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Kansas Day

History · January 29

Kansas Day marks the state of Kansas, with attention to its history, prairie landscape, wheat fields and the stories Kansans tell about home.

Kansas Day falls on Friday, January 29, 2027. That is 94 days away.

Kansas sits near the middle of the contiguous United States, and this day puts the state and its history at the center of things. Kansans use it to look back at how the state came to be and what life there has been like.

The landscape shapes much of that story. Tallgrass prairie once covered large parts of the state, and patches of it survive in the Flint Hills, where the grass can grow taller than a person by late summer. Farther west the land opens into wide, flat plains under a very large sky. Wheat is the crop most people picture, and the state is often called the Wheat State. Its other well-known nickname, the Sunflower State, comes from the wild sunflowers that bloom along roadsides and fields.

Schools in Kansas often mark the day with history lessons, state symbols and projects about pioneers, trails and towns. Families might cook something with local flavor, look through old photographs, or visit a county museum to see what their own corner of the state looked like generations ago.

Kansas history runs through cattle trails, railroad towns and early aviation, and many small towns keep a museum or historical society that holds pieces of it. The state flower, the sunflower, turns its young heads to follow the sun across the sky, then settles facing east once it matures.

Ways to celebrate

• Visit a local history museum or county historical society.
• Bake bread or biscuits with flour from Kansas wheat.
• Look up the story of your own Kansas town.
• Take a walk on a prairie trail and look for native grasses.
• Share an old family photo taken somewhere in Kansas.

Dates

All national days on January 29

Also on January 29

• National Puzzle Day
• National Corn Chip Day
• National Carnation Day

Categories: History days