National Parks Traveler Podcast · Kurt Repanshek

National Parks Traveler Podcast | Kansas Road Trip

·34 min·2 clips

Nicodemus began with more than 300 previously enslaved people buying 161 acres in Kansas.

1. National Parks Traveler visits Kansas with an episode focused on Nicodemus National Historic Site and Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. 2. Kurt Repencheck hosts the program, Lucrecia Horn speaks for Nicodemus National Historic Site, and Heather Brown speaks for Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. 3. The episode asks why two Kansas park sites matter, from a post-Civil War Black town to an 11,000-acre prairie preserve. 4. Horn says Nicodemus covers five buildings, with the National Park Service owning two and leasing the Township Hall as the visitor center. 5. She describes Nicodemus as a town built by formerly enslaved people who sought landownership, self-government, freedom of religion, and education. 6. Horn says the Nicodemus Town Company included about six ministers and W.R. Hill, a white man from Indiana, who sold lots for $5. 7. She says the town site was 161 acres, with lots sized 50 by 150 feet for dugouts and small gardens. 8. Horn says the first group to arrive numbered about 350 people and included her great-great-great grandparents, Tom and Zarina. 9. She says settlers traveled by train from Sadieville, Kentucky, to Ellis, Kansas, then walked 35 miles to Nicodemus. 10. Horn says the railroad bypassed Nicodemus by making an upside-down U and passing five miles southwest of the town. 11. She says the bypass devastated the economy and pushed some businesses to Bogue and Hill City. 12. Horn says Nicodemus still had two newspapers, a pharmacy, and banks during its height. 13. She says the preserve includes the restored AME Church and the recently acquired First Baptist Church. 14. Brown says Tallgrass Prairie has always been tallgrass prairie and was grazed before federal protection. 15. She says the prairie needs both fire and a grazer, and the preserve keeps about 112 bison total this year, including 25 calves. 16. Brown says the herd functions as a satellite herd for Wind Cave National Park and provides genetics that could restart a population after a catastrophe. 17. She says the preserve culls about 20 animals each fall and sends some to zoos, tribes, wild herds, or other conservation areas. 18. Brown says the prairie supports monarchs, regal fritillary butterflies, and the threatened Topeka shiner, and staff survey invasive species such as sericea lespedeza and old world bluestem. 19. The conversation stays practical and explanatory, with Brown giving management details, wildlife counts, and examples like prescribed fire, bison wallows, fishing ponds, and bus tours. 20. The episode suits listeners interested in Kansas history, prairie ecology, and specific park management decisions.

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