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Read About Famous Kansans

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle - 1887 -1933
Roscoe, one of nine children, was the baby of the family who weighed a reported 16 pounds at birth. Born in Smith Center, Kansas, his family moved to California when he was a year old. At 8, he would appear on the stage. His first part was that of a picaninny kid with the Webster-Brown Stock Company. From then until 1913, Roscoe was on the stage performing everything from acrobatic acts, to clown, to singer.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000779/

John R. "Doc" Brinkley, 1885-1941
Brinkley, of Milford, famous for his goat gland transplants, was also a gubernatorial candidate and pioneer radio broadcaster He was both a controversial medical doctor who experimented with goat glands as a means of curing male impotence and as a radio pioneer who created the age of Mexican border blasters.
http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/John_R._Brinkley

Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917 - 2000
Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1917 and raised in Chicago. She is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, including Annie Allen (1949), for which she received the Pulitzer Prize. She was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/165

Blanche K. Bruce, 1841-1898
Bruce was born into slavery in Virginia in 1841. He moved with his master to Missouri before the Civil War. By 1861 Bruce had escaped from slavery and made his way to Lawrence, Kansas, where he survived Quantrill's raid. Blanche Bruce was credited with organizing the first school in the country for Negroes. Moving on to Mississippi by 1868, Bruce became the first Black U.S. Senator elected to a full term, 1875-1881
http://www.csusm.edu/Black_Excellence/documents/pg-b-bruce.html

George Washington Carver, 1864 - 1943
George Washington Carver was an American educator and an outstanding innovator in the agricultural sciences. Carver was born of slave parents near Diamond, Missouri. He left the farm where he was born when he was about ten years old and eventually settled in Minneapolis, Kansas, where he worked his way through high school.
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/carver.htm

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, 1944-Present
Pope John Paul II named Bishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M., Cap., of Rapid City, South Dakota, to be Archbishop of Denver. He succeeds Archbishop J. Francis Stafford who last August was appointed President of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Laity. Charles Joseph Chaput was born in Concordia, Kansas, on September 26, 1944. He attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help school in Concordia and St. Francis Seminary High School in Victoria, Kansas. Archbishop-designate Chaput took final vows as a Capuchin Friar on July 14, 1968, and was ordained a priest on August 29, 1970, in Victoria, Kansas.
http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/1997/97-036.shtml

Mabel Chase, 1876-1962
Mabel Chase, Haviland and Greensburg, was the first woman in the United States to be elected sheriff. She kept up with the latest crime-fighting equipment: She owned a Thompson submachine gun and drove an armor-plated Hudson "Super Six" patrol car with bullet-proof glass
http://cjonline.com/stories/033003/our_colorful.shtml

Nick Chiles, ????
Nick Chiles was born in South Carolina and moved to Topeka, Kansas, in 1886. There he founded and edited the Plaindealer, a newspaper that ran from January 1899 to November 1958. Chiles's Plaindealer was said to be the most successful Black-owned newspapers in Kansas and one of the strongest in the nation. It also became the longest running Black newspaper in the United States.
http://www.kshs.org/people/african_americans.htm#c

Walter P. Chrysler, 1875-1940
Walter Chrysler was born in Wamego but grew up in Ellis. He purchased his first automobile not to drive, but to take apart and put back together again. Chrysler trained as a master mechanic with the Union Pacific Railroad and shifted his focus to automobiles in 1912. Within a year after his departure from General Motors Chrysler returned to the automobile business and took on the ailing Maxwell Motor Car Company. His vision was to develop a line of high-styled automobiles priced for people with medium incomes. In 1925 Maxwell Motor Car Company took the name of its president and became the Chrysler Corporation. When Walter Chrysler finally retired, his company was one of the three top automobile companies in the country.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/skpowell/wpc.htm

Clark Clifford, 1906-1998
Clifford was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, on 25 December 1906, took both bachelor and law degrees at Washington University, and practiced law in St. Louis between 1928 and 1943. He served as an officer with the Navy from 1944 to 1946, including assignment as assistant naval aide and naval aide to the president. After separation from the Navy, he held the position of special counsel to the president from 1946 to 1950. During this period he participated extensively in the legislative efforts that resulted in the National Security Act of 1947 and its 1949 amendments. Clifford was widely known and respected in Washington and knowledgeable on defense matters when he became secretary of defense on 1 March 1968.
http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/clifford.htm

Nellie Cline - ????
Nellie Cline, Larned, was an early woman Kansas Legislator and is credited with being the first woman lawyer to appear before the US Supreme Court. After serving in the Kansas legislature she married John Steenson and moved to Idaho. She was also served as a legislator in Idaho until 1962 as Nellie Cline Steenson.
http://www.kshs.org/people/women.htm

Buffalo Bill Cody, 1846-1917
Born in Scott County, Iowa, in 1846, Cody grew up on the prairie. When his father died in 1857, his mother moved to Kansas, where Cody worked for a wagon-freight company as a mounted messenger and wrangler. During the Civil War, Cody served first as a Union scout in campaigns against the Kiowa and Comanche, and then in 1863 he enlisted with the Seventh Kansas Cavalry, which saw action in Missouri and Tennessee. After the war, he married Louisa Frederici in St. Louis and continued to work for the Army as a scout and dispatch carrier, operating out of Fort Ellsworth, Kansas. Finally, in 1867, Cody took up the trade that gave him his nickname, hunting buffalo to feed the construction crews of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. By his own count, he killed 4,280 head of buffalo in seventeen months.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/buffalobill.htm

William C. Coleman, 1870 - 1957
The brilliant white light produced by gas lamps impressed William Coleman. He found gas lamps to be a profitable venture only after he redesigned the lamps and devised a plan to rent and service the lamps himself. Coleman's first successful business venture with lamps was the Hydro-Carbon Light Company in Wichita. Coleman turned inventor to refine his lamps, producing the first instant-light gasoline lamp. Coleman lamps, stoves, coolers, and other products have been used by thousands of American soldiers, farmers, campers, and emergency workers.
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/coleman_w_c.htm

Samuel Crumbine, 1862 - 1954
Believed prevention was important in fighting disease. He crusaded to change public ideas about health with such sayings as "Don't Spit On The Sidewalk" and "Swat The Fly." He started his medical practice in Ford County, where he had purchased half interest in a drugstore business. His 1899 appointment to the Kansas State Board of Health made him the state's first full-time public health officer. He warned against the use of the common drinking cup, the hazards of the housefly and the use of a common towel in public restrooms.
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/crumbine_samuel.htm

Glenn Cunningham, 1909 - 1988
Six years after he was born in Atlanta, Kansas, Glenn's legs were so badly burned it was feared he would never walk again. After several weeks in bed, he was able to walk on crutches. Finally, he got rid of the crutches but, as he said later, "It hurt like thunder to walk, but it didn't hurt at all when I ran. So for five or six years, about all I did was run." Cunningham became a miler in high school and set an interscholastic record of 4:24.7. He won the NCAA 1,500-meter championships in 1932 competing for the University of Kansas. He was also in the 1932 and 1936 Olympics. Then in 1938 Cunningham became the world's fastest miler as he set a new record at Dartmouth College.
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/cunningham_glenn.htm

John Steuart Curry, 1897-1946
His teacher at the Hickory Point school in Jefferson County scolded John Steuart Curry for drawing chickens on his slate when the assignment was an arithmetic problem. Curry drew the world as he saw it, and his world began in Kansas. In 1937 the already well-known artist Curry was asked to paint murals on the second floor of the state capitol. His work drew notice and controversy. Curry took the criticism in stride until the legislature denied his request to remove marble so he could expand his canvas. He packed his paintbrushes and left the murals unfinished and unsigned. With Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, John Steuart Curry captured the spirit of the common man and the Midwest in the art movement of the 1930s and 1940s known as realistic regionalism.
http://www.butlerart.com/pc_book/pages/john_steuart_curry_1897.htm

Charles Curtis, 1860-1936
In 1928 he became vice president of the United States, the first of Native American ancestry. As a child, Curtis lived with his grandparents in Topeka attended the common schools; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1881 and commenced practice in Topeka; was prosecuting attorney of Shawnee County 1885-1889; and was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-third and served the six succeeding Congresses.
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C001008

Len "Bud" Dresslar Jr., 1905-2005
Originally from St. Francis and Topeka this bass-baritone singer was also the voice of the Jolly Green Giant and sang in the "Snap, Crackle and Pop" jingle for Rice Krispies.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/obituariesl/cst-nws-xdres23.html

Amelia Earhart, 1897-1937
Born in Atchison, She was the first woman granted a pilot's license by the National Aeronautics Associate, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (1932), and the first person to fly solo across the Pacific.
http://ellensplace.net/eae_intr.html

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1890-1969
Born in Texas, brought up in Abilene, Kansas, Eisenhower was the third of seven sons. He excelled in sports in high school, and received an appointment to West Point. In his early Army career, he excelled in staff assignments, serving under Generals John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, and Walter Krueger. After Pearl Harbor, General George C. Marshall called him to Washington for a war plans assignment. He commanded the Allied Forces landing in North Africa in November 1942; on D-Day, 1944, he was Supreme Commander of the troops invading France. After the war, he became President of Columbia University, and then took leave to assume supreme command over the new NATO forces being assembled in 1951. Republican emissaries to his headquarters near Paris persuaded him to run for President in 1952. He was elected the 34th United States President and served from 1953-1961.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/de34.html

Alfred Fairfax, 1840-????
A Civil War Veteran and the first African American elected to the Kansas State Legislature, he was born a slave in Loudon County, Virginia. Fairfax reportedly was sold after a foiled escape attempt and removed to Louisiana just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1862 he escaped from bondage, joined the Union army, and subsequently learned to read with assistance from "an orderly sergeant." Fairfax became quite influential in the local and state Republican Party during Reconstruction, holding several elective and appointive positions, and receiving a congressional nomination. But, as Southern "redeemers" increasingly tightened their grip on the state, reestablishing white control of the post-Reconstruction South, Fairfax looked north and west for a land in which he might better his condition. Like many thousands of his fellow "freedmen," the Rev. Fairfax chose Kansas, a symbol of hope for many of these political and economic refugees. When Fairfax made his move into the "promised land" in 1880, he took 200 families with him, most of whom located in Chautauqua County. There, Fairfax obtained a 200-acre farm, raised cotton, among other farm products, operated his own cotton gin (the "Fairfax Ginning Company"), and took on the pastorate of the New Hope Baptist Church in Parsons.
http://www.kshs.org/places/capitol/representatives/fairfax_alfred.htm

Marlin Fitzwater, 1942-Present
Fitzwater was born on a farm in Salina, Kansas He graduated from Kansas State University in 1965 with a degree in journalism. While in school, he worked at newspapers in various Kansas communities before moving to Washington, DC upon graduation. He also served in the United States Air Force. He was White House Press Secretary for six years under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, making him one of the longest-serving press secretaries in history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlin_Fitzwater

Lorenzo Dow Fuller, Jr., 1919-Present
Lorenzo Fuller was born in Stockton in 1919. He is the son of Effie Green Fuller, the first Black child to be brought to Rooks County, and the grandson of pioneer homesteaders "Cap'n" Giles Green, a member of the 79th Colored Regiment of Kansas during the Civil War, and Rebecca Green. At age 15 Fuller was accepted as a sponsored student at the University of Kansas - there he received training in opera and other classical forms. Fuller secured a place in KU history when he performed the Ballad for America. While a KU student, Fuller performed monthly on KFKU radio and became the first Black man to sing with the KU Symphony. Upon graduation, more than two thousands people showed up for his solo senior recital, compared with the 75 or so who usually attend this type of event. Lorenzo Fuller was a man of firsts. His show, Van and the Genie, on WPIX in NYC, broke racial barriers: it was the first show in the nation where a Black man starred opposite a white woman. Van and the Genie were so successful that its sponsor's product, Scotty Pops Lollipops, was soon outstripped by demand as 3,300 new distributorships (quite a feat in that day) were created. The show garnered such popularity that Lorenzo and his co-star, Rosamond Vance Kaufman, marched in the Macy's Day Parade, behind that year's Grand Marshall, Jimmy Durante. Another first occurred with the advent of his show Musical Miniatures: Mr. Fuller became the first Black in the nation to have his own show - a few years before Nat King Cole had his show!
http://www.pbs.org/shptv/localproductions/lorenzofuller.html

Robert Merrel Gage, 1892-1981
Gage was a native Topekan, educated in the Topeka public schools and at Washburn College, is a world renowned sculptor of Abraham Lincoln. He left Kansas after graduation to study sculpture in both New York and France with Borglum and Robert Henri, two exponents of the "American Theme" in art. Returning to Topeka in 1916, the young sculptor set up shop in a barn behind his house on Fillmore Street and began his first public commission, the magnificent statue of Lincoln that rests on the Kansas State Capitol grounds. After a stint in the armed services during World War I, Gage began a teaching career at Washburn and at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1924, Gage left the Midwest for a position at the University of Southern California, a post he held until his retirement in 1958.
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/gage_robert_m.htm

Isaac T Goodnow, 1814-1894
Goodnow, free-state supporter and the Kansas Superintendent of Public Instruction, was one of the most extensively traveled men in the new state, and was widely acquainted with citizens everywhere. In 1855, at the age of 41, he arrived in Kansas with background experience as an English professor and Natural Sciences from the Academy of Wilbrahan near Springfield Mass., and at providence Seminary at East Greenwich Rhode Island. His motives for coming to Kansas apparently were similar to those of other New England settlers who became state leaders-abolition, land ownership and adventure. During his first eight years in Kansas, Isaac Goodnow had set aside one of the attractive hills for the establishment of the Bluemont Central College. He returned to the east, to raise $15000.00 and 2,000 library books to build the college and served as its president for the first years. In February 1863, under the Morrill Land-Grant College Act it became Kansas State Agricultural College and then later named Kansas State University. As it were, Isaac Goodnow could be named, "The father of formal education" for the new frontier.
http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/cgiwrap/imlskto/
index.php?SCREEN=bio_sketches/goodnow_isaac

Jane Grant, 1892 - 1972
Jane Grant was a woman several steps ahead of her time. Feminist, journalist, gardener, and entrepreneur, Grant moved among these identities with a studied practice of power and grace. She was a survivor who played by her own rules. With little status or economic privilege, she made her way in the world using brains, bravado, and anything else that came her way. In the mythic tradition of the American rags to riches story, it is expected for the farmer's son to leave home to seek his fortune, yet it is quite rare for the farmer's daughter to escape--especially without a husband or doting aunt in tow. In 1908, one week after high school graduation from Girard High School, Grant pointed her compass north towards New York City. She was thrilled to be boarding the train with Miss Willie Warner, the former Girard High School music teacher who had married and moved east. Warner offered Grant the opportunity to live with her in New York. At sixteen years old, Grant had never been further from her father's farm than Kansas City. However, she jumped at the chance to leave home; she was, in her words, "ready to combat the world." Towards the end of Grant's first year in New York, Miss Willie Warner died and in spite of the loss of her friend, Grant decided not to return to her father's farm in Kansas. Eventually, with the help of her landlady, Grant found a steady job answering phones for $10 a week at The New York Times. She insisted on spending her free time drafting news articles, stories culled from her daily experiences. Eventually, her boss realized he could profit by Grant's zealousness and began training her to cover stories.
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/speccoll/exhibits/JaneGrant/ready/

Georgia Neese Clark Gray, 1900-1995
Kansas women can claim a number of firsts and Georgia Neese Clark Gray is no exception. Born in Richland, Kansas, Gray attended school in Topeka and graduated from Washburn College in 1921. During college, she developed an interest in acting and after graduation attended the Franklin Sargent School of Dramatic Art and eventually acted with various stock companies. She returned to Kansas after the advent of the depression caused acting jobs to be scarce. Gray started working at her father's Richland State Bank as an assistant cashier in 1935 and became president in 1937 following his death. She became active in the state Democratic Party and was elected National Committee Woman in Kansas in 1936, a position she held until 1964. She was an articulate and well-liked representative of the party and an early supporter of Harry Truman. It was this support that brought about her nomination as the first woman to be Treasurer of the United States.
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/gray_georgia.htm

Junius Groves, 1859-1925
Groves came to Kansas at the age of nineteen. He worked at the meat packing houses in Armourdale and later moved to Edwardsville. Here he purchased eighty acres of land and began to raise white potatoes. His business prospered and he became known as the "Potato King of the World."
http://www.kshs.org/people/african_americans.htm

Ben Hibbs, 1901-1975
In the fall of 1920, a young man from Pretty Prairie walked into the office of Professor L. N. Flint, head of the department of journalism of Kansas University, and announced he wanted to be a good newspaperman - not a "hack". He applied himself vigorously to his journalistic studies, editing the University Daily Kansan and teaching some journalism classes during the school year. In the summers he worked as a news editor for newspapers in Fort Morgan, Colorado, and Pratt, Kansas. He graduated from K. U. in 1923. The next year was hired as a teacher at Fort Hays State College, where he founded their department of journalism. Between 1926 and 1929, he went back into newspaper work, editing several Kansas newspapers and earning a reputation as one of Kansas' outstanding editors. The Kansas City Star called him "the most quoted young squirt in Kansas." His efforts brought him to the attention of Curtis Publications of Philadelphia, who offered him the job of associate editor of their national monthly magazine, Country Gentleman. The 27-year-old Kansan accepted and over the next 11 years, toured the country, writing editorials and feature articles. In 1940 he was made editor-in-chief of Country Gentleman. In 1942 Curtis executives asked Hibbs to take over the editorship of their faltering weekly, the Saturday Evening Post. During the 20 years he edited that magazine; he modernized its contents, style, and format and doubled its circulation to 7 million by 1961. In 1942 it was Ben Hibbs who published Norman Rockwell's now famous illustrations of the Four Freedoms when every other publisher Rockwell approached turned him down. These illustrations proved instantly popular with the American people and gave them a patriotic shot-in-the-arm that was needed during that point in World War II when things didn't seem to be going our way. In 1962 Hibbs resigned from the Post to become editor of Reader's Digest, a position he held until his retirement in 1972.
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/hibbs_ben.htm

James "Wild Bill" Hickok, 1837-1876
James Butler Hickok moved to Kansas in 1855 and at the age of 20 was elected constable of Monticello. In 1861 he was working as a wagon master in Montana. Hickok was also employed as a guide on the Santa Fe Trail and later he worked on the Oregon Trail. During the American Civil War Hickok was employed as a scout for the Union Army. After the war came to an end Hickok became a professional gambler in Springfield, Missouri. Also, for a brief time he served under General George A. Custer in his 7th Cavalry In 1868 Hickok became sheriff of Hays City in Kansas. In April 1871, Hickok was employed as marshal of Abilene. Hickok then toured with Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show (1972-73) before teaming up with Calamity Jane in Deadwood, Dakota. He also married Agnes Lake and for a time tried gold mining. Hickok also spent a lot of time with John Wesley Hardin. On 2nd August, 1876, Wild Bill Hickok was playing cards in Deadwood. Jack McCall, seeking revenge for the death of his brother, shot Hickok in the back of the head.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WWhickok.htm

Peggy Hull,1889-1967
Peggy Hull was born on a farm near Bennington, Kansas, on December 30, 1889. She left school at sixteen, got her first newspaper job on the Junction City, Kansas, Sentinel, and between 1909 and 1916 worked for newspapers in Colorado, California, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Ohio. In June 1917 Peggy persuaded the editor of the Morning Times to send her to France to report on World War I. She sailed for England, survived the submarine-infested Atlantic Ocean, and made her way to Paris-not an easy feat, since she was without benefit of War Department accreditation, which conferred a certain governmental blessing on and aid to war reporters. But no woman had ever been accredited, and it was War Department policy that none ever would be. She became the first woman in the United States to become an official war reporter. She reported on several wars including World War I and II.
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/DD/fdetm.html

John J. Ingall, 1833-1900
Kansans, like so many others, take for granted many of those things which are of the most importance to them. Take for instance, the state motto, Ad Astra Per Aspera, "To the stars through difficulty." It was suggested in 1861 by the young secretary to the first Kansas State Senate who later achieved international fame as a writer, wit and consummate politician. His name was John James Ingalls, and he came to Kansas in 1858, lured by a colorful lithograph of a town which was more promise than actuality.
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/ingalls_john.htm

Eva Jessye, 1895- 1992
Eva Jessye was best-known for her work on radio, in movies and on the Broadway stage. Her work pioneered the way for other African Americans in entertainment. She was a talented musician, actress, composer, poet, and author. Eva was born in Coffeyville, Kansas, in 1895 and also lived nearby in Caney and Iola as a child. At an early age she showed a talent for writing music and poetry. She was only 12 when she formed her first musical group, a girls' quartet. Eva was the first African American woman to succeed as a professional choir director and is best known as the choral director for the Broadway show Porgy and Bess.
http://www.kshs.org/people/jessye_eva.htm

Walter Johnson, 1887- 1946
With a remarkable amount of integrity, humility and talent never before seen in the Major Leagues, baseball's greatest pitcher truly stood above the rest. Walter Johnson's incredible speed and wholesome demeanor personified the golden age of baseball, earning him the country's gratitude and respect. He was a pitcher for the Washington Senators and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Born in Humboldt, Kansas, Johnson was the second of six children to Frank and Minnie Johnson. Growing up on his parent's farm, Johnson appreciated the lifestyle of a rural community, as he thought the isolation was the best preparation for life and a chance to learn more about himself. When Frank decided to move the family to California in 1901 to try their luck in the oil industry, Johnson decided to try his luck at baseball.
http://www.cmgworldwide.com/baseball/johnson/biography.htm

C. J. "Buffalo" Jones, 1844- 1919
Charles Jesse "Buffalo" Jones, immortalized by author Zane Gray in his book "The Last of the Plainsmen", is listed in the national archives as one of the "preservers of the American bison" and his colorful many-faceted career spanned several continents. Born January 31, 1844 in Illinois, Jones became fascinated as a youth with the capture of wild animals. He came to Kansas in 1866, where he developed into a skilled plainsman. With his knowledge and love of outdoor life, he made a good living for his wife, two sons and two daughters, hunting buffalo and capturing wild horses. On April 8, 1879, together with John Stevens, W. D. and James R. Fulton, he founded Garden City.
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/history/cjjones.html

Buster Keaton, 1895- 1966
Joseph Francis Keaton Jr. was born in Piqua, Kansas to Joe and Myra Keaton. Joe and Myra were stage comedians and they were very successful especially with the renowned magician Harry Houdini. At one time the Keaton family was at a hotel and Keaton fell down a full flight of stairs and surprisingly he was unharmed and Houdini said 'Some Buster!' and the name stuck. Joe Keaton thought to himself it would be a good name for the boy and so he has been known like that for over 100 years. At age 4 Buster had already began acting with his parents on the stage and for several years his father did all sorts of things to Buster by throwing him all over the stage and the audiences loved it. After several years The Three Keatons as they were now known toured America until some circumstances occurred were the act was then broken up. Buster was a stage veteran at the age of 21. On one wet New York day the successful comedian and director, Roscoe Arbuckle, was walking down the street when he spotted Keaton and invited him to start in films together and so Keaton's reputation was launched forever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Keaton

Emmett Kelly, 1898- 1979
Emmett Kelly Sr. was born in Sedan, Kansas on December 9, 1898. His father worked the railroad, and his mother ran the family-owned boarding house. He worked at various jobs, finally seeming to settle down working as a cartoonist for a silent film company in Kansas City. It was there that Emmett Kelly first drew the tramp clown character that he would later portray, Weary Willy. Although gainfully employed, Emmett Kelly had dreamed of joining the circus since he was a young boy, as many of us did. Emmett, however, worked to make that dream a reality by purchasing a trapeze, and learning how to become a circus ... aerialist. His first performing circus job (he had previously worked painting circus wagons) was as a trapeze artist with Howe's Great London Circus -- with Emmett doubling as a clown. Emmett agreed, and began performing, not as Weary Willie, but as a white-face clown.
http://www.clown-ministry.com/History/Emmett-Kelly-Sr.html

Stan Kenton, 1911-1979
Stanley Newcomb Kenton was born in Wichita, Kansas, and grew up in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from high school, he played in several small groups in Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas before beginning his own band in 1941. Kenton recorded more than 50 albums and pioneered Third Stream jazz, a mixture of classical music and jazz.
http://kenton.crispen.org/biography.html

Jack Kilby, 1923- 2005
Mr. Kilby grew up in Great Bend, Kansas. With B.S. And M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the Universities of Illinois and Wisconsin respectively, he began his career in 1947 with the Centralab Division of Globe Union Inc. in Milwaukee, developing ceramic-base, silk-screen circuits for consumer electronic products. Jack Kilby went on to pioneer military, industrial, and commercial applications of microchip technology. He headed teams that built both the first military system and the first computer incorporating integrated circuits. He later co-invented both the hand-held calculator and the thermal printer that was used in portable data terminals. Jack Kilby is the recipient of two of the nation's most prestigious honors in science and engineering. In 1970, in a White House ceremony, he received the National Medal of Science. In 1982, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, taking his place alongside Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and the Wright Brothers in the annals of American innovation. In 2000, Jack Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit
http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/kilbyctr/jackstclair.shtml

Omar Knedlik, 1916-1989
In the late 1950s, a man named Omar Knedlik owned a Dairy Queen in Coffeyville, Kansas. On warm days, Mr. Knedlik would store bottles of coke in his freezer and serve these super-cooled, semi-frozen drinks to his customers. He advertised this unique and refreshing drink as "The Coldest Drink in Town". As the popularity of this new drink grew, Mr. Knedlik felt the need and saw the opportunity to develop a machine that was capable of dispensing the same type of frozen carbonated beverage. Mr. Knedlik felt strongly that any new machine should produce a product that was equal to or better in quality than the product his consumers were currently enjoying. With a clear and unwavering idea of what he wanted, Mr. Knedlik began tinkering with an old ice cream machine and soon had the first primitive working model of the modern ICEE machine. The new machine was an instant hit!!!
http://www.iceedistributors.com/index1.php

Mary Alice Lair, 1938-????
She is first woman to become vice chairman of the state Republican committee and a member of the Kansas State Fair board. She gave up the job of representing Kansas on the Republican National Committee in 2002 at the age of 62. She was also a member of the Kansas and Kansas State Fair Board of Directors.
http://www.kshs.org/people/women.htm

Mary Elizabeth Lease, 1853- 1933
Mary Elizabeth Lease, lecturer, writer, and political agitator, was born in Ridgway, Pennsylvania. In 1868 she graduated from St. Elizabeth's Academy in Allegany, New York. Shortly after her graduation she moved to Osage Mission, Kansas, to teach at St. Anne's Academy. In 1873 she married Charles L. Lease, a pharmacist's clerk, and moved to Kingman County. They lost their farm there and in 1874 moved to Denison, Texas, where four of their five children were born, while Mary took in washing and studied law, her notes pinned above the washtub. Mary joined the temperance movement and began her career of political agitation. She was a naturally gifted speaker with an ability to make the mundane seem dramatic. She probably made her first political speech before the local Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Charles appears to have attempted to augment his fortunes by buying and selling lots in the infant railroad town. In 1885 Mary was admitted to the Kansas bar and began her activist career in earnest. She made her political debut in 1888 at the state convention of the Union Labor party, ran for office on its ticket, and soon joined the Farmers' Alliance, or Populist, party. She was referred to as the "People's Joan of Arc." In that party's 1890 campaign she made more than 160 speeches and claimed credit for the defeat of Kansas senator John Ingalls. She opposed big business and stated flatly that "Wall Street owns the country." After she allegedly told Kansas farmers to "raise less corn and more hell," she said a newspaper had made it up, but that it "was a good bit of advice."
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/LL/fle97.html

Lutie Lytle, 1875 - 1950
In October 1897 Topekans were buzzing with the news that one of their own was a pioneer in her field. One of only two students in Central Tennessee law school's graduating class of 1897, Lutie A. Lytle was among the first African American women to earn a law degree. In September 1897 Lytle was admitted to the Criminal Court in Memphis, Tennessee, after passing an oral exam. Newspaper accounts said that she was the first African American woman to be licensed to practice in Tennessee, and third in the United States. Later that month, after returning to Topeka, she became the first African American woman admitted to the Kansas bar.
http://www.kshs.org/people/hers_kansas/lytle_lutie.htm

Edward P. McCabe, 1850- 1923
Edward McCabe was one of the early settlers in Nicodemus, Kansas. He began his political career as clerk of Graham County in 1880, making him one of the first Black officials to be appointed in Kansas. In 1882 McCabe became the Kansas state auditor on the Republican ticket, which gave him the distinction of being the first Black to hold a statewide office in a northern state.
https://www.kshs.org/people/african_americans.htm

Jesse McCormack, ????
Jesse McCormack from Moran, the first woman in the United States to pass the examination for bank cashier.
http://www.kshs.org/people/#m

Kathryn O'Loughlin McCarthy, 1894-1952
She was born near Hays, Kansas, attended the rural schools; was graduated from the Hays High School, from the State Teachers College, Hays, and from the law school of the University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill., in 1920. She was admitted to the bar in 1921 and commenced practice in Chicago, Ill. She returned to Kansas in 1928 and continued the practice of law in Hays and served as a delegate to the State Democratic conventions in 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, and 1936, and to the Democratic National Conventions in 1940 and 1944. She was member of the State house of representatives in 1931 and 1932 and elected to the U.S Seventy-third Congress. She was the first woman from Kansas elected to the U.S. House of Representatives
http://www.factmonster.com/biography/us/congress/
o-loughlin-kathryn-ellen.html

Hattie McDaniel, 1895-1952
Hattie was born in Wichita, Kansas, the daughter of a Baptist minister and a spiritual singer. At the age of 15 she won a medal in dramatic art, but later started her career as a band vocalist. She worked as a singer with Professor George Morrison's Orchestra in 1915, touring the country. She became the first African American to sing on network radio in the United States. In 1931, she went to Hollywood to seek a film career and began as an extra before capturing larger roles. When work was not available, she hired herself out as a domestic, a cook, or a washerwoman. In 1939 this actress in Gone With the Wind became the first African American to receive an Academy Award. She was also the first black star ever to attend the ceremonies and the first African American to be buried in Los Angeles' Rosedale Cemetery.
http://members.aol.com/ttelracs/Hattie.htm

Peter Mehringer, 1910-1987
Nicknamed the "Kansas Whirlwind," Kinsley-native Peter J. Mehringer undoubtedly ranks as the greatest wrestler ever to attend the University of Kansas. After learning how to wrestle from a correspondence course, he went on to win two state championships, and three Missouri Valley Conference titles. In 1932, the KU sophomore won a gold medal in the Los Angeles Olympic Games, the first time a KU athlete brought home the gold.
http://www.kuhistory.com/proto/story.asp?id=28

Karl Menninger, 1893-1990
Karl Augustus Menninger was an American Psychiatrist and a member of the famous Menninger family of psychiatrists who founded the Menninger Foundation and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. The Menninger Foundation was also involved with the Topeka State Hospital, which included Capital City School, an alternative school for USD 501. The Capital City School stayed open after the State Hospital closed. The Capital City School building is named after Karl Menninger and a bust of Karl Menninger, along with a collection of his personal books reside in the school library.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Menninger

Dr. James Naismith, 1861- 1939
Dr. James Naismith is known world-wide as the inventor of basketball. Naismith joined the University of Kansas faculty in 1898, beginning a long career as director of teaching physical education and couch and being a chaplain. In addition to the creation of the basketball, James Naismith graduated as a medical doctor, primarily interested in sports physiology and what we would today call sports science and as Presbyterian minister, with a keen interest in philosophy and clean living. Naismith watched his sport, basketball, introduced in many nations by the YMCA movement as early as 1893. Basketball was introduced at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Naismith was flown to Berlin to watch the games. He died in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1939.
http://www.ku.edu/heritage/graphics/people/naismith.html

Carry Nation, 1846-1911
In 1877, Carry married David Nation, a preacher, attorney and editor 19 years her senior. They moved to Texas, then to Medicine Lodge, Kansas in 1889, where David became pastor of the Christian Church. Carry taught Sunday School, saw to the needs of poor people, became a jail evangelist and helped to establish a local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. She spoke out not only about the evils of drink, but tobacco and women's immodest dress as well. Kansas residents had voted for prohibition, but the law was largely ignored by saloonkeepers. They operated openly, but Nation would change all that. First she prayed in front of an establishment in 1890. She struck at her first saloon on June 1, 1900. Initially, she used rocks, bricks and other objects for these attacks, before turning to the hatchet. Nearly six feet tall and strapping, the determined woman closed the saloons in Medicine Lodge.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1058.html

Laurence Van Cott Niven, 1938 - Present
Laurence van Cott Niven is a US science fiction author. He graduated with a B.A. in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas. Perhaps his best-known work is Ringworld (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is in hard science fiction, utilizing big science concepts and theoretical physics in his stories. His writing also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Niven

Charlie Parker, 1920-1955
Born in Kansas City, Kansas, Parker was still a child when his family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where jazz, blues and gospel music were flourishing. His first contact with music came from school, where he played baritone horn with the school's band. When he was 15, he showed a great interest in music and a love for the alto saxophone. Soon, Parker was playing with local bands until 1935, when he left school to pursue a music career. From 1935 to 1939, Parker worked in Kansas City with several local jazz and blues bands from which he developed his art. In 1939, Parker visited New York for the first time, and he stayed for nearly a year working as a professional musician and often participating in jam sessions. The New York atmosphere greatly influenced Parker's musical style.
http://www.cmgww.com/music/parker/about/biography.html

Gordon Parks, 1912-Present
Born Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks in Fort Scott, Kansas, he is the youngest of 15 children. At the age of 16, Parks' mother dies and he moves to St. Paul Minnesota to live with his sister and her family. After a disagreement with her husband he is kicked out of the house. He then supports himself by working as a piano player in a brothel, a busboy, basketball player and a Civilian Conservation Corpsman. At the age of 25, Parks begins to seriously pursue photography. Parks becomes the first photographer to receive a fellowship from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. He begins to closely work with a Farm Services Administration (FSA) photographer by the name of Roy Stryker. He moves his family to Washington D.C. after joining the FSA. It was here that Parks learns from Stryker and takes his first professional photograph titled "American Gothic."
http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/parks2/biol.html

Frank E. Petersen, Jr., 1932 - Present
Frank E. Petersen, Jr., made history in the United States Marines, initially when he became the first black pilot and later as the first black general in the Corps. Petersen was born in Topeka, Kansas, and grew up just 10 miles from an army airfield used for World War II bombers. Although aircraft fascinated him, his mother, a graduate of the University of Kansas, pushed him and his siblings toward more intellectual paths. Petersen was identified as a gifted student in junior high and went to a special school for talented white and black students. After high school, he wanted to join the military, but his parents encouraged him to attend Washburn University. After a year, in June 1950, he enlisted in the Navy as a seaman apprentice and later served as an electronics technician.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/goe/eaglebios/96bios/peters96.htm

William Purvis & Charles Wilson,
America's First Patented Helicopter was the brainchild of two Machinists (W.J. Purvis and C.A. Wilson of Goodland) who were employed by The Chicago Rock Island Railroad in the early 1900s. Though the exact story of how the idea of a vertical take off and landing craft came to them has never been verified, both men were talented and innovative inventors, years ahead of their time. After several months of hand tooling parts in the railroad shop, the machine was put to the test. The mechanical parts were connected to the belt drive of a thrashing machine, and the twin rotors turned, faster and faster, until the great flying machine rose several feet into the air. The belt drive was slowed and the invention settled to the ground. Spectators were impressed and anxious to be included in the future of the 'flying machine'. A corporation was duly formed and shares of stock in the "Goodland Aviation Company" were sold for $10 each, a goodly sum in 1909.
http://www.goodlandnet.com/museum/helicopter.htm

Frederic Remington, 1861-1904
Frederic Sackrider Remington was born in Canton, New York. From a very young age, Remington showed artistic inclinations. His school notebooks were full of sketches, often depicting Old West characters and equestrian figures. Remington's fondness for horses also materialized at an early age. As a boy, he was an accomplished rider, a skill imparted by his father who had been a calvary officer during the Civil War. At 21, Remington inherited $9,000 from his father's estate, bought a small ranch in Peabody, Kansas, and with several other men eventually purchased a saloon in Kansas City. Even though he was cheated by his partners and lost considerable money, Remington had indeed been selling some paintings and drawings of his own, and he felt confident of his eventual success to return to New York. His first accomplishment as a professional artist came in 1882, when one of his sketches was published in the February 25 issue of "Harper's Weekly". He began to get regular commissions and by 1887 was supporting himself well.
http://www.askart.com/AskART/
artists/biography.aspx?searchtype=BIO&artist=5814

Mrs. Susanna Madora Salter, 1860- 1961
The town of Argonia in Sumner county, Kansas, became nationally and internationally known in 1887 when the voters of that little Quaker village, with a population of less than five hundred, elected the first woman mayor in America. Mrs. Susanna Salter, who received this honor, was one of a number of women mayors elected during the years after the Civil War when women were renewing their demands for more political rights.
http://www.kshs.org/publicat/khq/1954/54_3_billington.htm

Sven Birger Sandzen, 1871-1954
Birger Sandzen was born in Sweden and came to Lindsborg, Kansas, in 1894 to teach at Bethany College. For the next 52 years, he devoted himself to teaching, not only at the college but also across the prairie in small towns and villages, leaving behind generations of men and women with an appreciation of the visual arts. Sandzen was a professional artist with little interest in making a national reputation for himself. He was happy influencing no more than the small, midwestern communities. Sandzen was best known as an impressionist landscape painter of the American Rockies, but he was also a graphic artist and university professor.
http://www.sma.shs.nebo.edu/sandzen.html

Jerry Simpson, 1842- 1905
"Sockless" Jerry Simpson was one of the interesting characters in the early history of Barber County. Jerry was born in the province of New Brunswick. His father migrated to the United States when Jerry was a very little boy and settled in the state of Michigan. During the seventies he decided to come to Kansas and settled in Jackson County, where he engaged in farming and stock raising with some success, but concluded that there were better opportunities in the free-range country and came to Barber County. In 1886 the Union Labor party was organized and the old-time Greenbackers, of whom Jerry was one, promptly joined it. Jerry had already demonstrated some ability as speaker in country lyceums and the like, and his party in Barber County selected him as its candidate for the Legislature. In 1890 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Populist. He was nicknamed "Sockless" because he campaigned saying, "I can't represent you in Congress in silk stockings, I can't afford to wear 'em!"
http://www.cyberlodg.com/mlcity/jerry.html

Rex Stout, 1886-1975
Stout was educated at Topeka High School and at University of Kansas. From 1916 to 1927 he worked in odd jobs - as an office boy, store clerk, bookkeeper, and hotel manager. His most astonishing achievement was the invention of banking system for school children. The system was installed in 400 cities throughout the USA. Stout's first stories appeared in the 1910s among others in All-Story Magazine. He went to sell articles and stories to a variety of magazines. In 1927 he became a full-time writer. Stout featured his detective character Nero Wolfe in more than 70 mystery novels. He served as President of the Authors Guild and of the Mystery Writers of America. In 1959 he received Grand Master Award from the latter organization.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rexstout.htm

Lucy Hobbs Taylor, 1833- 1910
Lucy set her sights on becoming a doctor. Medical schools at the time would not allow women to enroll. A determined Lucy soon turned her ambitions towards dentistry. Lucy or "Dr. Lucy" as she was referred to by her patients was the first woman dentist to practice in Kansas. Dr. Lucy Hobbs Taylor graduated from a Chicago dental school as the world's first fully-trained woman dentist. In 1867 Lucy and her husband moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where they both practiced dentistry for more than forty years.
http://www.kshs.org/people/taylor_lucy.htm

Clyde Tombaugh, 1906-1997
Burdett is the boyhood home of Dr. Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto. Born in Illinois in 1906, he grew up on a farm northwest of here and was graduated from Burdett High School in 1925. During his youth, Tombaugh explored the heavens with homemade telescopes. Later he was hired by Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, and discovered Pluto, the outermost planet in our solar system, in 1930. During his planet search, Tombaugh photographed 65 percent of the sky and spent 7,000 hours examining about 90 million star images. Besides Pluto, his discoveries included six star clusters, one cloud of galaxies, one comet and about 775 asteroids. Few astronomers have seen so much of the universe in such minute detail. Dr. Tombaugh earned degrees from the University of Kansas and Northern Arizona University. He concluded his career as an astronomy professor at New Mexico State University.
http://www.kshs.org/people/tombaugh_clyde.htm

Waldo Wedel, 1908-1996
Waldo Wedel began his college studies close to home, at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas. In 1928 he transferred to the University of Arizona because in 1928 no universities in the Plains offered curricula in archaeology. Wedel received his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Arizona in 1930. At that point, he decided to pursue a Masters Degree at the University of Nebraska. During the next four summer field seasons, Wedel gained a broad background in Plains prehistory by participating in excavations at Archaic, Nebraska Culture, Upper Republican, Lower Loup, historic Pawnee, and early historic Arikara sites in Nebraska and South Dakota. After that, Wedel moved out to the University of California, Berkeley to pursue a Ph.D. in Anthropology. After obtaining his Ph.D., Wedel returned to the Plains as an archaeologist with the Nebraska State Historical Society. Wedel conducted extensive field projects throughout the Plains, served as the Field Director and Party Chief for the Smithsonian Missouri River Basin Surveys Projects, held positions in a number of professional societies and published prolifically. He has been referred to as the "Dean of Plains Archeology." At the time of his death, he was Archaeologist Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution's U.S. National Museum.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/ biography/uvwxyz/wedel_waldo.html

Rudolph Wendelin, 1910- 2000
Rudolph Wendelin was born February 27, 1910 in Herndon, Kansas. He grew up in Ludell, Kansas, and then attended the University of Kansas School of Architecture, and art schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. He began his career with the U.S. Forest Service in 1933 as a draftsman and illustrator where he helped to launch the Smokey Bear project. He has painted Smokey in hundreds of situations that point to conservation of natural resources and prevention of forest fires. Smokey is a public service project of the Advertising Council, Inc., to aid State and federal Forest Services.
http://www.burgenlandfamilies.com/rudolph.htm

William Allen White, 1868- 1944
For half a century, Emporia newspaper editor William Allen White had something to say on virtually every topic that had anything to do with Kansas or the nation. Born in Emporia in 1868, he grew up in El Dorado, attended the College of Emporia and the University of Kansas and worked on newspapers in Topeka and Kansas City before buying the Emporia Gazette in 1895. Thereafter until his death in 1944 he wrote countless editorials as well as articles and books that earned him the title of the "Sage of Emporia."
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/white_william.htm

Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1867- 1957
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born February 7, 1867, in a little log house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Laura's childhood was spent traveling west by covered wagon, to Indian Territory in Kansas, to Grasshopper Country in Minnesota, and then to Dakota Territory, where she met and married Almanzo Wilder. When Laura Ingalls Wilder started writing her classic "Little House" book series in 1932, she had no idea of creating fame for herself or the places where she had lived. She wrote simply to preserve tales of a lost era in American history, the pioneer period she vividly recalled from her growing-up years on the midwestern frontier in the 1870s and 1880s. When Laura completed her eight-volume series in 1943, she had achieved a lasting and substantial literary picture of pioneer life as she had experienced it in Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota.
http://www.lauraingallswilder.com/

Jess Willard, 1881- 1968
Jess Willard, born in St. Clere, Kansas, began his life as a farmer and cowboy. At age 29 he became a professional boxer. By 1915 he was taking on the world heavyweight champ. Dubbed "The Great White Hope" during this period of open discrimination, Willard beat the champ Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight champ. The fight lasted 26 rounds. Four years later Willard was beaten by Jack Dempsey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jess_Willard

Lorraine "Lizzie" Wooster, ????-1953
Kansans first elected a woman to statewide public office in 1918 in the person of Lorraine Elizabeth Wooster. Lizzie, as she preferred to be called, was elected state superintendent of public instruction at a time when 12,000 of the state's 15,000 teachers were female. Lizzie was also a lawyer and served as vice president of the National Association of Women Lawyers. She, again, ran for public office in 1932 when she entered the Republican primary as a candidate for attorney general. She was unsuccessful, but she continued to be active in party politics and educational and legal concerns until her death.
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/wooster_lorraine.htm

Harry Hines Woodring, 1890- 1967
Harry Hines Woodring was born in Elk City, Kansas, and was educated in city and county schools. At sixteen he began work as a janitor in the First National Bank of Neodesha, Kansas; moved up to become vice president and owner of the bank. He enlisted as a private and was later commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Tank Corps in World War I and was elected department commander of the American Legion in Kansas. He was elected governor of Kansas, 1931, and served to 1933; served as Assistant Secretary of War, 6 April 1933-25 September 1936, with supervision over procurement matters; served as Secretary of War, 25 September 1936-20 June 1940. He projected the recommendations of his predecessor for increasing the strength of the Regular Army, National Guard, and Reserve Corps; directed a revision of mobilization plans to bring personnel and procurement into balance; stressed the need to perfect the initial (peacetime) protective force. Returning to private life he ran unsuccessfully for governor of Kansas, 1946, and for the Democratic nomination for that post, 1956.
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/sw-sa/Woodring.htm

Henry Worrall, 1825-1092
Kansas' first artist and pioneer decorator was born at Liverpool, England. He came to Kansas in 1869 on account of his health; located at Topeka and interested himself in the welfare of the city and state; devoted himself for some time to the cultivation of grapes, and planted one of the finest vineyards in Shawnee county, on the grounds now occupied by the insane asylum. In 1869 Mr. Worrall became well known by his picture "Droughty Kansas," which depicts the state's crops in an exaggerated manner and was one of the best advertisements Kansas ever had, copies of it being printed and distributed all over the country. He became noted as a musician, artist, composer and wood carver; was organist for years in one of the churches at Topeka; played on more than twenty different instruments, and invented several wind instruments made of wood and straw. Mr. Worrall made the large wood carving of the seal of Kansas surrounded by products of the state, which was exhibited at the Centennial exposition at Philadelphia in 1876 and which was on view at Mount Vernon until 1910, when it was returned to Kansas and placed in the museum of the Kansas State Historical Society at Topeka. During the Centennial exposition Mr. Worrall was employed by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad company to write articles which would draw immigration to Kansas. He was always active in representing Kansas at state fairs and industrial expositions. He made crayon portraits of members of the supreme court and an oil portrait of Gov. Osborn, which hangs in the museum of the State Historical Society.
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/w/worrall_henry.html

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