Frank Carlson Library

Offers an inspiring portrait of the extraordinary high school football team whose quest for perfection sustains Smith Center, Kansas, its hometown in the heartland.

"Bank robbers wreaked havoc in the Sunflower State. After robbing the Chautauqua State Bank in 1911, outlaw Elmer McCurdy was killed by lawmen but wasn't buried for sixty-six years. His afterlife can be described only as bizarre. Belle Starr's nephew Henry Starr claimed to have robbed twenty-one banks. The Dalton gang failed in their attempt to rob two banks simultaneously, but others accomplished this in Waterville in 1911. Nearly four thousand known...

Union cavalryman Boston Corbett became a national celebrity after killing John Wilkes Booth, but as details of his odd personality became known, he also became the object of derision. Over time, he was largely forgotten to history, a minor character in the final act of Booth’s tumultuous life. And yet Corbett led a fascinating life of his own, a tragic saga that weaved through the monumental events of nineteenth-century America. Corbett was...

Presents the story of the five-year murder spree by the BTK strangler in Wichita, Kansas, the thirty-year investigation, and the final breakthrough in 2005 which led to the arrest of a suspect.

In 1869, Concordia, Kansas, was declared the county seat of what would become Cloud County. At first, the town existed only on paper as a project being pushed by James M. Hagaman and a small group of partners. Once development started, Concordia rapidly grew to become a center of commerce south of the Republican River that eventually attracted four railroad lines. It became a town of landmarks, including several famous hotels, two opera houses, Nazareth...

It's the Depression and it's rural Kansas. For good measure, nature decides to throw in a Dust Bowl. It's not the life Cat Peters would have chosen, but the young Mennonite girl doesn't have much say in it. Driven to the edge of bankruptcy by the relentless winds of the Dust Bowl, Cat's family is desperate. Fortunately, wealthy Simon Yoder generously saves them with a loan. Everyone gets something more out of the arrangement than what they bargain...

Orphaned by the untimely deaths of her parents, Emma Jorden has to abandon her Kansas home. Lost on the featureless prairie and near death, she is rescued by Shea Hawkshadow, a half-breed Cheyenne warrior. Her impulsive marriage to Shea propels them both into a precarious and treacherous existence. Fleeing brutal persecution for their interracial marriage, they embark on a risky journey across the frontier.-Cover.

"In his third book, Robert Rebein pulls together a unified collection of narrative essays set largely on the high plains of western Kansas. He introduces readers to a world of feedlot cowboys, stock car drivers, and young boys dreaming of basketball glory, while also providing glimpses into a darker side: damaged young men returning home from war, long-haul truckers addicted to crystal meth, the sadly heroic residents of a nursing home bearing the...

Collects oral histories, eye-witness accounts, and local legends about ghosts, poltergeists, spook lights, and other restless spirits.