Fold a map of the continental United States in quarters. The place where those folds meet is Kansas - as this is the center of the United States. In 1990 we visited a place in Kansas called Midway USA, Kinsley, Kansas, and is 1561 mile to New York and San Francisco from this point

Perhaps the best place to get an overview of the states colorful past is the Kansas History Museum in Topeka. Kansas boasts modern cities as well as being home to cattle towns that have retained their Old West flavor and cowpoke brashness. Kansas is a state blanketed with golden fields of grain as well as having the largest swatch of true tall-grass prairie left in the United States.

Kansas has also nurtured her share of American heroes, most notably Dwight D. Eisenhower who's boyhood home was Abilene, where there is a museum, library and chapel dedicated to his life and work provide a fascinating look at this great American. To experience the flavor of an Old West cow town, visit Abilene, Dodge City and Wichita - all three restored to capture their frontier look. Two national Historic Sites, Fort Larned and Fort Scott, re-enact the rigors of frontier military life. The covered-wagon trains, perhaps the best-known symbol of Western settlement, once carried intrepid settlers to new lives. Kansas, however, does not live in the past, as a visit to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Discovery Center in Hutchinson will attest. This space center and museum boasts the second largest collection of space artifacts in the world. As a rural state, Kansas has much to offer nature lovers. Large herds of buffalo still roam the plains in several game preserves.

Abilene.

Located at the end of the junction of Interstate 70 and K-15 Highways. As the official end of the Chisholm Trail, Abilene has a proud and colorful history and offers a wonderful variety of attractions such as the Abilene Smoky Valley Excursion Train, American Indian Art Center, the Eisenhower Museum, the Greyhound Hall of Fame, the Great Plains Theater, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Museum of Independent.

At the end of the Civil War when millions of longhorns were left on the plains of Texas without a market, Over 3 million head of Texas Longhorn cattle arrived in Abilene between the years of 1867 and 1872, to be shipped east by rail. the Union Pacific was building west across Kansas. Joseph McCoy, an Illinois stockman, believed these cattle could be herded north for shipment by rail. He build yards at Abilene and sent agents to notify the Texas cattlemen. In 1867 the first drives were made up the Chisholm trail and during the next five years more than a million head were received.

The name Abilene means city of the plains. Abilene's reputation as the "wickedest and wildest town in the west" developed as hundreds of cowboys arrived in town along the historic Chisholm Trail during the late 1800's. It was a crude little frontier village of about 300 population when it was "discovered" by Joseph G. McCoy and the cattle traders as the railroad was pushing west. It grew almost overnight into a booming city of 3,000 with the largest stockyards west of Kansas City, more than a dozen saloons, gaudy night clubs, gambling houses, thriving mercantile businesses, and hotels. Joseph G. McCoy's stockyards set Abilene on its way to becoming a booming cow town located at the end of the historic Chisholm Trail. Old Abilene Town and Museum is a recreation of Texas Street in cow town Abilene, Wild Bill Hickock became famous for his attempts to maintain law and order on Abilene's legendary Texas Street. We visited here in 1990, and it is located at S.E. 6th at Buckeye Tel 785-263-4194. Where you can see Can-can girls, gunfights and ride the stage coach, there is also a museum and shops. and is open - early spring to late fall this depends on weather.