Blue Thoughts from a Red State: Brush with HistoryJesse Zerger Nathanbyline‚ Aug. 29‚ 2006It’s been one brush with history after another here in Kansas recently: pruning at one of the oldest settler cemeteries in Lawrence three weeks ago revealed the long sought-after gravesite for Walter B.S. Griswold, killed here by slave-state raiders from Missouri in 1863—one hundred and forty-three years ago this month. It’s the anniversary of the destruction of a fountain dedicated to Carry Nation in Wichita, Kansas (Nation once artfully applied her hatchet to the Eaton Hotel bar there years ago): the fountain was knocked over by the unwitting driver of a beer truck reversing. Last week, Kayakers near Clinton Lake, a reservoir in northeastern Kansas, discovered the skeleton of an American Mastodon. Mastodons were last seen in these parts over 10,000 years ago. Most significantly, however, the University of Kansas announced a comprehensive effort to return artifacts to Native American tribes in following with the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. “If the process goes smoothly,” said Thomas Foor, a University of Montana professor hired to manage the restoration process, “we can repatriate most of them in the next three to four months.” |