By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

“We’re number 1!” That cry goes up in sports arenas across the country. Today, around Kansas Day, the state of Kansas can point to many Kansas firsts. These are accomplishments in addition to sports where our state was number one in historic developments.

Marci Penner is executive director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, author, and passionate advocate for rural Kansas. Her organization’s website, www.kansassampler.org, plus Kansapedia and other online sources list numerous cases where Kansas was number 1.

For example, the first U.S. patent for a helicopter was issued to Kansans William Purvis and Charles Wilson of Goodland. They invented the helicopter in 1909. A replica of their original helicopter can be viewed at the High Plains Museum in Goodland.

In addition to helicopters, other Kansans made their mark in aviation. The booming airplane production in Wichita led to that city being called the “air capital of the world.”

In the 1920s, Clyde Cessna of Kingman, Lloyd Stearman of Wellsford, and Walter Beech worked on one of those pioneering airplane companies in Wichita. Walter Beech and his wife Olive Ann from Waverly started their own business, Beech Aircraft Company, in 1932. When Walter became ill, Olive Ann Beech took over the company. Olive Ann was the first woman to receive the National Aeronautic Association’s Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy.

Of all women in aviation, Amelia Earhart was the most famous. Earhart, from Atchison, was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. She was preceded by the first man to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic. His name was Charles Lindbergh. When Lindbergh was barnstorming as a young pilot, he lived near Bird City.

On a more down to earth note, the world’s first bulldozer was invented by J. Earl McLeod and Jim Cummings in Morrowville.

There are many, many other Kansas firsts. Several involve women in politics. Susanna Salter of Argonia was the first woman elected mayor in the U.S. in 1887. She was a member of the Prohibition Party, which reminds me that Kansas was the first state to pass a law to prohibit all alcoholic beverages (that one didn’t work out so well.)

In 1949, banker Georgia Neese Clark of Richland was appointed by President Harry Truman as the first woman Treasurer of the United States. That meant her signature was printed on millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. currency.

In 1978, Nancy Landon Kassebaum was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first woman elected to a full term in the Senate without being preceded by a husband. She would later retire to the family ranch near Burdick.

Kansas women and minorities made their mark in other fields also. Hattie McDaniel of Wichita was the first African-American woman and, for that matter, the first African-American of any gender, to win an Academy Award for her role in “Gone with the Wind.” Another woman founded the first black women’s academy in New England. She came to Kansas and is buried at the rural community of Elk Falls, population 107 people. Now, that’s rural.

In sports, Lynette Woodard of Wichita was the first woman to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. In politics, Charles Curtis of Topeka was the first Native American to become U.S. vice president.

Some firsts are less prominent. The nation’s first chain restaurant was the Harvey House restaurants which served Kansas railroad travelers. A Harvey House Museum is in Florence. Decades later, the country’s first national hamburger chain was founded when White Castle opened in Wichita.

The world’s first synthetic diamond was made by Dr. Willard Hersey on the McPherson College Campus in 1926. Also in McPherson was an amateur athletic basketball team sponsored by the local oil refinery. In 1936, the first year that basketball was an Olympic sport, the Globe Refiners from Kansas became the first basketball team to win a gold medal in the Olympics.

“We’re number 1!” These are some of the Kansas firsts which we find in our history. We salute Marci Penner and others who are making a difference by finding and sharing these Kansas accomplishments. I appreciate the way that they have helped put Kansas first.

“You should probably know that one of your ancestors was an American President,” my Mom told me one day. I was in fifth grade, so probably about 11 years old. And I had never heard my relatives talk about an ancestor who was President.

“Which one?” I asked.

“James K. Polk,” she answered, and went on with her housework with no further words.

I could hardly wait to get to school. I was a kid who did my homework. So I always had extra time while the teacher worked with other students. A nod from the teacher and I headed straight back to the reference books. I was already working my way through the encyclopedia page-by-page, reading those things that were most interesting (and most were). But I had not yet arrived at the “P’s’.

And there it was: James K. Polk.

My first question was what his middle initial “K” stood for (remember, I am just in fifth grade). It is “Knox.” My Dad worked on road construction—we moved around a lot—and I had just spent the prior semester going to school in Knox, Indiana. Strange to name a place after a person’s middle name. “Probably some other Knox” I correctly guessed. But what did this president do? I read on.

Oh, dear!

You do not see prominent statues of President Knox in the Capitol or read much about him today. He was the great invader, the man who put our nation’s “Manifest Destiny” into action with vengeance. At that time, the U.S. had no West Coast. Mexico extended up through what is now California. And Britain held all property from there northward to Alaska (at that time Russian).

There were two major parties back then, the Whigs and the Democrats. Polk was an expansionist and the 1844 Democratic platform advocated that the entire region held by Britain, from Oregon north to the southern edge of Alaska, should be claimed for America. That northern limit was at a latitude of 54 degrees 40 minutes North, leading expansionists to shout “Fifty-four forty or fight!”

At the Democratic Convention, Polk was a “dark horse” candidate, only nominated by the ninth ballot. As our 11th President, Polk settled the dispute with Britain by extending the Canadian boundary along the 49th parallel. Britain wanted to avoid war. The treaty was signed in 1846.

Then he started “Polk’s War.” Most Americans, including Congress, were not in favor of this war just to seize land. Polk was a skilled liar, a politician and supremely arrogant.

As a little kid, I could read between the lines where the encyclopedia tried to smooth over the atrocities. Today, the book “Invading Mexico” by Joe Wheelan provides even more details.

What is now New Mexico, Arizona and California belonged to Mexico. Mexico had won them in a war with Spain 25 years earlier. But Mexico was no military power, having lost their war with Texas 10 years earlier.

Polk sent a message to the retired General Santa Anna (the general who lost Texas) in Cuba asking him to now help the U.S. against Mexico. Instead, Santa Anna returned to Mexico, became president, and led their unsuccessful defense of Mexico.

The Polk War took a terrible toll on Mexico civilians due to our massive shelling of villages. American troops eventually occupied Mexico City. Polk’s War ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. Our North and South now debated how slavery would expand into these new territories and the drumbeat to our Civil War quickened. That is why you will find no national monuments to this Mexican War of 1846-48. Polk was a one-term President and died in 1849.

It takes the long hindsight of history to fully evaluate a Presidency. There are certainly other candidates for “worst President in history.” Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, Warren Harding and James Buchanan often make scholars’ “worst list” too. That is a lot of embarrassed descendants.

As a little kid, I remember thinking how it might be wise if we let people run for President only if they had no offspring. Then there would be no need for little kids to hide their ancestry.

John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.