Frank Carlson Library

History of Harvey Houses in Kansas.

In 1848 Vienna, fifteen-year-old August Bondi is forced to emigrate to America, leaving behind his comrades in the revolution. In his new country he is confronted by the evil of slavery, and sets out for Bleeding Kansas to join forces with the notorious John Brown.

"For fans of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, the thrilling true story of a would-be terrorist attack against a Kansas farming town's immigrant community, and the FBI informant who exposed it. In the spring of 2016, as immigration debates rocked the United States, three men in a militia group known as the Crusaders grew aggravated over one Kansas town's growing Somali community. They decided that complaining about their new neighbors and threatening them...

Kansas' storied past is filled with fascinating firsts, humorous coincidences and intriguing characters. A man who had survived a murderous proslavery massacre in 1858 hanged his would-be executioner five years later. A wealthy Frenchman utilized his utopian ideals to create an award-winning silk-producing commune in Franklin County. A young boy's amputated arm led to the rise of Sprint Corporation. The first victim of the doomed Donner Party met...

"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...

Sarah Tanton had headed west seeking the promise of a fresh start, and freedom from the memories that haunted her. Yet, little did she know that every step brought her closer to the man she'd loved and lost. Though his testimony had landed her in prison, Daniel Harrison had never forgotten the woman who had taught him about love, and betrayal. But despite their past, Daniel found himself thinking about their future.

In Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959 the Clutter family is murdered and Carly Fleming, recently arrived from New York, inserts herself into the investigation, along with New Yorker writer Truman Capote.

Kansans like to think of their state as a land of industrious, law-abiding and friendly people, and for the most part they are correct. But its history has many tales of murders, cons, extrajudicial killings and other crimes. Its restive frontier attracted menacing characters, such as a cowboy who murdered a man for snoring, the serial-killing Bender family and the train-robbing James-Younger Gang. Although the area was eventually settled, the scandals...

"Brinksmanship in the Sunflower State. Kansas played an outsized role in the Cold War, when civilization's survival hung in the balance. Forbes Air Force Base operated nine Atlas E intercontinental ballistic missile launch sites. Schilling Air Force Base was the hub for twelve Atlas F ICBMs. McConnell Air Force Base operated eighteen Titan II ICBMs. A Kansas State University engineering professor converted a discarded Union Pacific Railroad water...

Twin sisters Nettie and Nellie Crook are taken away from their disfunctional parents in 1910 when they are only five years old, and placed in an orphanage--at six they are put on the orphan train by the Children's Aid Society and moved from New York City to Kansas, ending up in a household where they are treated more as servants than children.