Wichita’s Union Station (@ 701 East Douglas Avenue) is a historic Beaux-Arts landmark that opened in 1914 and served as the city’s central passenger rail hub for 65 years. One million tickets were sold in 1920 alone.
Notable visitors included Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.
#Wichitawesome
Strife is no way good way to live a life.
In a tumultuous world filled with turmoil, a sanctuary from the storm is a welcome relief.
#Music is a proven refuge.
Super songs and prime performances have no "best by" or expiration dates.
From where the buffalo roam,
Where the dear and the antelope play.
Main Street, Mid-1870s
Wichita, on the east bank of the Arkansas River, officially incorporated in 1870.
Among the signatories on the town charter was a lone woman, town laundry operator, Catherine "The Widow" McCarty.
Her elder teenage son, after leaving #Wichita, became the gunman, Billy the Kid.
Strife is no way good way to live a life.
In a tumultuous world filled with turmoil, a sanctuary from the storm is a welcome relief.
#Music is a proven refuge.
Super songs and prime performances have no "best by" or expiration dates.
From where the buffalo roam,
Where the dear and the antelope play.
A twofer - Wichitans, Don Johnson and Joe Walsh are both in this cool cult classic.
"Zachariah" (1971) is an acid Western film, It is a cinematic anomaly, a psychedelic #Western that melds the traditional elements of the genre with the countercultural ethos of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Saddle up.
Wichita's Christopher Connelly in "Jungle Raiders" (1985)
An adventure movie featuring Captain Yankee (Christopher Connelly) and his partner (Lee Van Cleef) exploiting their adventure expertise until they’re coerced into a perilous quest for a fabled gem, entangling them in a high-stakes adventure.
"Law of the Pampas" (1939) is a American Western film starring Wichita's, Sidney Toler, in a rare comedic turn.
Toler is best known for his role as the Oriental detective, Charlie Chan.
This movie blends crime and cowboy justice with a cross-border twist.
Sidney's fierce in an big ol' barroom brawl.
Celebrating exceptional talent from a place ranked recently as the 2nd most boring city in America.
It isn't nor are those who've called it home at some point in life.
#Wichita is a "best kept secret" kind of place.
Toler is buried here.
His mom opened an opera house in 1900.
Sidney performed there.
A dandy place to be,
in this land of the free,
it's not too hard to see
(actually, really quite easy)
that America is truly
a land where people can be
(meaning both you and me)
the very greatest county
in this world's history
when we all stand in unity,
in perfect, happy harmony
Our 1st #NoKingsDay
Celebrating exceptional talent from a place ranked recently as the 2nd most boring city in America.
It isn't, nor are those who've called it home at some point in life.
#Wichita is a "best kept secret" kind of place.
A Nazis suck movie.
Vera Miles is exceptional, best known for her role in "Psycho."
Wyatt Earp: "John Wesley Hardin"
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (The Wichita Days)
John Wesley Hardin comes to Wichita to seek #revenge on Earp for running his friend, Clemens, out of Wichita.
Hollywood take on the early days of #Wichita,
town full of fast draws and dead bodies in dusty streets.
Wyatt Earp: "The Gambler"
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (The Wichita Days)
Earp is blamed for the back shooting of the saloon owner Bennett after exposing his crooked games.
Hollywood's take on the early days of #Wichita,
full of dishonest gambling houses dedicated to cheating gullible cowboys.
James Lee Burke is an American author, a former professor at #Wichita State University, has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, won 3 Edgar Awards for his novels and given the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Newest, thrilling and insightful:
"Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie"
Charles Plymell (Beat poet, novelist, and small press publisher) once revealed, "That was the advantage of nightlife in #Wichita, Kansas. In Hollywood or New York time would be in demand. Here it was spent for the good of it, not for the duty of it."
Even if you were there, you weren't this "There".
Strife is no way good way to live a life.
In a tumultuous world filled with turmoil, a sanctuary from the storm is a welcome relief.
#Music is a proven refuge.
Super songs and prime performances have no "best by" or expiration dates.
From where the buffalo roam,
Where the dear and the antelope play
Wyatt Earp: "The Killer"
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (The Wichita Days)
After Earp kicks Bennett out of Wichita for a crooked Faro game, Bennett hires the killer Mannon Clemens to kill Earp and have his cowboys tree the town.
Hollywood's take on the early days of #Wichita.
Yee haw. Saddle up.
On the day of the big baseball game, 6,000 KKK members lived in Wichita.
Publisher, William Allen White, called the Klan a “self-constituted body of moral idiots.”
The contest, which the Wichita Eagle described as a “novel game," was played in 102-degree heat, with searing winds
The Black team won.
A famous ballgame.
"Strangle holds, razors, horsewhips and other violent implements of argument will be barred at the baseball game at Island Park when the baseball club of #Wichita Klan Number 6 goes up against the Wichita Monrovians, Wichita's crack colored team."
Monrovians whipped the Klan 10-8.
Starring Wichita's, Hattie McDaniel, a daughter of slaves
"Judge Priest" is a 1934 heartwarming classic movie starring Will Rogers as Judge Priest.
The picture is set in post-reconstruction Kentucky and the supporting cast features Hattie McDaniel, Henry B. Walthall and Stepin Fetchit.
#Juneteenth
In Wichita's early years the KKK, #KluKluxKlan, was alive and well, hosting parades, donating to Wesley Hospital (founded in 1912 by the Methodist Church), providing an American flag and pole to the Riverside Church of Christ.
Those were historical times.
But not forgotten.😔
#Juneteenth #FreeAtLast
#Wichitan, Sam McDaniel
Samuel Rufus McDaniel (January 28, 1886 – September 24, 1962)
Sam, a son of slaves, was an American #actor who appeared in over 210 television shows and films between 1929 and 1950.
Never as famous, Sam was the older brother of actresses Hattie and Etta McDaniel.
#Juneteenth
In 1931, the family door-opener, Samuel McDaniel, the son of slaves, found work in Los Angeles for his sisters Hattie, Etta and Orlena.
Sam was working on KNX radio program called "The Optimistic Doughnut Hour", on which he was able to get his sister, Hattie, a working spot.
#Juneteenth #FreeAtLast
"When I was little my mother taught me how to use a fork and knife. The trouble is that Mother forget to teach me how to stop using them! As for those grapefruit and buttermilk diets I’ll take roast chicken and dumplings."
― Hattie McDaniel
(pork chops, too?)
She nearly starved to death, as a baby.
Once there is enough distance, and the "star power" has faded in a film, an objective, historical evaluation may commence, and, with that in mind, it is easy to see that Hattie McDaniel was one of films' finest actresses.
An #homage to this wonderful lady, and great #actress.
#Juneteeth #FreeAtLast
As Mammy, the maid of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind", Hattie McDaniel won the 1940 Academy Award, becoming the first minority actor to win an Oscar.
All of the film's black actors, including Hattie, were barred from attending the film's premiere in 1939, in Atlanta.
#Juneteenth #FreeAtLast
#Wichita-born, Hattie McDaniel, was the first African-American to win an #Oscar as Best Actress in a Supporting Role, as Mammy in "Gone with the Wind" (1939).
McDaniel became the first black to attend the Academy Awards as a guest, not a servant.
Hattie accepts her Oscar.
#Junetenth #WichitaProud
The actress, Hattie McDaniel, was born in #Wichita, Kansas.
Her parents were former slaves and her father fought in the Civil War with the 122nd United States Colored Troops.
McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for her acting and one for her radio work.
#Juneteenth #FreeAtLast
Hattie McDaniel and Paul Robeson sing "Ah Still Suits Me" from the film, Show Boat (1936).
This could be considered some of the first rap songs, ever, done by Hattie.
Wichitan, Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1893 - October 26, 1952) was an Oscar-winning American actress, singer-songwriter and comedienne.
#Juneteenth
"If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry."
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (The #Wichita Days)
Plot: Wyatt leaves Ellsworth and becomes the Marshall of Wichita. His first challenge is a group of local vigilantes intent on hanging a man that may have been acting in self-defense.
Starring: Hugh O'Brian, Douglas Fowley
1955 Western Adventure
