Previous Kansas Heritage Series Events
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Each winter, the Wilson County Old Iron Club hosts a 3 event series focusing on a different aspect of Kansas history and heritage. The premier series was held in early 2013. These are the topics presented since the inception of the series.
Click the buttons below for more information about our most popular topics. |
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The 2016 Kansas Heritage Series: Jan. 31 - Jim Gray, ‘Head ‘Em Up, Move ‘Em Out” The early days of ranching and trail driving required stamina and determination. The drover of yesteryear had little choice but to face the elements placed before him if he was to get his wild cattle to market. A thousand miles on the trail brought him into contact with all that nature could throw at him: lightning, flooded rivers, hail, tornadoes, and stampeding cattle were constant challenges. Today’s massive beef industry owes its beginnings to the mend and women who were bold enough to “head ‘em up and move ‘em out.” --Jim is an author, speaker, promoter of cowboy heritage in Kansas, and executive director of the National Drover’s Hall of Fame. March 6 - John Bayles - local history April 3 - Conservation District Program - Toronto and Fall River Dam Basins |
Fall River Dam
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The 2015 Kansas Heritage Series:
Feb. 8 - Jeff Davidson, singer, songwriter, poet, and historian, sharing “Western Music that Celebrates Western History”. Combining a unique blend of songs, historical facts, and pictures, Jeff revisited the history of the west and its tremendous influence on the shaping of the U.S. economy, ideology and heroism. March 8 - Reunion of Maple Grove School students. This rural school, established in 1871, was one of many in Wilson County. Historical information about Kansas, Wilson County, and early rural schools was also presented. The Maple Grove Rural School C-7 closed in 1969 due to school consolidation. April 19 - “Green Fire” - an award-winning documentary film about Aldo Leopold, legendary conservationist. 
The stage screen from the Maple Grove school is currently on display in the Town Hall at the Rollin 'Red' Vandever Memorial Park
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Two structures that Maple Grove students attended
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The 2014 Kansas Heritage Series:
Jan. 26 – “Orphan Trains in Kansas” Amanda Wahlmeier, from the National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia March 9 – “Kansas Women, Work, and the Civil War” - Diane Eickhoff “During the Civil War, employment opportunities for women opened up, from nursing (which had been an all-male profession until then) to army laundresses to spies. Women assumed clerical positions in the U.S. government; turned their homes into cottage factories to make blankets, bandages, and uniforms; and even disguised themselves as men in order to serve as combat soldiers on the battlefield.” April 6 – “The Work Culture of Food in Early Kansas” - MJ Morgan “Looking at Flint Hills communities founded before 1900, this talk explores early food production, preservation, and preparation and how those are closely linked to both culture and labor. Assumed familial roles in food preparation, the evolution of food culture when Old World practices were adapted to a new environment, and the way that labor practices required for food culture left traces behind in the land itself will be discussed. Surviving ice houses, spring houses, common pastures, community slaughterhouses, and whole-community canning events illustrate the rich food culture of early Kansas.” |
Orphan Train Riders
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The 2013 Kansas Heritage Series:
Jan. 27 - A Kansas Day Celebration March 3 - “19th-Century Rural Kansas Women at Work” by Dr. Isaias McCaffery of Independence Community College April 14 - “The Dust Bowl: Can It Happen Again?”, featuring an excerpt of “The Dust Bowl: the Greatest Man-Made Eco Disaster in U.S. History, as told by Ken Burns” and held on the anniversary of the infamous Black Sunday Blizzard of April 14, 1935. |
The Dust Bowl
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