High Plains History
Tuesdays: during Morning Edition (6:45 & 8:45 AM CT) & All Things Considered (4:44 & 6:44 PM CT).
Take a few minutes to step back in time and explore the historical events, places, persons, social movements, and humorous incidents from the centuries of human settlement on the High Plains. High Plains History is written by Skip Mancini with the assistance of historians, historical societies, and museums from across the region. It's produced by Skip Mancini, Lynn Boitano, and High Plains Public Radio.
Have a historical event you'd like to hear about on this show? Contact Lynn Boitano at lboitano@hppr.org, or call (800) 678-7444 to get in touch!
Fall 2025
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Today we’ll take you out to the ball game. Though we won’t buy you some peanuts and crackerjack, we’ll have another type of treat. We’ll tell you the story of a tiny town in Haskell County, Kansas that had a semi-pro baseball team in the 1950s, and of the top-notch uniforms they wore. -
Historic Lake Scott State Park is considered a recreational gem of western Kansas. -
Virginia Kerns Frantz was born near Granada, Colorado on February 28, 1924. She remembers her childhood as a hand-to-mouth existence. -
A list of the movers and shakers who helped develop the city of Amarillo would have to include Guy Anton Carlander. -
Montezuma, located in the southwestern corner of Kansas, is a small town with big bragging rights. In addition to sporting one of the first wind farms on the high plains, this quiet, largely German Mennonite community is home to the Stauth Memorial Museum. -
In the late 1870s many Southern blacks saw Kansas as The Promised Land, partially because of the availability of free land through the Homesteaders Act, but also because so many Kansans had taken an anti-slavery stance in the battle for free-state status prior to the Civil War. -
In Southwest Kansas, the dry and dusty bed of the once mighty R-kansas River (also called the Arkansas) gives little indication of the swirling waters of death and destruction that have periodically overflowed its banks. -
After 1880, land colonizers lured a number of farmers to the Panhandle Plains of Texas by promoting the agricultural benefits that might befall a landowner in this vast area. -
In 1929, Marion Talley, world-renowned Metropolitan Opera star, began a brief love affair with the Heartland when she purchased farm ground near Colby in northwest Kansas. -
The Texas Longhorn, an icon of the past, was a work of nature, untouched by man’s attempts at breeding and crossbreeding.
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Today we’ll take you out to the ball game. Though we won’t buy you some peanuts and crackerjack, we’ll have another type of treat. We’ll tell you the story of a tiny town in Haskell County, Kansas that had a semi-pro baseball team in the 1950s, and of the top-notch uniforms they wore. -
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Virginia Kerns Frantz was born near Granada, Colorado on February 28, 1924. She remembers her childhood as a hand-to-mouth existence. -
A list of the movers and shakers who helped develop the city of Amarillo would have to include Guy Anton Carlander. -
Montezuma, located in the southwestern corner of Kansas, is a small town with big bragging rights. In addition to sporting one of the first wind farms on the high plains, this quiet, largely German Mennonite community is home to the Stauth Memorial Museum. -
In the late 1870s many Southern blacks saw Kansas as The Promised Land, partially because of the availability of free land through the Homesteaders Act, but also because so many Kansans had taken an anti-slavery stance in the battle for free-state status prior to the Civil War. -
In Southwest Kansas, the dry and dusty bed of the once mighty R-kansas River (also called the Arkansas) gives little indication of the swirling waters of death and destruction that have periodically overflowed its banks. -
After 1880, land colonizers lured a number of farmers to the Panhandle Plains of Texas by promoting the agricultural benefits that might befall a landowner in this vast area. -
In 1929, Marion Talley, world-renowned Metropolitan Opera star, began a brief love affair with the Heartland when she purchased farm ground near Colby in northwest Kansas. -
The Texas Longhorn, an icon of the past, was a work of nature, untouched by man’s attempts at breeding and crossbreeding.
