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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.

In 1926, U.S. Route 66 stitched together small towns, big cities, farms, deserts, dreams, and desperation. Over the next century, the Mother Road became more than pavement—it became a symbol of movement and reinvention, of loss and possibility, of who gets to travel freely and who is pushed to the margins.

First published in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath remains one of the most enduring novels of the American experience. Steinbeck follows the Joad family as they travel Route 66 from Oklahoma to California, driven west by economic collapse and environmental disaster.

Early-day travelers on the Santa Fe Trail developed a shortened route that took them through the Southwest corner of Kansas. Known as the Cimarron Cutoff, or Dry Route, the sixty-mile stretch between the Arkansas and Cimarron Rivers was a perilous route for men and animals in dry seasons, when wagon trains often ran out of water.

Hello listeners! This is Lauren Pronger from Amarillo, TX for the HPPR Radio Readers introducing our new book for the month: The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Men, and the Perfect Breakfast Burrito by award-winning graphic novelist Shing Yin Khor.

In the late 1800s, thousands of European Americans attempted to establish permanent settlements in Northwest Kansas. Among those who survived and prospered were the Pratts, a family of immigrants from Yorkshire County, England. Between 1878 and 1882, Abraham Pratt and his two sons, Fenton and Tom, settled on adjacent tracts of land in the South Solomon valley. The Pratts were ambitious, hardworking, and inventive, and unlike many, when they came to this country, they had money.

It’s mid-February, and one of the best parts about gardening on the High Plains is that we’ll be doing it before too long! Once the ground starts to thaw, you can get some parts of your garden kicked into high gear by having seedlings ready to go as soon as you’re able to dig. Starting your seedlings indoors in late winter gives you a head start, and lets you start growing even earlier in the year, and we’ll talk more about other benefits in this week’s episode!

This is Glenda Shepard from Yucca Corners Farm in Stanton County KS. This is my Radio Readers BookByte for The American Dream by Shing Yin Khor. This is the second book in HPPR’s Spring Read of 2026 for the Radio Readers Book Club.

Whenever we get a blast of that arctic air making things cold where we live, it occasionally brings snow and ice with it. But when it comes to clearing your driveway, most of us either shovel it, or get some assistance from salt or a chemical blend that'll melt that ice away. The only problem is that there's more than one type of chemical, and salt can be bad for your concrete as well as your plants. This week, we'll talk about how the various ice melt products are made, and which might be the best choice for you!