Kansas

May 8

I’ve been traveling to Kansas since 2016, initially to photograph for my “Driving Through Flyover Country” project and later to work on a project with Joel Jensen about the history and current state of railroads in Kansas, which was published in the National Railway Historical Society Bulletin in 2024. Our initial trip was in early 2020 and since then I’ve been back quite a few times in the intervening years. While the trips were focused on gathering information for the Bulletin article I also photographed quite a bit of “non-railroad” related photos, which evolved into my “Wheat State” project. I was pretty satisfied with what I had gathered for “Wheat State” but Joel suggested making “one more” trip to Kansas in April 2024. I had vacation and it sounded good to me, so in early April I headed south from North Dakota for “one more” trip to Kansas.

Kansas is an interesting state, most people think of it as just a flat, dry, dusty Great Plains state. For the western half, beyond the 100th Meridian, that’s quite true (and because of that it is my favorite part of the state). People forget that Kansas also shares a border with Missouri, and eastern Kansas looks much different than western Kansas, with many more trees, meadows, rivers, and some pretty substantial rolling hills. In the middle is the transition zone. Sharon Springs and Cherryvale are both in Kansas, but it feels like two completely different states. The amount of history in Kansas is mind-blowing as well, the eastern portions being settled before the Civil War and the railroads pushing west not long after. But the best part of Kansas is just how friendly everyone is! Midwest Nice is not just a cliche in Kansas, it’s definitely a real thing.

Part of my goal on this trip was to get more portraits for “Wheat State,” something I’ve always struggled with. The stars must’ve aligned on this trip because very few people turned me down when I asked if I could photograph them. I gathered so much new material on this trip it’s going to result in completely starting over with “Wheat State,” but that’s OK, because it should only make it better. In this blog entry I want to share some of my favorite photos I gathered on this trip to Kansas.