 |
| Grain Field, western Kansas © Doug Hickok All Rights Reserved (Click on image for larger view) Although western Kansas seems an endless wave of golden grains, these high plains were once the realm of immense prairie land. Vast herds of buffalo roamed the plains, and prairie grass stretched for hundreds of miles. It was a scene my ancestor James Butler Hickok (aka Wild Bill) was no doubt familiar with, having worked as a stagecoach driver in the territory of Kansas, and later as gunslinging marshal in Hays City and Abilene. But the Old West is gone, along with the unspoiled prairie. Today the vast lands of Kansas are a bread basket for the world, producing wheat, oats, barley, milo, soybeans, corn, and sunflower seeds for backyard birds, and binocular-slinging birders, like me. |