SENSE OF PLACE IN THE PRAIRIE ENVIRONMENT SETTLEMENT AND ECOLOGY IN RURAL GEARY COUNTY, KANSAS

Authors

Nina Veregge, University of Colorado at Boulder

Date of this Version

1995

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly 15:2 (Spring 1995). Copyright © 1995 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Abstract

Many people who drive across Kansas on the Interstate or on Route 50 see the state as a single, unchanging stretch of treeless plain. A more perceptive observer witnesses the gradual transition from the east to the west: from rolling hills and wooded vales to wide open grassland and sage plain; from corn to winter wheat; from farms to ranches and feedlots; from running streams to dry washes; from humidity on a summer day that is relieved only by constant wind to dry heat blown across grassland untempered by stream valley microclimates. It appears a seamless transition where distinctions are lost in the relentless warp and weft of roads marking section lines across the state.