Summer 2013 Issue

In this issue we are featuring a story on the history of the Riverkings on the Kaw River in Douglas County and the small town resilience of Cuba, Kansas, located in North Central Kansas.
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The Kansas Riverkings: Life on the Kaw
By Barbara Higgins-Dover MS. Ed.

"Kansas Riverking,” a name or title that could mean a variety of different things to different people. It is however a term that categorizes a specific population of people, living in a very specific way, at a certain time in history. The Kansas Riverkings were a group of men who were born in the late 19th and into the mid-20th centuries; they were great adventurers whose lives were spent on and around the Kansas “Kaw” River. They were rulers of their own domain, passers of great knowledge, and outdoorsmen fighting to care for themselves and their community. They knew about determination, perseverance, and the will to succeed. They were known by many as amazing commercial fishermen, but, they were also boat builders, net weavers, and trappers. The story of the Kansas Riverkings begins in 1896 Lawrence, Kansas, just east of the Kansas River Dam, a structure that divides north Lawrence from the rest of the town. The lives of these men and the unique stories about them were recently displayed in a 2013 Watkins Community Museum of History exhibit in Lawrence and, with the help of a Kansas Humanities Grant, will soon become part of a lecture/public presentation appearing at other towns in Kansas.

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Cuba, Kansas: Small-Town America with Big-Time Resilience
By Cecilia Harris

As a young photojournalist, Jim Richardson set out to “document small-town America before it was gone.” Growing up in north central Kansas, he had seen schools and businesses close in surrounding rural communities as people left in search of jobs or other opportunities in bigger cities. Thinking Cuba was destined to someday become a ghost town, he began photographing the city with a population of less than 300 that was located not far from where he was reared. What developed was a portfolio of people who refused to let their town die without a fight.

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