Shadowman is seen roaming the grounds at Cowtown. The blacksmith touches investigators in his shop. The former church on Hillside Street has a friendly ghost named Belle. These are just a few of the characters that linger in Haunted Wichita. Wichita grew from the prairie as a cattle town into "the Peerless Princess of the Plains." Influenced by bold settlers, the city reflects the American spirit of capitalism and manifest destiny. Explore the haunted history of Wichita through supernatural tales from Cowtown, the Delano District, theaters, and hotels. Most are authentic haunted locations, as documented by Wichita Paranormal Research Society (WPRS) and Paranormal Research Investigators (PRI).

Early Wichita earned a wicked reputation from newspapers across Kansas thanks to a bevy of madams and murderers, bootleggers and bank robbers, con men and crooked cops. Gambler and saloonkeeper "Rowdy Joe" Lowe was the toast of the town before shooting down his rival, "Red" Beard, and skipping town. Robber and cop killer "Clever Eddie" Adams spread a wave of terror until the police evened the score. Dixie Lee ran the city's classiest brothel with little interference from authorities. Notorious quack "Professor" H. Samuels made a fortune selling worthless eye drops. And county attorney Willard Boone was chased out of town when he was caught with his hand in the bootlegger's cookie jar. Local author Joe Stumpe tells the real stories of the city's best-known and least-known criminals and misfits.

The American Revolution is stained with blood and its ghosts are still lurking in the shadows seeking postmortem revenge. Come explore the haunts associated with the colonial rebels' fight for independence, from an aura of disaster lingering from the “shot heard round the world” in Concord, Massachusetts, to the battle cries of our forefathers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Using a paranormal lens, Baltrusis breathes new life into the ghosts of the American Revolution that include both unknown patriots and familiar names.

In conversations on regional blues, the traditions of the Mississippi Delta, the Carolina Piedmont, Chicago, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, and Los Angeles are frequently lauded. But until now, little attention has been paid to the Midwest, despite the presence and popularity of blues in these heartland communities. Wichita Blues: Music in the African American Community seeks to address this gap in music history by exploring the lively Wichita blues tradition. In interviews with nineteen African American Wichita blues performers, author Patrick Joseph O’Connor reveals the evolution of the blues from the 1930s to the 1960s and beyond. Utilizing twenty-five years of fieldwork, Wichita Blues details the history of performance and camaraderie among the musicians of this often-neglected regional sound. The personal interviews offer unique insight into topics that shape Wichita’s sound, including how migration from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas brought varied artists to the area and the ways musical traditions cross racial divides and generations. The artists articulate the poetics of the blues and the diverse regional influences that can be detected in their music. In exploring the Wichita blues tradition, O’Connor traces African American history in Kansas, ranging from the Exoduster movement in the late nineteenth century and minstrel shows across the state to Black cowboys and growing urban African American communities in Topeka and Wichita. Including a foreword by renowned music scholar David Evans, Wichita Blues allows seasoned blues musicians to tell their own stories and paints a picture of the vibrant Black music scene in the city.

The Last Battle of Wichita By: Stephen E. Paine Set in the chaotic, testosterone-fueled, and sometimes dangerous world of professional wrestling—the last true land of the outlaws in America—The Last Battle of Wichita gives readers an entertaining and sometimes poignant look inside the world's most misunderstood sport. The story opens readers’ eyes to a world of colorful characters living inconceivably complicated existences, shedding blood and narrowly avoiding peril at the hands of zealous fans every night, in order to make a few bucks doing something most of the world views as little more than a fraudulent leftover from the carnival days. But we also see these larger-than-life individuals as real people with families and dreams who suffer pain and battle personal demons…and have a hell of a good time along a road that may come to a dead end at any moment. The story explores powerful themes of fatherhood, family values, failure and redemption, and spiritual awakening. The Last Battle of Wichita follows two men – father and son – both at odds with the tortured souls trapped within their broken and battered bodies. In their stories, separated by thirty-six years, Colt Younger and Joe Lee will head down parallel paths of redemption leading them to discover the one thing that matters most: finding something in life worth fighting for.

Phone calls from an older womanA letter found in the desk of his roomA court document in the backseat of his carTaken individually these may seem like nothing, but together they are all clues to a secret from Randy?s past life.School Spirit: The Past May Haunt You is set in the fictional town of Warring, Kansas, where football superstar Randy is madly in love with heartthrob, Jennifer. With his favorite girl by his side and a scholarship to the University of Michigan, it appears his future is coming together perfectly. But a visit from someone in Randy?s past sets in motion a chain of events that could disrupt all of his and Jennifer?s hopes and dreams. Taken individually these may seem like nothing, but together they are all clues to a secret from Randy?s past life.

“A wild rumpus of a book . . . an exuberant American tale of brothers wrestling demons and each other on opposite poles of their grab bag of a family” (PANK Magazine). Lewis Chopik has just graduated from Columbia University. Having been dumped by his girlfriend and in flight from the pressures exerted by his ambitious professor father, Lewis returns to Wichita in search of respite at the home of his New-Ager mother, Abby. But when Abby picks Lewis up from the airport, she reveals that she’s starting a storm-chasing business and indulging a polyamorous lifestyle. Another unexpected arrival is Seth, Lewis’s bipolar younger brother, who shows off a new tattoo on his chest: In Loving Memory of Seth Chopik. Things begin to resemble the land of Oz more than Wichita when Lewis, while minding Seth, joins Abby in the Flint Hills on a storm-chase with her first client. “[An] honest and raw look at brotherhood and what it means to rediscover your family.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “The world of Wichita is rich, subtle, and funny, . . . This is a truly striking novel.”—Sam Lipsyte, New York Times–bestselling author “Wichita is a novel about expectations and outcomes, about what is open and what is veiled. Its emotional terrain is touching and vast.” —The New York Times Book Review “Ziolkowski’s humor and trenchant observations make for startlingly gorgeous (and often hilarious) prose even in the midst of emergencies.” —Interview Magazine “[A] sparkling debut . . . There’s never a dull moment in a novel which fires us up with snappy and often very funny dialogue.” —Kirkus Reviews

Winner of the Richard L. Wentworth Prize in American History, Byron Caldwell Smith Book Prize, and the William Rockhill Nelson Award On a hot summer evening in 1958, a group of African American students in Wichita, Kansas, quietly entered Dockum's Drug Store and sat down at the whites-only lunch counter. This was the beginning of the first sustained, successful student sit-in of the modern civil rights movement, instigated in violation of the national NAACP's instructions. Dissent in Wichita traces the contours of race relations and black activism in this unexpected locus of the civil rights movement. Based on interviews with more than eighty participants in and observers of Wichita's civil rights struggles, this powerful study hones in on the work of black and white local activists, setting their efforts in the context of anticommunism, FBI operations against black nationalists, and the civil rights policies of administrations from Eisenhower through Nixon. Through her close study of events in Wichita, Eick reveals the civil rights movement as a national, not a southern, phenomenon. She focuses particularly on Chester I. Lewis, Jr., a key figure in the local as well as the national NAACP. Lewis initiated one of the earliest investigations of de facto school desegregation by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and successfully challenged employment discrimination in the nation's largest aircraft industries. Dissent in Wichita offers a moving account of the efforts of Lewis, Vivian Parks, Anna Jane Michener, and other courageous individuals to fight segregation and discrimination in employment, public accommodations, housing, and schools. This volume also offers the first extended examination of the Young Turks, a radical movement to democratize and broaden the agenda of the NAACP for which Lewis provided critical leadership. Through a close study of personalities and local politics in Wichita over two decades, Eick demonstrates how the tenor of black activism and white response changed as economic disparities increased and divisions within the black community intensified. Her analysis, enriched by the words and experiences of men and women who were there, offers new insights into the civil rights movement as a whole and into the complex interplay between local and national events.

Lawyer Robert Beattie assisted the police during the thirty-year search for the BTK Strangler—and was instrumental in the long-awaited arrest of a suspect. Here he shares his inside knowledge of the case, from its terrifying beginnings to its most up-to-date developments. In 1974 a killer embarked on a murder spree in Wichita, Kansas, counting among his victims, men, women, and children. Longing to join the ranks of the Hillside Stranglers and Black Dahlia killer, the elusive sex murderer taunted authorities and the media with clues, puzzles, and obscene letters. Then in 1979, he vanished. The killings appeared to have stopped, and one of the longest and most baffling manhunts in the annals of crime came to a dead end. But in 2004, a letter—and a grisly clue—arrived at a Wichita paper. And with it, a terrifying implication: BTK was back. The biggest shock of all came when they made their arrest. Now, from his unique vantage point, Robert Beattie tells the complete story of one of the most intriguing and horrifying serial murder cases in American history.

Ulysses, a guardian angel, a protector from the realm of heaven, has been given his assignment to protect a young girl named Marjorie Ruthmeir. Limited to the boundaries between the spirit realm and the world, Ulysses must figure out how to protect his watch in a world full of evil, treachery, and deceit. Marjorie Ruthmeir has deep dark secrets. Sold into the sexual trafficking trade when she was fourteen years old, all she had ever dreamed of was for someone to love her and keep her safe. Determined to keep her past a secret, she escapes, changes her name to Margo, and takes a bus to Wichita, Kansas, to start a new life and hopefully to find her long-lost brother. Struggling to find love and safety in a world that has only caused her pain, will Margo's tainted past destroy any hope she has for finding love and safety? The Wichita Watcher is a captivating mystery demonstrating the struggles and triumphs of life while God's grace draws us near to himself.