Great Bend, Kansas "Great Bend"
Great Bend .
Great Bend, Kansas Downtown Great Bend (2012) Downtown Great Bend (2012) Location inside Barton County and Kansas Location inside Barton County and Kansas Great Bend is a town/city in and the governmental center of county of Barton County, Kansas, United States. It is titled for its locale at the point where the course of the Arkansas River bends east then southeast. As of the 2010 census, the populace of the town/city was 15,995. Great Bend, Kansas, ca.
Prior to American settlement of the area, the site of Great Bend was positioned in the northern reaches of Kiowa territory. Claimed first by France as part of Louisiana and later acquired by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, it lay inside the region organized by the U.S.
As Kansas Territory in 1854. Kansas became a state in 1861, and the state government delineated the encircling area as Barton County in 1867. Living in sod homes and dugouts, they worked as buffalo hunters since trampling by bison herds precluded crop farming. In 1871, the Great Bend Town Company, anticipating the westward assembly of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, established Great Bend at a site roughly three miles west of Fort Zarah on the Santa Fe Trail. They titled the settlement after its locale at the "great bend" in the Arkansas River where the river's course turns eastward. The town began to expanded as more pioneer appeared over the following year and opened a several businesses.
The barns reached Great Bend in July 1872, and an election at about the same time declared the town the permanent county seat. Great Bend was incorporated as a town/city soon after that.
In 1873, following the arrival of the barns , Great Bend became a shipping point for cattle. This stimulated small-town business but also transformed the town/city into a rowdy, violent cowtown. In 1876, the Kansas Legislature extended the legal "dead line" restricting the existence of Texas cattle 30 miles west of Barton County.
Over the following decades, Great Bend continued to expanded and modernize, becoming a center of region commerce.
Army Air Forces opened Great Bend Army Airfield west of the town/city in 1943.
The base served as training facility for B-29 bomber airplane personnel amid World War II. After the war, the City of Great Bend acquired the base and repurposed it for civilian use as Great Bend Municipal Airport. In 1973, the Fuller Brush Company relocated its manufacturing facilities to Great Bend, becoming one of the city's primary employers.
Even with a modest diminish in populace in recent decades, Great Bend continues to serve as a commercial center for central Kansas. Great Bend is positioned at 38 21 52 N 98 45 53 W (38.3644567, -98.7648073) at an altitude of 1,850 feet (564 m). Located in central Kansas at the intersection of U.S.
Route 56, Great Bend is 95 miles (153 km) northwest of Wichita, 235 miles (378 km) west-southwest of Kansas City, and 345 miles (555 km) east-southeast of Denver. Lying in the Great Bend Sand Prairie region of the Great Plains, the town/city is situated on the north side of the Arkansas River where the river's course shifts from northeast to southeast. Dry Walnut Creek, a tributary of close-by Walnut Creek, flows east along the northern edge of the city. Cheyenne Bottoms, a large inland wetland, is positioned approximately 6 miles (9.7 km) to the northeast. According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 10.71 square miles (27.74 km2), of which 10.60 square miles (27.45 km2) is territory and 0.11 square miles (0.28 km2) is water. Located near the convergence of North America's humid continental (Koppen Dfa), humid subtropical (Koppen Cfa), and semi-arid (Koppen BSk) climate zones, Great Bend experiences hot summers and cold, dry winters. On average, January is the coldest month, July the hottest and May is the wettest.
The hottest temperature recorded in Great Bend was 111 F (44 C) in 1980; the coldest temperature recorded was -21 F (-29 C) in 1989. The average temperature is 57 F (14 C). Over the course of a year, temperatures range from an average low of 21 F ( 6 C) in January to an average high of 94 F (34 C) in July. The high temperature reaches or exceeds 90 F (32 C) an average of 70 days a year and reaches or exceeds 100 F (38 C) an average of 13 days a year.
Great Bend receives 27 inches (690 mm) of rain amid an average year, and there are, on average, 71 days of calculable rain each year. The average relative humidity is 67%. Annual snow flurry averages 17 inches (43 cm).
Climate data for Great Bend, Kansas Average snowy days ( 0.1 in) 1.9 1.8 1.2 0.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.4 1.7 7.2 Agriculture is the dominant trade in Great Bend, and its grain elevators are visible from miles away.
The four industries employing the biggest percentages of the working civilian workforce force were: educational services, community care, and civil assistance (27.3%); retail trade (11.9%); manufacturing (9.8%); and arts, entertainment, recreation, and accommodation and food services (9.8%). Great Bend Public Schools, Barton Community College, and CUNA Mutual Retirement Solutions are the city's three biggest employers.
The cost of living in Great Bend is mostly low; compared to a U.S.
Average of 100, the cost of living index for the town/city is 79.4. As of 2012, the median home value in the town/city was $78,300, the median chose monthly owner cost was $979 for housing units with a mortgage and $400 for those without, and the median gross rent was $539. Barton County Courthouse in Great Bend Great Bend is a town/city of the second class with a mayor-council form of government. The town/city council consists of eight members, two propel from each town/city ward for two-year terms.
As the county seat, Great Bend is the administrative center of Barton County.
Great Bend lies inside Kansas's 1st U.S.
Highways and two Kansas state highways pass through the city.
Route 281 runs north south through Great Bend, intersecting U.S.
56 and K-156 in Great Bend, exiting the town/city to the northwest.
Great Bend Municipal Airport is positioned approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) west of the city. Used primarily for general aviation, it hosts one commercial airline with daily flights to Denver. One of the several metros/cities in the region not to have a water treatment plant or water tower, Great Bend obtains its waterworks directly from ten wells positioned throughout the city. Waste water is treated and recycled at the city's Wastewater Treatment Facility and then emptied into the Arkansas River. Two county-wide energy cooperatives, Midwest Energy, Inc.
Great Bend Regional Hospital, a 33-bed general medical and surgical facility, is the city's sole hospital. St.
Main article: Media in Great Bend, Kansas The Great Bend Tribune is the city's daily journal with a circulation of over 6,200 copies. The Interrobang is the student journal at the Great Bend-based Barton Community College.
Great Bend is a center of broadcast media for central Kansas. Two AM and ten FM airways broadcasts are licensed to and/or broadcast from the city. Two tv stations, one NBC partner and one ABC affiliate, also broadcast from the city. Both are satellite stations of their respective affiliates in Wichita as Great Bend is part of the Wichita-Hutchinson, Kansas tv market. Located in the north-central part of the city, Brit Spaugh Park includes the Great Bend Zoo, the Wetlands Aquatic Center, two softball fields, horseshoe courts, picnic areas, playgrounds, a skateboarding area, and a BMX track.
From 1947 to 1989, Great Bend was the home of the Argonne Rebels Drum and Bugle Corps.
The Barton County Historical Society Museum and Village is positioned in Great Bend. The Great Bend Zoo and Raptor Center, established in 1952, contains over 60 species of animals. The first nationwide NHRA sponsored event called "the Nationals" was held in 1955, in Great Bend, Kansas at the Great Bend Municipal Airport. In November 1959, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock stopped for dinner in Great Bend on their 400-mile journey to Holcomb, Kansas, where they murdered the Clutter family. Author Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood about the murder. In the 1993 novel, The Death and Life of Superman by Roger Stern, Jonathan and Martha Kent fly from the Metropolis airport to the Great Bend airport and proceed to drive to Smallville, which would put Smallville somewhere in central Kansas.
Great Bend was mentioned briefly in the 2006 CBS Drama Jericho.
Great Bend is the setting for the Hulu initial comedy series Quick Draw, created by and starring John Lehr.
Main article: List of citizens from Great Bend, Kansas Notable individuals who were born in and/or have lived in Great Bend include jazz singer and pianist Karrin Allyson (1963- ), inventor and 2000 Nobel Prize laureate in physics Jack Kilby (1923-2005), and 1952 gold medal-winning U.S.
Great Bend Zoo a b Kansas State Historical Society (1916).
"Kansas Territory".
Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, Etc.
"Great Bend, Kansas History and Information".
Great Bend Convention & Visitors Bureau.
"Great Bend Municipal Airport History".
City of Great Bend.
"City Distance Tool".
"General Highway Map - Barton County, Kansas" (PDF).
"Average weather for Great Bend".
"Historical Weather for Great Bend, Kansas, United States of America".
"Great Bend Area Manufacturers & Major Employers" (PDF).
Great Bend Chamber of Commerce & Economic Development.
"Great Bend, Kansas".
"Great Bend".
City of Great Bend.
"USD 428 Great Bend".
USD 428 Great Bend Public Schools.
"Central Kansas Christian Academy".
"City of Great Bend (Map)" (PDF).
"KGBD - Great Bend Municipal Airport".
"Great Bend Municipal Airport - FAQs".
City of Great Bend.
City of Great Bend.
City of Great Bend.
Great Bend Chamber of Commerce.
"Great Bend Regional Hospital".
"Great Bend Tribune".
"Radio Stations in Great Bend, Kansas".
City of Great Bend.
"Great Bend ".
Great Bend Chamber of Commerce.
City of Great Bend.
Great Bend Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development.
Barton County Historical Society Museum and Village "Britt Spaugh Park & Great Bend Zoo".
Kansas : A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, Etc; 3 Volumes; Frank W.
The Story of the Marking of the Santa Fe Trail by the Daughters of the American Revolution in Kansas and the State of Kansas; Almira Cordry; Crane Co; 164 pages; 1915.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Great Bend, Kansas.
Wikisource has the text of the 1905 New International Encyclopedia article Great Bend.
City of Great Bend Great Bend - Directory of Public Officials Great Bend Convention and Visitors Bureau Great Bend Chamber of Commerce Great Bend Zoo Great Bend City Map, KDOT Municipalities and communities of Barton County, Kansas, United States County seat: Great Bend Albert Claflin Ellinwood Galatia Great Bend Hoisington Olmitz Pawnee Rock Susank Map of Kansas highlighting Barton County Albion Beaver Buffalo Cheyenne Clarence Cleveland Comanche Eureka Fairview Grant Great Bend Independent Lakin Liberty Logan North Homestead Pawnee Rock South Bend South Homestead Union Walnut Wheatland
Categories:
Cities in Kansas - County seats in Kansas - Cities in Barton County, Kansas - Micropolitan areas of Kansas - Populated places on the Arkansas River
|