As soon as the Kansas Territory was opened for settlement in 1854, towns sprang up like mushrooms--first along the Missouri border, then steadily westward along trail routes, rivers, and railroad lines. Many of them barely got beyond the drawing board and hundreds of them flowered briefly and died, victims of the "boom or bust" economy of the frontier and the vagaries of weather, finance, mining, agriculture, railroad construction, and politics.

Ghost Towns of Kansas is a practical guide to these forsaken settlements and a chronicle of their role in the history of Kansas. It...

This work takes the reader on a journey round the state of Kansas, visiting 106 towns, such as Palermo, Fostoria, and Old Clear Water, and examining why they have declined or been abandoned.

Palermo was a thriving port on the Missouri in the 1850s. Steamboats lined up to load and unload merchandise. Hotels flourished and pleasure cruises came from St. Louis. When the steamboat business collapsed, the railroad came. But the railroad had no depot, and passengers had to flag down trains from the platform. After a few years, the trains stopped coming altogether. By 1904 the post office was gone.

Like hundreds of towns across Kansas, Palermo peaked then petered, leaving behind only a faded image of its former self. Now it's a ghost town-a shadowy remnant of what it once was, says...

This is the third volume in the original Ghost Towns of Kansas series. Originally published in 1982, this 28th anniversary reissue documents the histories of a hundred exciting Kansas ghost towns that grew, prospered, and died across the state. These hundred ghost town histories are organized by topic, such as boom towns, mining towns, free state/ pro-slavery towns, county seat towns, and railroad towns. This series won numerous awards and accolades, including several news emmys. This third volume has been lovingly edited and restored with a new foreword by the author.

The book that started the series: Ghost Towns of Kansas Volume One was the enormously successful first release of a six volume series that spanned four decades. This book was produced in 1976 when the author, Daniel Fitzgerald, was a senior in high school. It documents the histories of 115 different Kansas ghost towns that prospered and died in the state's history. This release is lovingly edited and restored, and it includes 19 ghost towns that were pulled from the author's unpublished notes and released here for the first time. Ghost Towns of Kansas Volume One has been out of print for over...

When readers think of the destructive nature of tornadoes, they often think of Kansas. The Sunflower State has certainly earned the nickname, "The Cyclone State," on and off since territorial times. The movie, the Wizard of Oz, has not helped the state's image of wild weather in the heart of tornado alley and the subsequent widespread death and destruction. Now, Sound and Fury provides a comprehensive look at the many tornadoes that visited Kansas. Over a hundred of the best-known tornado events are documented here, including the famous Irving tornado of 1879; the Udall tornado that killed...

Over 6,000 ghost towns have existed in the history of Kansas. Many of these were boom towns that evolved into major communities overnight, and disappeared just as fast. Some of these fascinating places were mining towns, steamboat towns, trail stops, railroad hubs, and county seat contenders. Their stories are all exciting, and many of their locations are mostly forgotten. Daniel Fitzgerald revisits over a hundred of these mysterious ghosts. Like a detective sorting through the dusty, dark corners of the state's history, he brings them back to life in his sixth and last volume of all new...