This Day in Kansas History

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March 17, 1898

Blanche K. Bruce, a black who worked his way to freedom from Mississippi to Kansas before the Civil War and who went on to become registrar of the U.S. Treasury, dies in Washington, D.C., 1898.  The Kansas City Times obituary called Bruce "the most conspicuous man of his race".

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March 18, 1923

Temperatures plummet 60 degrees in 12 hours, leaving it -8 degrees in Hiawatha, Brown County, and setting a new weather record for March in Kansas, 1923.

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March 20, 1912

Kansan William Kopsecker's "stadliasator," a weight with a wheel at the bottom which was to be hung from an airplane to keep it from capsizing, is approved by the War Department, 1912.

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March 21, 1963

Composer Thurlow Lieurance, a Kansan from his high school days on, whose works, most notably "Drama of the Yellowstone" and the song "By the Waters of the Minnetonka," were based on his study of Indian music, is born in Iowa, 1878.  Lieurance died in 1963 after having been music dean at  Wichita University from 1926 to 1953.

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March 22, 1972

Police officer John Banninger spots "an unusual light northwest of Dighton," 1972.  During the year, he saw the UFO three other times, noting that it moved rapidly away each time he reported it over his radio.  Around this time, similar sightings at Colby, Hays and Russell led Colby Police Officer Paul Carter to say:  "You'd think we were maniacs except for all the people who saw this. It's true; that's all I can say about it."

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March 23, 1911

The "largest locomotive in the world" to this date, built in the Santa Fe shops at Topeka, is given a test run, 1911.

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March 24, 1877

When "a gust of wind removed seven dollars out of the stocking of Alice Chambers," a Dodge City prostitute of Front Street cattle town days, and only one dollar is recovered, the Dodge City Times writes:  "We had supposed that the Kansas wind was of a higher order, and did not stoop to such larceny. . . under some circumstances even the wind can be found feeling around in by and forbidden places."

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March 25, 1908

Addressing a woman's club on the subject of food adulteration, Secretary of the Board of Health Samuel J. Crumbine randomly picks a gingersnap from a box, finds in it some brown straws, and concludes that "sweepings about the tables where pies and cakes and cookies are made, are used in gingersnaps."  1908

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March 26, 1873

A Farmer's State Convention at Topeka recommends that every farmer join some kind of farm organization, that taxes be reduced, that tariff laws be amended to protect farm prices, and freight rates be regulated, 1873.  Further, the convention denounces bankers' monopoly over interest rates as robbery of agricultural people.