p.m., or by appointment 743 Delaware Street 913.682.1866 visitleavenworthks.com

RICHARD ALLEN CULTURAL CENTER & MUSEUM

Open Mondays–Thursdays, 11 a.m.–6 p.m. and Fridays, 11 a.m.–4 p.m., or by appointment 412 Kiowa Street 913.682.8772

richardallenculturalcenter.org

OTHER ATTRACTIONS

For more information about all of Leavenworth’s attractions, go online to visitleavenworthks.org

Opposite An exhibit at the Leavenworth First City Museum recreates the communication phones used by visitors and inmates.

The Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth has held many infamous inmates.

Torren Thomas is a caricature artist and illustrator— meaning his keen eye for detail allows him to create distorted visual representations of subjects through illustration. Originally from Warrensburg, Missouri, Thomas moved to Lawrence in summer 1992. Still a resident today, Thomas has continued to work in freelance and in studio as a professional artist for the past 14 years.

What was the moment you wanted to become an illustrator? I don’t believe there is one exact moment that I knew I wanted to become an artist. Drawing and painting are just something that I have always done. I have memories as far back as the age of three, sitting on the living room floor of my grandmother’s house, coloring with my mother. In first and second grade I would try to create my own comics and obsessively draw the Ninja Turtles and Michael Jordan. I think I may have wanted to be an artist my entire life.

Can you describe your illustration process and how you approach new creative projects?

It is a little difficult to explain my illustration process simply because I do different types of work for different types of clients that require slightly different approaches. One thing that is consistent, no matter what the subject or who it may be for, is research and sketches. No matter the project, I always try to do a lot of research on my subject. I try to learn a bit about who or

whatever it is I’m going to do a piece on, then gather reference images, and in some cases, shoot my own reference. From there, I do a few sketches and try to get some sort of approval on the idea I’m working on from my client. After that I just try to focus on bringing whatever idea I’ve come up with to life and making it look as good as possible.

What are some objects, people or places you enjoy illustrating that are not common in your other works? I think the two major things that I enjoy illustrating that I don’t see in a ton of other artists’ works are professional wrestlers and rappers. I also enjoy painting horror movie icons. Those are a bit more common but still don’t tend to show up in artists’ works a ton.

What are some of the most standout pieces in your portfolio? I have a lot of pieces in my portfolio that I think turned out well or I am proud of to some degree, but one of the pieces that stands out is the portrait I did of my late grandmother. I find it significant because it’s my grandmother, but also because of comments I’ve had on that piece from complete strangers. I have had more than one person who never met my grandmother say they could get a feeling about what type of woman she was just looking at the painting. I think any time you can make anyone feel anything at all with a drawing or painting, it’s kind of special.

Do you ever experience creative block? If so, how do you overcome it? I experience creative blocks all the time. Whenever I struggle with it, I just try to step away from what I’m working on and find some inspiration. Normally watching a few movies or shows, playing a few video games, and talking to some family or friends gets me out of a slump.

Can you think of a particular time during a project that proved to be challenging? How did you overcome the obstacles? One particular project? Probably not, but that is only because almost every project I’ve worked on in my entire career has proven challenging in some way at some point, and I always approach those times the exact same way. You do what you have to do. If that means work extra hours, extra sketches, sacrifice time with family and friends, pull all-nighters, and maybe even start the whole thing over halfway through. I always just try to put my head down and get the work done.

What is the most common advice you share with other amateur artists looking to expand their knowledge and skills?

The most common advice I give to other artists is to dedicate yourself to your craft and stay patient. Making it as an artist can be difficult and things may not go according to your life plan, but if you really want this, stick with it. Even if you must work another non-art related job on the side while you learn and grow, do it. Don’t give up.

Naomi Little, the artist’s late grandmother

“My photo was taken during my favorite time of day, the golden hour of sunrise, after wheat harvest. I loved the way the sun was lighting up the wheat stocks and trees. Your eyes are drawn to follow the curve of the trees and matching curve of the rows in the field. The clouds and the shadows of the trees on the sand road were an added bonus.”

—BETH HOSTETLER, PHOTOGRAPHER

Located just outside of Hesston, Beth Hostetler has been a professional photographer since 2018. She enjoys using her artistic side to capture and showcase anything and everything Kansas. Her portfolio includes portraits, landscapes, nature, architecture and more. Hostetler captured this image using a Canon R5 body with a 24mm-70mm lens.

Location: Harvey County Instagram: @beth_hostetler_photography

We Love Kansas REASONS

BY Cecilia Harris

IN THIS ISSUE Prohibition-Style Speakeasies

When alcohol was banned during national Prohibition (1920 to 1933), some businesses sold illegal beverages after hours in a back room and sometimes with hidden entrances. Kansas, which had state prohibition until 1948, had a longer experience with speakeasies. Perhaps that is why today’s speakeasies are legal businesses that replicate aspects and some of the nostalgia of the earlier bars, their out-of-the-way entrances and their hand-crafted drinks.

Above Bartender Lindsay Russell prepares “The Hannah” drink at Big Booty Trudy’s in Salina.

The term speakeasy is thought to have come from the patrons having to whisper (or, speak “easy”) when attempting to enter the hidden bar.

BIG BOOTY TRUDY’S SPEAKEASY AND CIGAR BAR

Salina

Damask wallpaper, dark maroon paint, beautiful woodwork and elegant lighting set a vintage atmosphere at Salina’s Big Booty Trudy’s Speakeasy and Cigar Bar, where patrons enter at the back of the building. Although classics such as bee’s knees, martinis, manhattans and cosmopolitans are served, the most popular drinks are the old-fashioned and the house cocktails created using syrups made in house, citrus, and bitters. “The reason cocktails became so popular during the Prohibition era was due to the fact that the booze that was readily available was basically awful, so they started using citruses and sugars to help mask the flavors,” says Matt Stewart, owner. “I think nowadays we’ve seen a resurgence in the cocktail world because people simply love expanding their horizons. You can go anywhere and get a beer or a rum and coke; finding a solid, well-balanced cocktail is an entirely different story.” In addition to providing live music every weekend, the bar hosts a Prohibition Party on the first Saturday of December at which people may dress in 1920sand 1930s-era clothing to drink specialty cocktails. bigbootytrudys.com 785.833.2022

THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE Topeka

After entering The Principal’s Office in Topeka through the secret back door marked with a paddle, patrons must inform the server they are there to serve their detention and may be questioned about their naughty deed. Located under the Salut Wine and Cocktail Lounge in the historic Westboro Mart, the dimly lit basement speakeasy features vintage lounge seating for intimate conversations in sophisticated surroundings. Classic cocktails have school-themed names such as Hot for Teacher, Crossing Guard, and Smokin’ in the Boys Room. salutwinetopeka.com/ the-principals-office 785.408.1003

AUNTIE MAE’S PARLOR Manhattan

There might not be any evidence to support it, but it’s a well-known legend nonetheless that a widowed Dora “Auntie” Mae Walters endured the Great Depression and Prohibition by providing liquor in the basement of her deceased husband’s plumbing business. In her honor, Auntie Mae’s Parlor has been offering craft cocktails, beer and entertainment for nearly 50 years in Manhattan’s Aggieville district. Live music, trivia nights, and movie showings occur in the small basement bar with a speakeasy vibe; customers also are served on the main level where there’s a pool table. Oldfashioneds and manhattans are favored. auntiemaes.com | 785.539.8508

JOHN BROWN’S UNDERGROUND Lawrence

Bearing the name of the famous abolitionist, John Brown’s Underground pairs an intimate atmosphere with sophisticated drinks. A hipster John Brown is portrayed on a mural in the style of John Steuart Curry’s painting A Tragic Prelude, and the hideaway vibe is reinforced by the easily overlooked basement entrance just off the town’s main entertainment street. The menu features inventive seasonal drinks with equally inventive names, such as the house staple Let Me Be Clear. freelawrence.com | 785.840.8800

HISTORIC WOLF HOTEL’S UNDERGROUND SALOON Ellinwood

The Roaring Twenties return to the Underground Saloon 7–10 p.m. every Friday and Saturday in the historic Wolf Hotel in Ellinwood. Patrons enter through a hidden door in the back of the hotel and travel through an underground tunnel to get to the saloon. The cocktail menu is based on six Prohibition-era drinks called “giggle water,” 1920s slang for alcoholic beverages. Shots are referred to as “coffee” and served in espresso cups instead of shot glasses. historicwolfhotel.com facebook.com/historicwolfhotel 620.639.6915

WHERE IN KANSAS?

Ellinwood

Lawrence Manhattan Topeka Salina

Kitchen Conductions!

Salina’s new symphonic director brings a love of life, music, and food

Music is food for Yaniv Segal’s body, soul, and heart. Born into a musical family in New York City, he began playing the violin at four and was writing music by the time he was 10. He’s toured in a Broadway musical and conducted the Detroit Symphony; the Minnesota Orchestra; the Kansai Philharmonic in Osaka, Japan; the Beethoven Academy Orchestra in Poland; the BBC National Orchestra of Wales; and now in Salina, Kansas.

Segal, who has a bachelor’s degree from Vassar, master’s degrees in orchestral conducting and composition, and a doctorate of musical arts from the University of Michigan, took over as music director and conductor of the Salina Symphony’s semi-professional orchestra during the 2022–23 season. During its almost 70-year musical history, the orchestra has been led by only two other maestros.

While the first two conductors resided in Salina, the search committee charged with finding a new director soon adapted to changing realities in the symphony world.

“These days, it is very common for music directors to conduct two or more orchestras, splitting their time in various communities,” explains Adrienne Allen, the symphony’s executive director. More than 100 candidates applied for the Salina position, conductors vying for the job from all over the United States and even a couple from Europe. The extensive search put the Salina Symphony on the map. “We are very fortunate to have someone of Yaniv’s caliber working with our orchestra,” notes Allen. “He has already elevated the artistic stature of the orchestra and continues to bring world class guest artists to Salina.”

Symphony History

1955 Eric Stein founded the Salina Chamber Orchestra; its first performance was held in 1956 with Stein as the conductor.

1965 The orchestra formed an affiliation with Marymount College; it was named the Salina Civic Orchestra Society.

1980s Renamed the Salina Symphony, the orchestra performed at Kansas Wesleyan University.

2003 The Symphony moved into the newly renovated Stiefel Theatre for the Performing Arts. After conducting the orchestra for almost a half century, Stein retired.

2004– Ken Hakoda served 2019 as music director and conductor.

2022 Yaniv Segal was named music director and conductor.

STORY

BY

Meta Newell West

PHOTOGRAPHY

Jason Dailey

BY

Yaniv Segal adapts many of his recipes to feature fresh, local foods grown in and around Salina.

Segal will blend old favorites with innovative, new pieces, some of which reflect the region’s Western heritage and history. For example, in November the symphony presents Michael Daughtery’s 2010 “Trail of Tears,” a formidable musical retelling of the forced migration of Native populations whose final musical movement evokes sacred dances of the Plains tribes and their new saga in what became the American heartland. Segal shares his time between Salina and his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan. While in Salina, he conducts

The Symphony

six main stage symphonic performances along with a new “Out of the Box” series, an outdoor chamber concert, the Symphony Gala, and the annual Symphony at Sunset D-Day Commemoration Concert at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene. In addition to rehearsals with musicians, Segal collaborates with other art-related institutions, works with the Salina Youth Symphony, meets with patrons, and generally immerses himself into community culture.

“No day is ever the same,” he says, “but the one constant is music.”

Salina Symphony performances are held at The Stiefel Theatre in downtown Salina. Performance dates and times can be found at the symphony’s website, salinasymphony.org. Yaniv Segal’s personal website, yanivsegal.com, includes an overview of his musical compositions.

THE RECIPE

Like good music, good food is never too far from Yaniv Segal’s thoughts whether in Salina, his home away from home, or with his family in Michigan. When cooking in his Downtown Salina apartment, Yaniv says, “It isn’t a fully stocked kitchen so I stick to simple things.” He also sticks to fresh, local food when possible. For guests, he has prepared carrot saffron risotto served with sausage from Smoky River Meats and stir-fried broccolini.

For this recipe, Segal uses a spicy sauce for his grownup version of baked fish filets. In typical style he started with a printed recipe, in this case a compound butter created by David Chang of Momofuku, and then adjusted it to his own specifications. Segal’s conversion replaces butter with olive oil and injects a tangy, sweet chili pepper and garlic flavor with the addition of sriracha. Naturally sweet maple syrup is added to help balance the saltiness of the miso.

The sauce can also be used over chicken or steak, on asparagus, broccoli, or carrots, or drizzled on either a baked sweet potato or a regular baked potato.

MISO SRIRACHA-COATED FISH

Yield: 6 to 8 servings, allowing 1/3 to 1/4 pound of fish per person

INGREDIENTS

• 2+ pounds of filets, skin on (Michigan whitefish, lake trout, or rainbow trout)

• 1/2 cup white miso

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 1/2 tablespoon sriracha, more or less depending on amount of heat preferred

• 1 tablespoon maple syrup

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place the filets on parchment paper in a baking dish (parchment paper allows for easy clean up).

2. Mix remaining ingredients well to create the sauce.

3. Use sauce to evenly coat the top of filets.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F. for about 12 to 15 minutes, until the fish is flaky and reaches an internal temperature of 145 degrees.

Food Crimes

Steady, there, put that ketchup down … you don’t want to commit something you might regret.

After almost 163 years as a state, you would think we Kansas gourmands would have developed some sophisticated palates.

That’s true … and there are some outrageous food combinations out there—the likes and kind you wouldn’t believe.

Recently, we teamed up with the Kansas Sampler Foundation to ask people to tell us what they consider to be food crimes as well as food favorites. More than 250 people responded to the inquiry by Marci Penner, codirector at the Kansas Sampler in Inman.

It was a smorgasbord gone wild: Peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, peanut butter with raisins, peanut butter with bologna, pickles in chili, ketchup on a well-done steak, Rocky Mountain oysters with beer, Rocky Mountain oysters eaten only with clean fingers, Rocky Mountain oysters with Rolaids … and after a while we disturbingly began to lose track of what was considered a crime and what was considered a favorite.

Keep in mind, Kansas has done much to make foods safe. We have a rich legacy.

At the turn of the 20th century, Kansas was a national pioneer in food safety, thanks to public health reformer Dr. Samuel J. Crumbine. Known for his invention of the fly swatter and campaign to discourage spitting in public, Crumbine also banned public common drinking cups and raised awareness of food safety.

A July 3, 1920, article from the Topeka Merchants Journal wrote only slightly tongue-incheek: “Now, of course, the old pure food battles are all over. They no longer put paint in catsup or embalming fluid in the pickles. They even have been forced to tell the truth on their labels. It is generally conceded that honest weights and measures are the best policy, and there is a strongly growing belief that it is improper to sell rotten eggs to an innocent consumer.”

Maybe there is no such thing as a food crime when there is a hungry stomach and a nearly bare pantry. Kids need to eat, and there is no shame in filling them up with what you have.

Of course, once legislation is involved there are often questionable outcomes and heated opinions on both sides.

Take, for example, public snake-eating. In the 1940s, Kansas repealed a law outlawing the eating of snakes in public.

And before that, it was illegal to serve cherry pie with ice cream—oh, the humanity—because, to paraphrase Barbara Mandrell from her hit song of 1978, if loving that is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Some have been prosecuted for committing food crimes. Charles Wille went to the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth in 1915 for crimes against butter. At the time, anyone who sold margarine had to obtain a license and pay a tax. They were also banned from adding coloring to make it look more like butter.

Then there are the unspoken food crimes, trespasses against good sense and upbringing. For example, we have been taught it is a sin to throw bacon grease away. If you do it, please don’t admit to it in public.

And some of you might just be downright criminals with your guilty pleasures. You know who you are and what you have done: pancakes with hotdog gravy; ketchup and sauerkraut with sausage on a bun; stewed tomatoes with bread; ham and beans with ketchup; ketchup on biscuits and gravy; chili with a dollop of white vinegar … and ketchup.

There are even quirkier tastes. Some have been known to sprinkle pepper on cantaloupe, throw sugar on watermelon and even drink sweet tea.

When crimes like these are repeated so often or allowed to flourish at a particular establishment or family

gathering, then they become something far worse—a quirky food tradition.

Some nostalgic diners in Pittsburg wax nostalgic over the Mall Deli’s creamy Italian dressing on club crackers.

There are families in Kansas—good folk otherwise— who gather to pour milk over chocolate cake, butter their French toast with tomato juice, and add sauerkraut to mashed potatoes. They usually reveal these habits only after you have married into them.

Of course, we owe many of our favorite foods to our roots. Our different heritages point to bierocks, green beans and dumpling soup, verenika, kolaches, hummus, fattoush, tabbouleh and baklava.

But does global fusion really justify pinto beans or baked beans on chocolate cake?

French fries, Cheetos or potato chips dipped in softserve ice cream? Grits with grape jelly? Bean soup drizzled over apple pie?

For some, apparently, it does.

And others flaunt it. How else can you understand Viking-on-a Stick: Swedish meatballs and chunks of Swedish rye bread dipped in Swedish pancake batter and deep fried and served with lingonberry dipping sauce—or fresh zwieback dunked in hot chocolate?

CAR SHOW • FOOD TRUCKS • LIVE ENTERTAINMENT PARADE • BEER GARDEN • CRAFT VENDORS • CARNIVAL FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS EVENT hellohaysville.com/ fall-festival

October 20-22, 2023

Riggs Park, Haysville, KS

Perhaps these are all acquired tastes.

And perhaps every food oddity has a home and history.

Native Kansan Clementine Paddleford, best known as America’s No. 1 food editor long before Julia Childs, once wrote, “we all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown left behind.”

Many of our favorite foods or even food crimes date back to the Great Depression when family cooks made do with what they had on hand. No extra trips to the grocery store. No extra money for take-out.

Families dished up elbow macaroni goulash over mashed potatoes, ate leftover popcorn with milk and sugar, Spam sandwiches with mayo and mustard and cucumbers.

Nearly a century removed from the 1930s, and occasional family gatherings may still consist of carrot salads with mayo, cream and sugar, popcorn popped with bacon fat, liver and onions—and sardines in the pantry to snack on with crackers.

The former head of the KBI, the late Larry Welch, used to tell the story of how Al Dewey, the lead KBI investigator on the 1959 Clutter family murders, liked to eat his corn flakes every morning with half-and-half poured over them. No sugar. Welch said he tried it and liked it so much that he

Maybe you grew up with potato candy—small mashed, boiled potatoes cooled with powdered sugar, then rolled out like a pie crust with peanut butter spread on top, and then rolled up like a jellyroll and sliced.

Maybe there is no such thing as a food crime when there is a hungry stomach and a nearly bare pantry. Kids need to eat, and there is no shame in filling them up with what you have.

And perhaps, even when times aren’t rough, the believing comes with the eating.

But if you are going to initiate someone into your life of modern, need-free food crime, then give them a warning, will you?

I still remember the betrayal I felt when I realized the “apple” pie I was given had cucumbers substituted for apples and crumbled up Ritz crackers for the crust.

Really, someone should have been sent to the

VisitLeavenworthKS.com

Yesterday’s Crimes Are Today’s Exhibits

A popular true-crime exhibit in Garden City presents artifacts and clues that helped solve historic cases

In 1928, Garden City police officer Roland S. Terwilliger found a partial right index fingerprint on the rear window of a car. It just happened to be the same car involved in an abduction following a bank robbery gone wrong in Colorado, and Terwilliger just happened to be one of only two certified professional fingerprint experts in the state of Kansas at the time.

Receiving the evidence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation matched the fingerprint to local resident Jake Fleagle, the leader of a notorious gang of gunmen.

This crime-busting story is detailed at the “True Crime Exhibit: Solving Notorious Cases from Finney County’s History” inside Garden City’s Finney County Historical Museum. The installment contains artifacts and evidence showing how law enforcement officers solved two notorious crimes in the area: the Fleagle Gang’s Colorado bank robbery and subsequent murder of a doctor in Kansas, and the highly publicized Clutter family murders in 1959.

“Our exhibit focuses not so much on the lurid details of the crimes, but how southwest Kansas law enforcement personnel cooperated to solve the cases.”

—STEVE QUAKENBUSH

“Our exhibit focuses not so much on the lurid details of the crimes, but how southwest Kansas law enforcement personnel cooperated to solve the cases,” says museum director Steve Quakenbush.

The Fleagle Gang’s decade of robbery and murder terrorizing the western states in the 1920s may have inspired the exploits of more well-known gangsters Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd in the 1930s, according to Quakenbush.

“The demise of the Fleagle Gang occurred after they robbed the First National Bank in Lamar, Colorado,” Quakenbush says. After gunfire erupted during the robbery, the gang escaped the few hour’s drive back to Kansas and abducted a doctor to treat one of the member’s wounds. It was on the doctor’s abandoned 1928 Buick car window that Jake Fleagle left his fingerprint, linking him to the abduction and murder of the physician.

“Fingerprint evidence at the time was not unheard of, but it was still kind of cutting edge and pretty progressive,” Quakenbush explains.

The car window and eight firearms used in crimes committed by members of the Fleagle Gang are among the artifacts displayed in the exhibit, which also includes photographs of and personal items belonging to the gang.

STORY BY Cecilia Harris

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

Julie Mead

Opposite A portrait of notorious gang leader Jake Fleagle greets visitors at Finney County Historical Society Museum’s True Crimes exhibition. Top The exhibit includes contemporary accounts of the crime and the arrests of one of the region’s most widely known criminals of the 1920s. Above Officers who aided and carried out the arrest of Jake Fleagle gather for a photo.

However, the exhibit’s most notorious item might well be the boot, still tagged as evidence, that helped solve the Clutter family murders that occurred in 1959 near Holcomb. The crime was detailed in the 1967 movie In Cold Blood, based on Truman Capote’s 1966 nonfiction novel of the same name. Ex-convicts Perry Smith and Richard Hickock arrived at the Clutter farm in the middle of the night intending to steal money they believed to be stored in a safe inside the home; finding no safe and little cash, the two men murdered all four family members.

Crime scene photographs expertly taken by then-Garden City assistant police chief Rich Rohleder revealed a bloody boot print not visible to the naked eye.

“The boot had a couple of repair plugs, so it left a very distinctive print,” Quakenbush notes. “When Perry Smith and Richard Hickok were arrested sometime later in Las Vegas, Perry had those boots, and that tied the pair to the crime.”

The exhibit also contains other evidence, photographs, the safe in which the evidence was stored, the trial judge’s chair, and the judge’s robes.

“It really just tells the story of how the cases were solved,” Quakenbush says.

The True Crime exhibit was originally intended to be a temporary display, but museum officials say they are leaving it up indefinitely because of its popularity.

Jails Turned Museums

OLD JAIL MUSEUM

Iola

This two-story, native limestone structure with two-foot-thick walls was built in 1869 as the Allen County Jail and was continuously used until it closed in 1958. Guided tours by appointment allow visitors to view the solitary confinement cell on the first floor, walk through the 1891 steel cage cell block, and read the graffiti left by prisoners. The floor on the lower level is made of Bandera marble, a type of flagstone rock found around Redfield in Bourbon County. The secondfloor living quarters used by the jailer and his family in the late 1800s contain period furnishings and other artifacts.

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620.365.3051

NEMAHA COUNTY JAIL

Seneca

In 1879, a one-story residence for the county sheriff was constructed, complete with a rear wing that contained a jail with steel cells for prisoners for whom the sheriff’s wife cooked and did laundry. Prior to 1905, several prisoners escaped from the exercise area of the jail by pushing out deteriorated bricks to create a hole in the wall. A second floor was added to the re-bricked home in 1907, expanding the jail that included patent steel cells with a patent lever lock for maximum security. The jail closed in 1976 with the distinction of being the state’s longest in-use county jail by housing prisoners for nearly a century. It is now the Nemaha County Historical Society Museum; phone before visiting to assure the museum is open.

nemahacountyhistoricalsociety.com

785.336.6366

Elmer Tried

Some criminals evoke fear, others disgust … Elmer McCurdy might deserve some pity.

In October 1911, the Leader, a newspaper in Guthrie, Oklahoma, announced that the criminal life of Kansan

Elmer McCurdy had come to an end.

Special officers are hot on the trail of the two bandits yet at large who held up and robbed a Katy train near Okesa last Wednesday morning and it is believed that their arrest is but a question of [t]ime. With the complete identification of the body of Elmer J. McCurdy, the Katy detectives and officers believe they have rid the country of the leader of the gang which has been committing so many depredations in the Northeastern and southwestern Kansas during the past few months.

But the story’s drama omitted the fact that while Elmer was, indeed, a public nuisance … he wasn’t that good of a criminal. It wasn’t Elmer’s fault. Again and again, he had attempted to pull off daring robberies and brazen crimes, but he never quite succeeded. And the bad luck of one of the state’s most hapless criminals would follow him long past his death.

Born in Maine in January 1880, the future robber drifted around the eastern part of the United States for much of his early 20s, until making his way to Kansas, where he lived and worked in Cherryvale and then Iola.

At 27, Elmer joined the United States Army and spent three years at Fort Leavenworth, where he was evidently trained in the use of both weapons and nitroglycerine, skills he would use, but not effectively, after his honorable discharge from the Army.

In late March 1911, Elmer and some partners robbed a train on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern railroad outside of Coffeyville.

Elmer was called to open the safe. He used four nitroglycerine charges to blow it open—and destroyed a good deal of the plunder.

“Taking into consideration the amount of damaged money that we have found,” H.W. Walker, superintendent of the Pacific Express Company, told the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record, “I do not see how the robbers profited more than $100 by their work.”

By “damaged money,” Walker was referring to Elmer’s use of so much explosive that his blast turned the silver coins within the safe into molten slag, which then became stuck to the safe’s interior upon cooling.

A similar thing would happen, with a very similar headline in the Chanute Times when McCurdy and two partners went after the Citizens Bank in Chautauqua in September of that same year. As related in a piece titled, “Robbers Made a Light Haul,” the trio made away with roughly $150 in silver after tunneling into the bank vault. This time, Elmer’s nitroglycerine charge “blew the safe clear through the front door of the vault, knocking the vault door through the front of the brick building into the street.”

The long, lonely travels of Elmer McCurdy, man and mummy.

Elmer joins the U.S. Army, receives training in explosives Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 1907

Elmer’s faulty explosion botches takeaway from bank robbery Chautauqua, Kansas 1911

Body discovered at an amusement park during filming of The Six Million Dollar Man Long Beach, California 1976

Body appears as a movie prop in film She Freak Bakersfield, California 1967

Worked in various jobs Iola, Kansas 1900s

Worked in various jobs Cherryvale, Kansas 1900s

Iron

Robs train on St.

and Southern

destroys good deal of plunder in botched safe explosion Coffeyville, Kansas 1911

Louis,

Mountain

Railroad;

Robs wrong train; makes off with $46 instead of possible $400,000 Okes, Oklahoma 1911

Mummified body exhibited as part of traveling carnival Great Patterson Shows Various locations 1916–1922

Caught sleeping, shot to death by the law Osage Hills, Oklahoma 1911

Body interred under two feet of concrete Guthrie, Oklahoma 1977

Body exhibited at funeral home Pawhuska, Oklahoma 1911-1915

Elmer McCurdy is born Washington, Maine 1880

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, criminals often broke the law on the Kansas plains, but some were rebels with a cause – and others were outlaws

STORY BY Mike King and Patricia Ackerman ILLUSTRATIONS BY Torren Thomas

The Outlaws

Manifest destiny, a term created by John Lewis O’Sullivan in 1845, was the idea that God destined the United States to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This philosophy drove 19th-century U.S. territorial expansion and brought floods of people to Kansas. Some came for noble reasons, others simply for gain. For these colonizers of the mid- and late-1800s, setting up a new life on the prairie was no less daunting than traveling across the ocean to new lands. Some Euro-American settlers would do almost anything, including robbery and murder, to survive.

The chronicle of true crimes in our state is, sadly, as old as the state itself. Forged in the pre-Civil War raids of Bleeding Kansas and scarred by massacres and attacks on both sides during the Indian Wars, the concept of justice and moral right was not always clear or aligned with the law.

We look back on a few largerthan-life figures from the state’s early history to examine some of the outlaws and the heroes who ran afoul of the legal system at the time.

Boomtowns and the sparsely populated frontier became breeding grounds for violent crime. Gunfights sometimes became a way to settle all types of disputes. For some of the first settlers of Kansas, breaking the law became a way of life, and the line between upholding and breaking the law became clouded. Outlaws and lawmen blazed away at each other with revolvers, carbines, and shotguns. Which gunman would go to jail was determined simply by who was—or wasn’t—wearing the badge.

Outlaws of Kansas didn’t fit a specific mold. Many outlaws started as lawmen and found low pay; many needed second jobs to survive. As a result, it was not unusual for outlaws to put on a badge, nor for admired lawmen to stray across the line and thus considerably raise their standard of living.

Kansans love an underdog who stands against perceived tyranny. Some of our state’s most notorious outlaws have long been glorified as daring robbers and swashbuckling killers, their narratives shaped in dime-store novels to reflect frontier ideals of rugged individuality and the pioneer spirit. As a result, retellings might overlook the crimes of the outlaws and see only the romance of the rebel.

So, who were the worst outlaws of the Kansas Wild West? There are plenty of candidates. Kansas was filled with some of the meanest, most devilish and notorious characters you could encounter. Here are some of the worst of the worst.

Edna “Rabbit” Murray “The Kissing Bandit,” 1898–1966

Born in Marion, Martha Edna Stanley moved as a child to Oklahoma and then as an adult to Kansas City, Missouri, where she associated with criminals and participated in a bank robbery—allegedly bestowing a kiss on one of the victims to earn her “Kissing Bandit” nickname. Her nickname “Rabbit” came from her remarkable ability to escape jail, leading to a crime spree across several states that ended with an arrest in Pittsburg in 1935.

Jim Curry, 1841–1899

Born in County Clare, Ireland, Curry arrived in New York at a young age and became a railroad fireman before joining the Union Army and engaging in some of the Civil War’s bloodiest campaigns, such as Antietam. Arriving in Hays City after the war, Curry worked as an army scout, joining battles against Native forces and having numerous crimes attributed—rightly or wrongly—to him. Among those were killing innocent men and boys in the streets of Hays and participating in the 500-shot gun battle between Hays residents and Buffalo soldiers. Curry left in 1879 for Ellsworth, where he

“Texas” Billy Thompson 1845–1897

killed two men and two women in a dance hall, then to Wichita where he shot his former mistress and another woman. He ended up in Texas, working as a railroad detective and gunning down others, including two more seemingly innocent victims in 1879.

Born in 1845 in England, Thompson immigrated to the States in time to fight for the Confederacy. His first known peacetime victim was a Union soldier he killed in an Austin, Texas, brothel in 1868. After gunning down a second victim, Thompson fled to Ellsworth, then often referred to as the wickedest town in Kansas. He set up as a gambler, was involved in shoot-outs and accidentally— by most accounts—shot his friend, Sheriff C.B. Whitney. He was captured, jailed, and acquitted before leaving Kansas to rustle cattle and stand trial for a previous murder in Texas and getting involved in more shootouts in Nebraska. Against all odds, he died of natural causes in 1897.

David “Dirty Dave” Rudabaugh

1854–1886

Born in Illinois, Rudabaugh moved with his family to Eureka in 1870. Six years later, he robbed the Santa Fe Railroad construction camp, and then in 1878 he tried to rob a train in Kinsley (only to be captured by Bat Masterson). By 1879 he was a hired gun for the Colorado Railroad Wars and lived out of Dodge City before heading to New Mexico to rob trains. He killed a deputy sheriff and rustled cattle in New Mexico before being captured along with Billy the Kid in 1880. In 1881, he made two jail escapes, shooting and killing a man on his first attempt. For a while, little was heard from Rudabaugh though it as reported he was involved in a gunfight and wounded a man in Chihuahua before being ambushed and killed in 1886.

OutlawsPOSITION Card Game Fighter FUN FACT

The fate of “Mysterious Dave” Mather remains unknown. Some legends said he went to Canada and became a Mountie (though there is no proof to those stories).

CAREER LOW POINTS

1876 Sharp County, AR (rustled cattle)

1874 Dodge City KS (wounded in a knife fight over a card game)

1879 Dodge City KS (gunslinger in Colorado Railroad Wars) Las Vegas, NM (robbed stagecoaches) Las Vegas, NM (shot soldier in thumb)

1880 Las Vegas, NM (killed railroad worker)

1884 Dodge City, KS (killed business rival and assistant marshal)

1885 Ashland, KS (gunfight involving at least one death) 1885 Location(s) unknown (disappears into legend)

c. 1851–unknown

DAVE RUDABAUGH

TEAM Outlaws POSITION Train Robber/Cattle Rustler FUN FACT

There is no definitive story of how Dave Rudabaugh became “Dirty Dave.” It isn’t known if he fought dirty, infrequently bathed or was even called this nickname during his lifetime.

CAREER LOW POINTS

1876 Near Dodge City, KS (robbed Santa Fe Railroad camp)

1878 Kinsley,KS (robbedtrainandcaptured)

1879 DodgeCity,KS(gunslingerforColorado Railroad Wars) LasVegas,NM(robbedtrain)

1880 LasVegas,NM(killeddeputysheriff)

White Oaks, NM (rustled cattle) White Oaks, NM (captured along with Billy the Kid)

1881 (shootsoutofjail)

1886 Parral, Chihuahua (kills two men ingunfight)

David Allen “Mysterious Dave” Mather

Born in Connecticut in 1851, Mather is believed to have traveled and held various jobs before showing up as a cattle rustler in Sharp County, Arkansas, in 1873. The next year, he was wounded in a knife fight over a card game in Dodge City. Five years later, he appears to have been recruited as a hired gun by the Topeka and Santa Fe Railway before heading out to New Mexico, working as a lawman while also possibly robbing trains (though he was acquitted). Returning to Dodge City, Mather took up the post of assistant marshal, then began running a saloon. In 1884, he shot dead a rival saloon owner, was acquitted of the crime, and fatally wounded a cowboy over a card game. He wound up in Ashland a year later, killing another man during a card game, jumping bail and then disappearing.

Henry Brown 1857–1884

Henry Brown was born in 1857, orphaned at an early age, raised by relatives in Rolla, Missouri, and would die at the hands of an angry mob in Medicine Lodge when he was just 27. His first known murder was in 1876 in the Texas Panhandle. A year later, he was riding with Billy the Kid in New Mexico territory and participating in a series of gunfights between rival commercial interests and law authorities known as the Lincoln County War. That year, Brown continued raiding camps, shooting rivals, and stealing horses across New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle. In Texas in 1881, Brown became deputy sheriff of Oldham County and the marshal of Tascosa. In 1882, he became the deputy marshal and then the marshal of Caldwell, where he gunned down criminals and rustlers until—facing rising debts—he decided to rob the Medicine Valley Bank in Medicine Lodge. Though Brown shot the bank president dead, he and his group still managed to botch the robbery, and Brown was fatally wounded trying to escape justice.

Luke Short 1854–1893

Born in Arkansas and growing up in Texas, Short traveled through Colorado and Arizona and worked as a farmer, cowboy, whiskey peddler, army scout, dispatch rider, gambler, and saloon keeper. He got in gunfights and killed at least one man before landing in Dodge City and getting in a gunfight in 1883. His last known crime was shooting down a man in 1887 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Robert Reddick Dalton

1869–1892

Born in Cass County, Missouri, in 1869, Robert Reddick Dalton crossed the border to live first in Indian Territory and then within a few miles of Coffeyville in 1882. Six years later, Dalton had been working as a lawman, sometimes serving under his older brother Frank and for the Osage Indian Nation. He killed a wanted outlaw in Coffeyville, and then the son of another

outlaw. Accused of abusing his position, Dalton left his post and formed the Dalton Gang with two of his brothers. From 1890 to 1892, they robbed trains and banks and stole horses in New Mexico, California, and Oklahoma. Returning to Coffeyville to pull off a double bank robbery in October 1892, Robert and his brothers were identified and pinned down by civilians. Robert died in the shootout.

Stella “Sure Shot” Mae Irwin Dickson 1922–1995

Born in Topeka in 1922, Stella Dickson’s crime spree was short and closely associated with her husband, Bennie Dickson, whom she married when she was 15. The couple celebrated her 16th birthday in 1938 by pulling off a bank robbery in South Dakota, a caper they would successfully repeat at another South Dakota bank two months later, on Halloween. Their back-to-back robberies as a couple brought some fame and the attention of federal authorities, who chased them into Topeka and then to Michigan. On one of the chases, Dickson shot out the tires of a pursuing car, earning her the nickname “Sure Shot.” But the couple’s luck ran out. Bennie was captured in St. Louis, and Stella was picked up by federal agents in Kansas City, Missouri, in April 1939. Stella was released from prison when she was 26, and she lived in Missouri until she was 72.

William L. “Bully Billy” Brooks c. 1832–1874

Born around 1832 in Ohio, Brooks was believed to have killed several men in gunfights at different locations before becoming the marshal of Newton in 1872. He was wounded defending the town from two Texas cowboys, an act that helped him get hired that same year as the lawman of Dodge City, where he gunned down criminals and civilians, including the Santa Fe railroad yardmaster and a saloon keeper. After losing a standoff to Buffalo hunter Kirk Jordan in 1873, Brooks fled to Caldwell where he was believed to have been involved with a gang of horse and mule thieves. He was lynched by a mob while being held at the Caldwell jail.

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REbels with a cause

While struggling to build new lives, some Kansas settlers were motivated by both need and greed. Most frontier families worked hard to make sure they had food, water, shelter, and safety, but a few notorious individuals, fueled by greed, took advantage of difficult times to fulfill their own needs. This handful of Kansas lawbreakers live on through the retelling of tall tales and sensational crimes.

Despite the selfishness of the outlaws, the bounds of human decency prevailed on the Kansas prairie. Culturally diverse individuals and groups came together to build communities across the state, and laws and procedures for enforcing social order evolved through trial and error. Some laws contributed to a more democratic society. Others were poorly written and filled with vague, subjective, or unenforceable language. Enforcement of biased laws often resulted in unfair treatment of citizens.

Heroism manifests in many forms. Throughout Kansas history, extraordinary individuals have stood up against questionable laws regardless of the personal costs. Their actions have influenced change, not only for the citizens of Kansas but also for the greater good of U.S. democracy.

In his 2023 book The Bill of Obligations, Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, salutes “Americans who put country and Constitution before personal gain or party and stood up for our democracy when it was most in danger.”

The following “lawbreaking” Kansans collaborated with larger activist groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Indian Claims Commission, the Women’s Temperance Union, labor unions, the Civilian Conservation Corps, Suffragettes, and the Underground Railroad.

WWI Conscientious Objectors in Kansas c. 1917–1919

At the start of World War I, the U.S. War Department had no federal policy in place concerning pacifists, who were primarily Mennonites, before WWI conscription began. While “no Mennonite would be required to violate their conscience” under conscription, all were assigned to a mobilization camp for service. On March 23, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson vaguely defined “noncombatant service” to include the Military Corps, Engineer Services, sanitation, etc. The inability to define noncombatant services led to inconsistent punishment that included pressure to change pacifist beliefs and some instances of physical violence. Confusion and tension between war officers and pacifists who rejected “non-combative” duty grew. In November 1918 eight men were arrested for “willful disobedience to an officer” after they refused to move rocks to create a road. They were imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth.

Iris Calderhead, 1889–1966

Born in Marysville on January 3, 1889, Iris Calderhead was an integral player in the fight for women’s suffrage. A graduate from the University of Kansas and daughter of Congressman William A. Calderhead, Iris joined the women’s suffrage movement in about 1915. Her passion for activism led her to be arrested on two separate occasions. The first arrest took place in June 1917 at the Smithsonian Institution where Calderhead and suffragist Elizabeth Stuyvesant organized to display a banner during a visit by President Woodrow Wilson. She was then arrested a month later in July while picketing the White House during the Silent Sentinel demonstrations. Calderhead was given the choice of a $25 fine or three days in the Occoquan Workhouse. She chose jail.

Ann Clark c. Unknown–Unknown

When enslaved, Ann Clark began her journey toward freedom in Lecompton around 1857. Captured during an escape attempt once before, her neighbor arranged for Clark to hide in a barrel

Amazon Army, 1921

The discovery of coal in the 1860s would lead thousands of immigrant families in search of mining jobs across the U.S. Mary Youvan Skubitz, daughter to Julia and Andrew Skubitz, was among those families. Born in 1887 in Slovenia, the Skubitz family emigrated to the U.S. in 1890. The family would plant roots in Crawford County, Kansas. On December 11, 1921, Mary and Julia, together with 500 other women from Crawford and Cherokee counties, gathered at the miners hall in Franklin to protest the unfair labor practices involving poor pay, hazardous working conditions and discrimination. The following morning, Mary and her mother, along with women with notable names such as Mrs. “Amazon” Farrell, Mrs. “Amazon” Mariotti, Mrs. “Amazon” Howe, and nearly 3,000 other women assembled to march in protest. Mrs. “Amazon” Farrell, a wife of a coal miner, was one of four arrested on charges of “unlawful assembly in connection with the recent rioting in the Kansas coal fields....” The three-day protest would make national news, and the New York would dub the protestors as the “Amazon Army.”

POSITION Civil Rights Activist FUN FACT

The youth-led protest met in the basement of the St. Peter Claver Church. After prepping for months, the NAACP’s national branch did not reciprocate its support and wanted the protest called off. This did not happen.

Notable Dates

1958 Parks-Hahn helps organize sit-in protest at Dockum Drug Store

1976 Graduates from WSU with bachelor’s degree in business administration, begins work at local housing authority

1982 Graduates with master’s degree in communication from WSU

2006 The NAACP recognizes the Dockum Drug Store sit-in as nation’s first youth-led protest

Carol Parks Hahn

Amazon Farrell

TEAM Heroes POSITION Labor Law Activist FUN FACT

The Amazon Army was met with the state militia who housed a machine gun attachment sent in from Lawrence, 1,200 rifles stockpiled at the Hotel Stilwell, and 1,000 deputized men sent “to protect the peace.” The women were unarmed.

notable Dates

1860 The discovery of coal in Summit County, 25 miles from Salt Lake City 1874 The construction and opening of the first underground shaft-mine near north-central Cherokee county

Dec. 11, 1921 Wives of coal miners organize to protest hazardous labor conditions December 24, 1921 The Richmond Palladium publishes four women who were arrested at the protest and await trial. Mrs. “Amazon” Farrell is among the four women.

Carol Kay Parks-Hahn 1940–2023

Born on February 2, 1940, in Winfield, Carol Kay Parks-Hahn, with her cousin Ron Walters, sparked change after initiating a sit-in at the Dockum Drug Store in Wichita. The month-long nonviolent protest from July 19 to August 11, 1958, resulted in changes in service to Black citizens in Wichita businesses. Soon after, similar protests were held in Oklahoma City and Greensboro, North Carolina. Parks-Hahn died on April 15, 2023. She is remembered as a Wichita State University graduate and as a key leader in the Wichita NAACP Youth Council. This council of students led to the drug store sit-in and other steps toward racial equality for Black Americans.

This Autumn, Labe e County

and Expl e! Fall into

beneath the Scales’ Topeka home for six weeks. Underground Railroad conductor John Armstrong secured $70, an enclosed carriage and a team of mules to transport Clark to Iowa and freedom. Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, aiding fugitive slaves was a federal crime punishable up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine. Kansas’ proslavery laws included penalties of death, imprisonment and hard labor. In 1855, the proslavery Kansas territorial government enacted legislation that any person who spoke, wrote or printed materials for the purpose of assisting escaped slaves would be found guilty of a felony and sentenced to death. Anyone who helped slaves escape their masters could be charged with grand larceny and face death or imprisonment with hard labor. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was finally repealed in 1864.

Carrie “Saloon Smasher” Amelia Nation, 1846–1911

Born on November 25, 1846, in Garrard County, Kentucky, Carrie Nation is best known for being a radical member of the temperance movement, which protested the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Famously using a hatchet to destroy bar fixtures and stock, Nation was jailed over 30 times. She paid her fines by charging fees for lectures and selling souvenirs. She also strongly opposed Freemasonry, as well as restrictive clothing for women (corsets). Nation’s charity work included prison reform and shelters for women and children of alcoholics. Kansas voters approved prohibition of the sale of alcohol in 1880. Prohibition in Kansas ended in 1948.

Minnie Wishkeno Kakaque Evans, 1888–1971

Born on October 14, 1888, in Mayetta, Minnie Evans served as tribal chair of Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation from 1933 to 1965. Prior to this role, Evans, daughter to John and Mary Ann (Mnis-no-quah) Wish-ke-no, grew up in a large family and attended Haskell Institute—an industrial boarding school in Lawrence that taught skills such as farming, housekeeping, and speaking and writing English. Soon after, the Great Depression and the infamous Dust Bowl deeply affected Native Americans, who were often denied welfare and other federal assistance programs. Evans saw the discrimination of her people and emerged as an advocate. While serving as tribal chair, the U.S.’s implementation of the Indian termination policy—a series of laws and practices intended to strip Native Americans of their Native identities and assimilate them into American society, became a fight for autonomy for Evans. She organized and held illegal meetings while spearheading the battle against the U.S. House Resolution 108’s legislative intent to terminate the Prairie Band Potawatomie Nation. In February 1954, she testified at congressional meetings in Washington, D.C., saving the Potawatomi tribe from termination—which would have resulted in the immediate withdrawal of all federal aid, services and the end of the reservation. During her time as tribal chair, Evans also fought for reparations with the Indian Claims Commission, while advocating for the return of Native American identity.

While most famous for portraits and landscapes, Northeast Kansas artist Ernst Ulmer was also drawn to historic subjects. This painting, his largest historic scene, was based on careful study of historic photographs, accounts of Quantrill’s Raid, and observations made in modern-day downtown Lawrence. Though the overall scene is based on imagination, accurate depiction of architectural details and the inclusion of business names associated with early Lawrence reflect the artist’s interest in historical accuracy. Note the white flag hanging from the window of the Eldridge House. Ulmer captured a very specific incident during the raid, when residents of the hotel, located at Massachusetts and Seventh Streets, were evacuated from the

following

Ernst Ulmer Blood-Stained Dawn

About 1991

Courtesy Watkins Museum of History with permission of an anonymous private trust

building

Provost Marshall Alexander Banks’ surrender of the hotel to ensure their safety.

‘City of Sorrow’

The Kansas town was a symbol of freedom and haven for those who fought slavery … so 160 years ago, Confederate sympathizers rode into Lawrence to kill its men and burn its homes

Storyby Will Haynes

It was the evening of AugustThursday, 20, 1863.

Despite the bloody war raging along the Kansas-Missouri border, few places in Kansas were booming like Lawrence. Schoolteacher Edward Fitch and his wife, Sarah, strolled along downtown Massachusetts Street, the city’s commercial and social heart. Sarah would recall the young couple admiring “all the new buildings & all the projected improvements—How bright—how glowing with happiness and prosperity seemed the future. How little we dreamed of the horror which even then was hovering over us ….” That moment, hundreds of heavily armed men were riding for Lawrence. Their imminent assault—known as “Quantrill’s Raid,” or the “Lawrence Massacre”—would devastate the Fitches’ community for a short period, but mark it for all time.

Founded in 1854 as a “free state fortress,” Lawrence rallied to the Union cause when the Civil War began seven years later. The town became a haven for escaped enslaved people, and many local men left to fight, either in the conventional war farther east or the savage, ever-escalating guerrilla struggle with Confederate

bushwhackers and their allies in Missouri, who viewed and hated Lawrence as a bastion of abolitionists and marauding jayhawkers.

Lawrence lived under the threat of bushwhacker raids. Several alarms had proved unfounded, and by August 20, 1863, the city’s 3,000 residents spoke confidently of railroad construction and other developments—not of an impending attack.

A force led by the famed Captain William C. Quantrill would shatter that confidence. Emerging from their Missouri hideouts, Quantrill and some 450 followers launched a daring mission: bent on looting and destroying Lawrence, they rode west over 100 miles through Unionoccupied territory. Quantrill had lived and taught school in Lawrence for up to two years. He knew the city well and counted among his intended targets prominent individuals, especially leading jayhawker James Henry Lane.

On Friday, August 21, just before dawn lit the Kansas sky, Lawrencians awoke to gunshots and hoofbeats. Quantrill and his men had arrived.

(continued on page 53)

Names and Legacies from the Raid

Blanche Kelso Bruce

Survivor and Senator

Blanche Kelso Bruce is famous for being the first African American to serve a full term in the United States Senate—but he almost didn’t live long enough to make that achievement. Born into slavery in Virginia in 1841, Bruce escaped to freedom in Kansas when the Civil War began. The well-educated Bruce accepted an offer from Rev. Richard Cordley to teach at a night school for freed people in Lawrence. Bruce later described his narrow escape from Quantrill’s raiders on August 21, 1863:

The night before the Quantrill raid I had been watching and nursing a sick friend, and when the day broke, I heard firing. Looking out of the window I saw armed men firing pistols, and immediately realized that the enemy was upon us. To remain with my sick friend would have been to invite certain death, so I bade him adieu, and with no clothing on my person but shirt and drawers, watched my opportunity, got out of the house and hid in the bushes behind a fence.

I saw the fighting going on, and the rebs rode by without discovering me, although they pursued every man in sight. At last I had a clear field, ran down to the Kaw river as fast as I could, and jumped in. My flight was observed, and several armed men rode furiously toward me. Fortunately, keeping my head under water, I managed to hide beneath a hedge of vines and roots near by the shore. The troopers rode to the river and searched everywhere without discovering my retreat, although they came within a few feet of me a dozen times. Finally they rode away, and I remained concealed in the river all day and did not emerge from my harbor of safety until after nightfall, when the town had been sacked and burned, and the guerillas hastily evacuated with their loot.

Blanche K. Bruce, having survived the Lawrence Massacre, resumed teaching before becoming a landholder and U.S. senator from Mississippi. After a career as a politician and champion of Black civil rights, Bruce died in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 1898.

Elizabeth Margaret Acheson Fisher

Free Stater and Rescuer

Elizabeth Margaret Acheson was born in New York City on January 25, 1826. By the time she had become a young woman, Elizabeth and her family had moved to Steubenville, Ohio, where she was involved in a large Sunday school program. Here Elizabeth met and married Hugh Dunn Fisher, who worked in the school while preparing for the ministry. The Fishers eventually had four sons by birth and an adopted daughter. Elizabeth and Hugh moved to Kansas Territory in the 1850s both for his ministerial work and to help advance the free-state movement. Soon after the Civil War began in 1861, Hugh became chaplain of the 5th Kansas Cavalry and participated in raids into Missouri, where he gained fame for sending “contrabands” (Black people escaping slavery) to Kansas and other free states. Unfortunately for Rev. Fisher, he happened to be home in Lawrence on sick leave when Quantrill’s raiders attacked. Hugh barely had time to tell his older sons to run and to hide himself in the cellar before four raiders entered their home. When they demanded that Mrs. Fisher bring her husband up out of the cellar, she coolly told them he had run away and handed them a lamp to search the cellar themselves. “They came within eight feet of where I lay,” Hugh remembered, “but my wife’s self-possession in giving the light had disconcerted them, and they left without seeing me.” The men set four different fires around the house, but Elizabeth, her six-month-old son in her arms, put them all out. The frustrated raiders finally set another fire and threatened to shoot Elizabeth if she tried putting it out. As assailants surrounded the home to catch a fleeing Rev. Fisher, Elizabeth covered her husband in cloth, got him out of the cellar, and brought him to a spot in their yard, where she surrounded him with rescued items from their burning home. Hugh Fisher survived the Lawrence Massacre thanks to Elizabeth’s courage and ingenuity—an incident that he and several other survivors mentioned in their accounts. The following year, Elizabeth and other local women formed the Ladies Aid Society to care for Black freedom seekers. Elizabeth Fisher died on February 8, 1901, as one of the oldest and most-respected heroes of an infamous day.

Richard Cordley Spiritual Abolitionist

Richard Cordley, one of the most eminent citizens of early Lawrence, was born in England on September 6, 1829. The Cordley family emigrated to America when Richard was about four. Soon after graduating from Andover Theological Seminary, the 26-year-old Reverend Cordley arrived in Lawrence to become pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church. By 1863, the eloquent and energetic minister had gained such a wide reputation as an abolitionist that he was “marked for death” when Quantrill attacked Lawrence. During the raid, the reverend, his wife Mary, and their two daughters escaped harm, but the Cordley residence burned. Afterward, he wrote a comprehensive account for the Congregational Record that was widely reprinted and remains one of our best sources. In later years, the Cordleys moved to Flint, Michigan, then to Emporia, Kansas. Standing true to his principles, Rev. Cordley took the unusual step of publicly criticizing Lawrence residents who lynched three Black men on June 10, 1882. The Cordleys returned to Lawrence in 1884, and Richard resumed his duties as pastor of Plymouth Church. By his death on July 11, 1904, Rev. Cordley had served Plymouth for a total of 37 years and received an honorary degree from the University of Kansas, in addition to numerous other accolades. He had also published two books on Lawrence history and many articles and sermons. “The glory of heroism is not that angels come down to mingle in the affairs of men,” Cordley wrote in his 1895 history of Lawrence, “but that common men and women, when the occasion demands, can rise to such sublime heights of heroism and self-sacrifice.”

James Henry Lane

Most Wanted Jayhawker

Few individuals in the Civil War era courted controversy like James Henry Lane, the “Grim Chieftain.” Born to a prominent Indiana family on June 22, 1814, Lane became a lawyer, then a distinguished officer during the Mexican-American War. After service as lieutenant governor and U.S. congressman for Indiana, Lane moved to Kansas Territory in 1855 and reinvented himself as a leader in the free-state forces. Lane forged a northern route for Kansas settlers called the Lane Trail and led free-state militiamen in skirmishes against proslavery “border ruffians.” In 1857, he killed fellow Lawrence resident Gaius Jenkins in a land dispute—a crime that reportedly left Lane consumed with guilt. He also gained notoriety for his eccentric attire, hauntingly raspy voice, and brilliant speechmaking. After being selected as one of Kansas’ first two U.S. senators, Lane won President Abraham Lincoln’s favor by forming a “Frontier Guard” to protect the White House and Capitol in the Civil War’s early days. Displaying a disregard for legal technicalities that marked his whole career, Senator Lane won a commission as brigadier general, returned west, and led a zealous, if ill-disciplined, force of Kansas troops on raids into Missouri. On September 23, 1861, his troops sacked the town of Osceola and killed nine men. The following year, Lane formed the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, one of the first African American units to serve in the war. After narrowly surviving the Lawrence Massacre, Lane rejoined the Senate. Despite helping Lincoln’s reelection campaign and advocating for Kansans’ interests, the senator earned ire from Republicans in Washington and Kansas by supporting lenient Reconstruction measures for the former Confederate states. Exhausted and depressed, Lane died by suicide in July 1866 while on a visit home to Kansas.

George W. Collamore – Martyred Mayor

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 1, 1818, George W. Collamore earned a law degree and partnered with John A. Andrew. He married Julia De Lafoville in 1845, and the couple eventually welcomed six children. As the fate of Kansas hung in the balance in 1856, the abolitionist Collamore and his family resettled in the young territory to fight for the free-state cause. When Kansas was ravaged by drought and famine a few years later, Collamore became an agent for the New England Kansas Relief Committee and helped distribute aid to the needy. He next accepted the role of quartermaster general of the state militia, supplying Kansas volunteers after the Civil War broke out and reporting to the federal government on the condition of Union-allied Native Americans who had fled to Kansas. During summer 1863, Collamore, as the newly elected mayor of Lawrence, tried to strengthen the city’s defenses against threatened bushwhacker raids. He obtained arms for the local militia and called them together for service, but when no raiders appeared, townspeople derided his warnings, the militiamen returned home, and the guns were stored under lock and key. Then came Quantrill’s attack. That morning, bushwhackers quickly surrounded the Collamore home. With escape impossible, the mayor crawled into a well under the kitchen, followed by a hired hand named Patrick Keith. As guerrillas set the house ablaze above them, both men suffocated. A family friend, Joseph G. Lowe, also perished in the well as he tried to rescue them. The Collamores’ son Hoffman was wounded by gunfire, and Julia reportedly left “frantic with grief.” In the raid’s aftermath, Mrs. Collamore took her husband’s body back home to Boston. George W. Collamore was laid to rest in Auburn Cemetery, mourned by a large crowd that included his former law partner, who was now the governor of Massachusetts.

The surprise was complete, the city totally undefended. Reaching South Park—a gathering spot for the community—Quantrill and his main body rode up Massachusetts Street while smaller bands fanned out across town, shouting battle cries and shooting at any man they saw. “They flowed into every street and lane like water dashed upon a rock,” wrote local minister Richard Cordley.

George Todd, one of Quantrill’s fiercest lieutenants, led a mounted charge through a small army encampment on New Hampshire Street, killing most of the young, unarmed recruits. Just to the west, a group of Black recruits fared better. Thinking quickly, the men fled with other formerly enslaved people to either the riverbank or West Lawrence.

In town, bushwhackers began systematically robbing, killing, and burning. Edward and Sarah Fitch and their two children listened as the New Hampshire Street encampment, just behind their house, was overrun. “In five or ten minutes, fires were springing up in every direction,” Sarah remembered. A gang burst through their door, shot Edward multiple times, and set the Fitch home ablaze. Sarah would later recall that after the attackers forced her from the house without Edward’s body, she and her children “threw ourselves upon the ground—and watched the work of death and desolation go on.” By that time,

Quantrill had already reached one of his main objectives: the Eldridge House. The four-story hotel was renowned as a military and commercial center. It took mere minutes for the staff and guests to surrender, whereupon the jubilant bushwhackers forced everyone outside, seized their valuables, and set fire to the building. As flames reached chemicals stored in the first-floor pharmacy, explosions added to the fearful din.

Quantrill was not entirely absent a sense of honor. When several hotel residents identified him as the shadowy young man who had lived in their city a few years earlier, Quantrill placed a guard over the crowd to ensure their safety.

This gallantry was not extended to all. Eyewitnesses around Lawrence noted that Quantrill’s men targeted African Americans with “special malignity.” As the Eldridge burned, the raiders refused to allow the 24-day-old son of Black employee Peter Jones and his wife, Mary, to be rescued; the infant became the raiders’ youngest victim.

In other instances, some raiders declined to shoot men and even helped women remove possessions before torching their homes. Women, indeed, became the heroes of the day. Shielded from being killed by the mores of the time, Lawrence women helped male relatives escape,

“The destruction of the city of Lawrence, Kansas, and the massacre of its inhabitants by the Rebel guerrillas, August 21, 1863 “ An illustration from a September 5 (vol. 7, no 349), 1863, edition of Harper’s Weekly

hid valuables, and in some cases boldly followed raiders around their homes, putting out fires they set. The most famous instances of courage belonged to Kate Riggs and Elizabeth Fisher, who both confronted bushwhackers and saved their husbands’ lives.

Countless people hid in cornfields, ravines, and other organic barriers to evade attackers. At least one man found grimmer concealment. As raiders ordered out male residents of the Dix home and the Johnson House, neighboring structures on Vermont Street, George E. Young escaped execution by crawling into a drain hole in the cellar of an unfinished building on Massachusetts Street and pulling two dead bodies over himself. Raiders came through but missed Young, and the new building’s green lumber didn’t burn easily— allowing Young to survive.

Also fortunate was James Lane. In the early moments of the attack, a Black man fleeing through West Lawrence stopped at the Lanes’ impressive, newly built mansion to warn them of danger. Realizing he must be a prime target, Lane escaped from his home just before raiders burned it down. Barely dressed and seeking revenge, Lane would marshal a small force of survivors to join in pursuing Quantrill after the raid.

Nearly four hours after the attack began, Quantrill’s scouts spotted Union cavalry approaching in the distance. The captain ordered his men to gather their loot, mount fresh horses, and ride south out of town. Stragglers terrorized townspeople for some time, and one of them— the drunken, brutal Larkin Skaggs—paid for it with his life. When Skaggs became separated from his comrades, vengeful survivors shot him dead, dragged his corpse through the streets, and burned it. Reportedly, it was a shot from 16-year-old William Speer, who lost two brothers that day, that brought Skaggs down.

Despite skirmishing with Union pursuers and ravaging farmsteads along the way, nearly all the bushwhackers made it back to Missouri. They left devastation in their wake.

In Lawrence, the raiders had killed perhaps 150 to 180 men and boys; the exact count will never be known, both because numerous strangers had been stopping in town and because some bodies were lost in the fires. At least 85 women were widowed and 245 children left fatherless.

Only a handful of businesses still stood and over 100 houses around the city were damaged or leveled. In addition to the lives and property destroyed, many families lost all their savings.

(continued on page 56)

The sketch “The ruins of Lawrence, Kansas” appeared in the September 19 (vol . 7, no. 351), 1863, edition of Harper’s Weekly

Kate Doane Earle Riggs – Bushwhacker

Beater

Kate Doane Earle was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 29, 1836. As a young woman, she taught school before moving to Lawrence and marrying lawyer Samuel A. Riggs. In Lawrence, she continued her teaching at a female seminary based in the Trinity Episcopal Church. When Quantrill’s guerrillas attacked on the morning of August 21, 1863, the Riggses, horrified, watched from their home as Confederates rode down and killed Lawrence men. Kate ventured outside to help a neighbor family, the Lowes, but begged Samuel to stay hidden because he had “prosecuted Quantrill several times for horse stealing, robbery, and other crimes, and I felt that he would be a marked man,” she recalled. Soon, however, Kate saw an awful sight: a guerrilla fighter on horseback confronting Samuel in front of their gate. As Kate approached, the assailant—later identified as Larkin Skaggs—demanded money, then attempted to shoot Samuel. As her husband turned and ran, “an inspiration, not a thought, made me spring forward and catch the bridle with both hands,” Kate recounted. Skaggs spurred his horse forward to chase Samuel, Kate holding onto the bridle all through a mad dash around neighboring houses and over a woodpile. Skaggs halted and trained his revolver on the fleeing man, but Kate pulled the horse to throw off his aim. The guerrilla, “with a fierce oath … lifted his revolver high in the air to strike me over the hands compelling me to let go,” but Kate dodged the blow and turned to look for Samuel. Skaggs rode off and was later killed by Lawrence residents. Kate, meanwhile, reunited with her husband. Numerous people had observed her actions, and a Union soldier who arrived in town soon afterward made a sketch of the incident. Twelve years later, one witness noted, “Mr. R[iggs] is a prominent attorney now, and lives to bless his wife for her heroic conduct.” The Riggses finished their impressive new house and lived there for several decades as one of Lawrence’s most honored couples. Kate and Samuel both died in 1920 and were buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.

William Quantrill

Town Traitor

Quantrill biographer Albert Castel called him “the bloodiest man in American history.” Even a sympathetic writer in a Confederate veterans magazine conceded that Quantrill’s violent career left “a trail of fire and blood.”

Born in Canal Dover, Ohio, on July 31, 1837, the young Quantrill traveled west to improve his economic circumstances. While living in Lawrence, Kansas, under the alias Charley Hart, Quantrill betrayed a group of men attempting to liberate enslaved people in Missouri. Casting his lot with the Confederacy and drawing on military skill, personal magnetism, and ruthlessness, Quantrill quickly became one of the most famous Confederate guerrilla leaders west of the Mississippi River. His greatest triumphs came in summer 1863, when he and his followers destroyed Lawrence and then massacred a Union force at Baxter Springs. But soon thereafter, Quantrill lost control over his unruly guerrilla band and led a shrinking force for the remainder of the war. In May 1865, a special detective unit tracked him through rural Kentucky and sprung an ambush. Quantrill died of his wounds while in Union captivity on June 6, and his remains went on a strange odyssey in subsequent years. Initially buried in Louisville, Quantrill’s skeleton was later dug up; his skull featured in fraternity rituals while other bones were exhibited at the Kansas State Historical Society. Eventually, Quantrill’s skull was reburied in his Ohio hometown while some other parts were interred in a Confederate cemetery in Higginsville, Missouri.

John Speer Memory Keeper

Born in western Pennsylvania on December 27, 1817, Speer began his career as a newspaperman. In 1842, he married Elizabeth McMahon. Casting his lot with the free-state cause, Speer moved to Kansas in 1854 and established the Kansas Pioneer, the first newspaper published in Douglas County (although it was initially printed in Ohio); his family followed him to the territory the following year. By the time of Quantrill’s attack on Lawrence on August 21, 1863, Speer not only had acquired the Lawrence Republican and served in Kansas politics but also had fathered seven children with Elizabeth. The Speers suffered tragedy that day when 19-year-old John Jr. and 18-year-old Robert were both killed, the younger son burning to death as raiders set the Republican office afire. John Sr.—like his city—was bowed but not broken. “Lawrence is not to ‘wink out,’” he declared in an editorial published six days later. “We have a glorious record and destiny. We are to be one of the largest cities west of the Missouri. There is no possibility of mistaking that.” Through the rest of the Civil War and into the late 1860s, Speer pushed for faster economic recovery in Lawrence, helped renominate President Abraham Lincoln for the 1864 election, and served as official state printer. In his later years, Speer continued his editorial work and publicly disputed claims by William Gregg, a Quantrill lieutenant who tried to downplay the Lawrence Massacre’s brutality. In 1906, Speer died at the home of his daughter Eva DuBois in Denver, but he came to rest with Elizabeth and several of their children beneath a family monument in Lawrence’s Oak Hill Cemetery.

PHOTOGRAPH

PHOTOGRAPH

A traveler who arrived in Lawrence the night of the raid reported that “we could distinguish the line of Quantrill’s retreat for many miles, by the light of burning houses.” Another survivor noted that the “whole length of Massachusetts Street was a mass of ruins.”

For newly widowed Sarah Fitch and others like her, Lawrence was now the “City of Sorrow.” The dead lay everywhere. It took a week to find and bury all of them; compounding the horror, many bodies were so badly burned they fell apart in movers’ hands. Lawrencians drew strength from their own determination as well as the food, building materials, and monetary aid that poured in from supporters in Kansas and across the United States. Residents also revitalized their local militia and, with the help of fortifications and a garrison of soldiers, ensured there would be no repeat of August 21, 1863.

Lawrencians drew strength from their own determination as well as the food, building materials, and monetary aid that poured in from supporters in Kansas and across the United States.

As Lawrence began recovering, Kansans demanded retaliation for the massacre. Union forces delivered it through harsh crackdowns on bushwhackers and civilians in western Missouri. Guerrilla warfare continued for nearly two more years before the threat posed by Quantrill and other bushwhackers was eliminated. Yet the Lawrence Massacre, the retribution Kansans exacted, and other flashpoints in the border war spawned decades of grief and bitterness on both sides.

Reverend Cordley, who lost his own home in the raid, correctly predicted, “One year will almost obliterate the real marks of Quantrill’s steps.” By late 1864, Lawrence was more prosperous than ever before. But emotional and symbolic marks have been longer-lasting. Most important of all, perhaps, has been the legacy of resilience that 21st-century Lawrencians still carry from their city’s most tragic day.

gallery KANSAS!

MARVIN DE JONG STAFFORD COUNTY

MARK CLARKE

WABAUNSEE COUNTY

SCOTT BEAN WABAUNSEE COUNTY

TOM ARNHOLD MIAMI COUNTY

ANGIE HARRIS

McPHERSON COUNTY

Brennan Bestwick is from Randolph, Kansas. He is an AWP Intro to Journals Award winner and recipient of a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award. His writing appears in Best New Poets, Colorado Review, The Journal, Winter Tangerine, The Offing, EcoTheo Review and now in KANSAS! with this creation about an infamous Kansan. John R. Brinkley (1885-1942) was a conman, radio pioneer, and two-time Kansas gubernatorial candidate, as well as the inventor of a dangerous and medically unsound procedure that implanted goat glands into men to cure impotency. Inspired by this medical treatment, “Goat Gland” became a popular filmmaking term in the 1920s when they added a “talkie” sequence to a previously silent film.

Goat Glanding

a thin ghost in a white coat  haunts the prairie — a gust  of hot air, a goat enters  the pasture, clops the soil,  snorts over the soundless babble  of the doctor’s wagging mouth—  foley for the folly of man,  the animal tramples through  the whole of him, his moonlit  lapels unmoving — for a moment,  the doctor’s work is alive again,  animal inside man, a bleating  heart — a captive audience can  believe anything, the film repeats  itself, man humoring the hobbled  animal of his ego — the goat’s eyelid  closing like a curtain over the square  frame of its pupil, the hushed plains  reclaiming their quiet in the dark—

See the Voices and Votes: Democracy in America Smithsonian traveling exhibition in Ottawa, Winfield, and Belleville and learn about the history of American democracy. Perfect for all ages. Visit humanitieskansas.org for details. #MovementOfIdeas

and

Special thanks to the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics

the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum & Boyhood Home.

Naturalization Ceremony at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, July 4, 2013.

©Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello