Aerial.America.S03E09.Kansas
Aerial.America.S03E09.Kansas
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00:00It may be known for its wide-open spaces and great towers of grain, but there's much
00:11more to this Midwestern state than its great plains.
00:16Its vast prairie skies beckoned many of America's daring aviation pioneers, including the most
00:24admired female flyer of all time.
00:29Here in Kansas, two young killers carried out one of the nation's grisliest crimes
00:35in cold blood on a remote farm.
00:40Here, Kansans risked their lives in what's been called the first battle of the Civil
00:45War.
00:46A great warrior came of age in a peaceful town, and one young family's fight for justice
00:52led to a civil rights victory for millions nationwide.
00:59Today, the biggest battles in Kansas may be between college warriors and their home
01:04state rivals, and some of the greatest victories are being won on the land, where generations
01:10of farmers feed the world and create striking patterns on the plains, but also leave places
01:18for wildlife to thrive.
01:21Soaring over Kansas, it's easy to be awed by this Midwestern state, but it's also easy
01:27to wonder if you're not actually in Kansas anymore.
01:57The first European farmers in Kansas must have thought they'd reached the promised land.
02:11Seemingly endless acres of flat, fertile prairie just waiting to be tilled.
02:18Even before statehood, they were already here carving their fields out of the grassland,
02:25sowing the crops that would make Kansas a vital part of America's breadbasket.
02:31For generations, the heirs of those first farmers have built their homes among the fields,
02:37while transforming the once wild prairie into a utilitarian landscape of unexpected beauty.
02:47This may seem like some oversized artist's master essay on circles and squares, but this
02:53eye-catching pattern is really the byproduct of pivot-point irrigation systems.
02:58The round shapes mark the reach of the rotating sprinklers.
03:05Just one of the innovative techniques today's Kansans use to get the most out of the more
03:09than 46 million acres of cropland in the state, on over 65,000 farms.
03:17Like tracking satellite images to keep an eye out for rain, or relying on the latest
03:21scientific weather data to decide which crops to plant and when.
03:27Getting it right earns Kansas farmers nearly $14 billion in cash receipts in a good year,
03:35and makes the state the nation's first in the production of sorghum, second in wheat,
03:40and seventh in corn.
03:45860 million bushels of just these three crops flow out of the state's farms each year,
03:53and pour into silos like the ones here, just outside Wichita, at the DeBruce Grain Elevator.
04:00More than half a mile from end to end, it's the largest in the world.
04:06Behind its quiet walls, nearly two and a half miles of conveyor belts move millions of bushels
04:11of grain, in and out of 310 separate silos, where the grain is held high and dry, protected
04:20from mildew, insects, rodents, or rot, until it's shipped off to buyers.
04:28But unexpected danger hides within.
04:32The dust from the grain can be as volatile as gunpowder.
04:36On June 8, 1998, an overheated bearing on one of the belts sparked an explosion that
04:42killed seven men, ripped the silos open, and took DeBruce out of service.
04:50Within a month, a statewide shortage of silo space forced Kansas into a state of emergency.
04:58Scores of farmers were forced to dump their grain on the ground, where their harvest was
05:03left to spoil.
05:05Today, the massive elevator is back in business.
05:09Its 12-story silos once again reach for the sky, towering over the horizon as giant tributes
05:15to modern American agribusiness.
05:19Though they don't have the Kansas skyline all to themselves, nature has also been at
05:27work here.
05:29Eighty million years ago, these rugged badlands in western Kansas were under a vast inland
05:35sea.
05:37Billions of creatures lived and died here, then left their bodies on the ocean floor
05:43in ancient layers of chalk.
05:46With the seas' retreat, erosion washed most of the chalk away, leaving beautiful and evocative
05:52towers behind.
05:55This group is known as Monument Rocks.
05:58Though too soft and unstable to attract climbers, these impressive monoliths tower over the
06:04plains as seemingly eternal reminders of the state's vast geological past.
06:10But they aren't as timeless as they seem.
06:23This lonely outcropping was named Castle Rock in 1865 by frontier scout Julian Fitch.
06:30For over 150 years, stage drivers, pioneers, and hikers used its towers to guide their
06:36path.
06:37Today, they might have trouble finding their way.
06:42Castle Rock and the rest of Kansas' chalk towers and canyons are slowly crumbling in
06:47the wind and rain.
06:49It's just a matter of time until flat Kansas prairie is all that's left here, a prairie
06:55made of chalk.
06:58Chalk is so much a part of the state that in 1897, the University of Kansas Jayhawks
07:04here in Lawrence even adopted Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk as the school's official cheer.
07:10Today, fans still chant a slow, eerie version of the cheer to unnerve their foes.
07:18It echoes off the walls here in the Allen Fieldhouse, where fans root for a legendary
07:23basketball team whose first coach was the man who invented the game, and it fills the
07:28air during hard-fought football games here in Memorial Stadium.
07:33But there's one team that gets Jayhawk fans chanting more fiercely than just about all
07:37the rest, a team that calls nearby Manhattan, Kansas, just 74 miles west of Lawrence, home,
07:46the Kansas State University Wildcats.
07:50Being neighbors and fellow Kansans couldn't keep the Jayhawks and the Wildcats from turning
07:55into bitter rivals, especially after a hard-fought game back in 1909 sparked an angry feud between
08:04the two teams.
08:06Over a hundred years later, things still haven't cooled down.
08:10These Wildcats may even be pretending their practice dummies are Jayhawks.
08:16After all this time, the contentious rivals can't even agree on the win-loss record for
08:20their games.
08:22The University of Kansas claims to be leading the series 65 games to 39, but Kansas State
08:28lists it as 64 to 40.
08:33The school the Wildcats play so hard for was founded in 1863 as the Kansas State Agricultural
08:40College.
08:41Today, it remains committed to helping Kansas farmers prosper and boasts a grain science
08:48industry program unlike any other in the world.
08:52Here students don't just develop new ways to grow grain, they learn how to store it,
08:58mill it, use it for feed, and even bake with it while earning advanced degrees in grain
09:03technology.
09:09Though not every student at KSU is majoring in the modern farm, some dedicate themselves
09:16to studying and preserving a more ancient landscape.
09:20The Great Prairie that once was home to the Kaa, or Kansa, the native people who gave
09:26Kansas its name, and to the vast herds of bison the Kansa depended on for food.
09:36Today, the prairie is almost gone, along with most of the bison.
09:42These survivors are hemmed in on one of the grassland's last patches, no longer free to
09:48roam across miles of prairie, living a limbo-like existence under the watchful eyes of the scientists
09:56at K-State's Kansa Prairie Biological Station.
10:01The goal is to study an ecosystem and help the bison survive what could otherwise be
10:06the final stage of a long decline.
10:11A decline that began with the arrival of a new type of Kansan on the plains, settlers
10:18from the east. Settlers like the Ingalls family, who came to this spot in the Flint Hills near
10:25the town of Independence in 1869. This reconstruction was modeled on the cabin they lived in here
10:33during a time daughter Laura Ingalls Wilder later chronicled in Little House on the Prairie.
10:40The arrival of settlers like the Ingalls family marked the beginning of the end for the ancient
10:44tall grass prairie the Kansa and the Buffalo called home in Kansas and across the Midwest.
10:51Once, the grassland covered more than 170 million acres. Today, less than 4% of it remains,
11:02much of it here in the Flint Hills, home of the Tall Grass Prairie National Preserve.
11:09The rest was plowed under or cleared in prescribed burns like this one on the preserve's Spring
11:15Hill Farm and Stock Ranch.
11:19In 1878, ranchers Stephen and Louise Jones began using burns to carve this 7,000 acre
11:25ranch out of the prairie. In 1881, they built this three-story, 11-room native limestone
11:33home, literally where the buffalo had once roamed. It cost them $25,000, a staggering
11:40amount in those days, but the Joneses had reason to splurge.
11:47The cattle business was booming in 19th century Kansas. It's still a vital part of the state's
11:53economy in the 21st, enough to make it third in cattle production in the U.S. And to keep
12:02these giant feedlots and slaughterhouses in Dodge City going strong. More than 19% of
12:08America's beef comes from Kansan beef processing facilities like these, making this a central
12:16hub of the American meat processing industry. Cattle of various ages and weights are brought
12:22here to spend 100 to 200 days being fed two or three times a day in a modern operation
12:28so efficient that most lots employ just one person for each 1,000 cattle. Each animal
12:35will eat 40 to 60 bushels of grain while in the average feedlot and about one-third of
12:40a ton of hay. Once they've reached the target weight, they make their final journey to the
12:45slaughterhouse and on to the dinner tables of beef lovers around the world. Today, environmentalists
12:53and nutritionists warn that it comes at a terrible price. They claim methane gas and
12:59waste from the massive lots poison our air, water, and land, while the red meat they produce
13:05in such vast quantities has been shown to cut years off the lives of those who consume
13:10it. But Dodge City's days as one of the country's top cow towns stretch back long before these
13:17concerns emerged. In the mid-1800s, cowboys began driving massive herds of cattle from
13:26South Texas to the railroad depot in Dodge City. Their arrival transformed a quiet frontier
13:33outpost into one of the Wild West's wildest towns. These modern storefronts were designed
13:39to recreate the Dodge City of those days, including the notorious Long Branch Saloon
13:46where bartenders and loose women kept the cowboys happy, and famous lawmen like Wyatt
13:51Earp and Bat Masterson tried to keep the peace, telling them to get out of Dodge.
14:02Then in 1885, due to an outbreak of deadly anthrax in Texas herds, both the cattle drives
14:09and an era began to fade away. But the train lines that had been built to ship the cows
14:14to market continued to play a vital role in the state, like the Atchison-Topeka and Santa
14:21Fe, named for its original route along the historic Santa Fe Trail. Keeping track of
14:27the thousands of cars that crisscrossed the state in all these trains could be a logistical
14:32nightmare. But here at the Argentine Yard, south of Kansas City, a little creative thinking
14:40and a lot of gravity helped to get the job done. Its 60 separate lines and two raised
14:48humps allow its operators to use gravity, not fuel, to quickly take trains apart and
14:54put them back together again. Every day, up to 2,000 cars like this arrive in the yard.
15:03As they pass through this small shed, workers check their destination before directing them
15:08down one of the many sloping tracks that fan out across the yard. Once the cars are all
15:14in the right order, they are sent on their way. The freight they carry and the business
15:20they generate has made Kansas City one of the nation's most important crossroads.
15:28But today's Kansans weren't the first to prosper here. For centuries, this was Native
15:35American land. In 1804, Lewis and Clark recorded seeing their villages as they passed through
15:43on their famed expedition to map the American West. The explorers made camp where the Kansas
15:49and Missouri rivers come together and named it Kaw Point. Today, a park marks it as the
15:56city's birthplace. American settlers began arriving in the area in the 1820s, but the
16:03communities they founded didn't officially come together as Kansas City, Kansas until
16:071886. For decades, the new city struggled to compete with the larger and older Kansas
16:16City, Missouri across the river. But now, the Kansas side is finally coming into its
16:24own, thanks in part to ambitious new projects like the Kansas Speedway. Critics complained
16:32when homes were destroyed to build the Speedway, which opened in 2001, including the boyhood
16:37home of NASCAR racer John O'Neill. Then, the Speedway's opening sparked a neighborhood
16:45renaissance, along with the construction of a major league soccer stadium, Livestrong
16:51Park. And John O'Neill now calls having a racetrack on the site of his former house
16:56a dream come true. But dreams coming true are nothing new in Kansas. It was here, almost
17:05a century ago, that one young Kansan's dream of taking to the air would make her an aviation
17:12legend and lead to one of the great unsolved mysteries of all time.
17:21Each year, millions of birds from hundreds of species take to the Kansas sky, though
17:32a lot of them are just passing through, stopping off on long migrations to rest and refuel
17:40in rich wetlands like the ones here at Cheyenne Bottoms near Great Bend. With 41,000 acres
17:48of wetlands spread out over 60 square miles, it's the largest inland marsh in the United
17:54States. Scientists estimate that 45% of the North American shorebird population stops
18:04off at Cheyenne Bottoms every year, including 27 different varieties of ducks. None make
18:12a bigger splash than the huge flocks of pelicans that drop in on flights that take them from
18:17Central America to the edge of the Arctic Circle and back again. They rely on the rest
18:24and nourishment they get here at Cheyenne Bottoms to help them make it all the way,
18:30just as their ancestors did for millions of years. Though for the last century or so,
18:36the pelicans and other birds passing through Kansas have had to share the sky with some
18:41relatively new intruders. Even before the Wright brothers took off in their first plane,
18:48Kansans were already dreaming of flight. The first efforts at manned flight in the state
18:54date back to the late 1800s. The first commercially produced airplane in the United States made
19:01its debut over Wichita in 1920. By the end of the decade, groundbreaking Wichita aviation
19:09pioneer Lloyd Stearman was designing biplanes like these, and designing them so well that
19:16almost 90 years later, they're still taking wing. But in the 1920s and 30s, Stearman wasn't
19:24the Kansan aviator making the biggest headlines around the world. That honor went to Amelia
19:33Earhart, a fearless aviatrix born here in Atchison, in her grandmother's white frame
19:38house. Earhart spent much of her childhood in this home. Perhaps its perch high above
19:44the Missouri River is what inspired her to dream of taking flight.
19:50Her dream came true in 1921, when she bought her first plane and quickly claimed the title
19:57of the first female pilot to ascend to 14,000 feet. She would go on to worldwide fame as
20:05the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, the first to do it alone, and the first pilot
20:11of either gender to fly solo from Honolulu to Oakland and from Mexico City to New York.
20:18But Earhart's dreams of airborne glory came to a mysterious end on July 2nd, 1937. She
20:26disappeared over the Pacific during an attempt to become the first female pilot to fly around
20:31the world. Today, she and her adventurous spirit are commemorated just outside Atchison
20:38in this massive earthwork by Kansan artist Stan Heard.
20:43Heard used tractors, plows, lawnmowers, and weed whackers to prepare the ground for this
20:48one-acre portrait. Then, he handcrafted Earhart's profile from 50 tons of stone and planted
20:55500 rugged junipers and other plants to fill in her goggles and helmet, all to create an
21:02earthbound memorial to a high-flying Kansan, which, appropriately enough, is appreciated
21:08best from the air.
21:14Today, a lot of Kansans have the chance to see it thanks to an aviation heritage reaching
21:19back to pioneers like Earhart and Lloyd Stearman.
21:24In 1929, Stearman sold his Wichita factory to Boeing. Over the next two decades, he would
21:31go on to build thousands of the biplanes he built.
21:35Long after production ended, Stearman's sturdy craft still served as everything from prop
21:40dusters to stunt planes. A Stearman biplane even played a starring role in one of Hollywood's
21:46most iconic moments, the attempt to murder Cary Grant in a cornfield in Alfred Hitchcock's
21:52North by Northwest.
21:56But Boeing didn't buy Stearman's biplane. It sold it to Boeing.
22:01But Boeing didn't buy Stearman's factory just to get their hands on his little biplane.
22:06The company wanted to expand his plant and use it to build giant commercial and military
22:10aircraft.
22:14Boeing grew into an international aviation powerhouse and one of the biggest employers
22:19in town. But it was just one of many companies making planes here in those days, so many
22:27that in 1929, the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. named Wichita the Air
22:33Capital City.
22:36Kenzon Clyde Cessna, who started out building planes by hand before World War I, opened
22:41his business here in 1927. Over 85 years later, the company he founded manufactures more models
22:49of light aircraft than any other company on Earth.
22:54Cessna's former partner, Walter Beach, opened his rival Beechcraft plant in 1932, soon becoming
23:02one of the world's leading makers of business aircraft.
23:08But when it comes to building planes for both the Harriet executive and the idle rich, there's
23:13one Wichita aviation business that outdoes them all.
23:18Learjet.
23:21Learjet founder William P. Lear didn't even open the doors to his Wichita plant or start
23:27building his planes here until 1963.
23:32Based on a prototype fighter designed for the Swiss Air Force, they were the first jets
23:37made for private use. By the mid-60s, Learjets were literally flying off the Wichita assembly
23:43line. Owning one quickly became one of the ultimate status symbols among the world's
23:49upper class. Today, top-of-the-line Learjets cost over $13 million each. Keeping one flying
23:56costs nearly $400,000 a year.
24:00Which is why there's still nothing that says you've arrived in every sense of the word
24:05like stepping out of your own Wichita-made Learjet.
24:13But today, this proud city's once unrivaled title as our nation's air capital city is
24:19in danger. On January 4, 2012, Boeing announced it would shut down all of the company's local
24:26operations by the end of 2013. Some worry that a way of life is coming to an end here.
24:33If so, it won't be the first time.
24:38Once, this spot, where the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers meet, was at the heart of
24:43the Wichita people's homeland. Today, this 44-foot, 5-ton statue of a Wichita chief by
24:50Kansan artist Black Bear Boson is one of the few reminders of those times.
24:57From his earthbound pedestal, Boson's evocative figure seems to reach for the Kansas sky in
25:03a deeply spiritual gesture of hope.
25:08130 miles to the northeast, in Topeka, Richard Bergen's statue of a Kansa warrior strikes
25:14a much more aggressive pose. From his perch atop the Kansas State Capitol, he takes aim
25:21at the North Star, making for a suitably defiant landmark in a capital city that almost wasn't
25:28the Capitol at all. It had to win the title in a conflict that earned the future state
25:35fame as Bleeding Kansas and helped to spark the Civil War.
25:42By 1854, the U.S. was divided into slave states in the south and free states in the north
25:50and west. Sandwiched in the middle, the Kansas Territory was forced to choose which side
25:57it would be on by popular vote.
26:02Pro- and anti-slavery settlers poured into the territory in hopes of turning the tide
26:07their way. On May 21, 1856, open warfare erupted when pro-slavery forces invaded the new abolitionist
26:16outpost of Lawrence, ransacked its downtown, and burned the offices of its anti-slavery
26:23newspapers and the Free State Hotel to the ground. Locals claim that the Free State's
26:30owner, Colonel Shalor Eldridge, vowed to rebuild and to rebuild again if needed, adding a floor
26:36each time. Today, his third hotel, built after raiders burned the second one down during
26:42the Civil War, still stands on the same spot.
26:47But in 1856, rebuilding wasn't enough for uncompromising abolitionist John Brown.
26:57He demanded vengeance for the assault on Lawrence. So, on May 24, he and four of his sons went
27:05out and hacked five of their pro-slavery neighbors to death with broadswords in the infamous
27:10slaughter of Pottawatomie Creek.
27:16As news of the massacre spread, a pro-slavery posse led by Henry Clay Pate seized two of
27:22Brown's sons and charged them with murder. Brown didn't wait to be next. On the morning
27:29of June 2, 1856, he and 35 of his followers attacked Pate and 70 of his men here in Blackjack
27:36Field. It's been called the First Battle of the Civil War.
27:43The outnumbered abolitionists won it hands down. Brown captured Pate and many of his
27:51men and then forced them to release his sons in exchange for their own freedom. It was
27:57a major victory for the anti-slavery side. But that didn't stop the pro-slavery forces
28:03from charging ahead with their plans for the state. In 1857, they declared Lecompton the
28:10new capital and met here in this small building's second floor courtroom to draft a pro-slavery
28:16constitution. It's still known as Constitution Hall to this day. But when the U.S. Congress
28:23refused to ratify the document written here, the tide turned. New elections gave abolitionists
28:30the upper hand. In 1861, Kansas entered the Union as a free state, with Topeka as its
28:38capital. Construction of the capital building began in 1866. It would take 37 years to finish
28:47the job. Its dome would have to wait even longer to receive its finishing touch until
28:542002, when Bergen's 4,420-pound warrior was finally hoisted onto its peak to become the
29:03symbol of a state that fought to be free, yet struggled for decades after statehood
29:10to live up to freedom's ideals. As Native Americans were systematically oppressed and
29:18African Americans in Kansas were forced to accept second best, Kansans like the Brown
29:25family of Topeka. In 1950, Reverend Oliver Brown walked down these streets to his neighborhood's
29:32Sumner Elementary School to enroll his daughter Linda in the third grade. But they were turned
29:39away. Sumner, they were told, was for white children only. So the Browns, 12 other black
29:47Topeka families, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sued
29:52the school board in federal court. Linda's father, Oliver, became the lead plaintiff
29:58in a groundbreaking case that would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court as Brown
30:04versus Board of Education. The court's landmark unanimous ruling in their favor ended decades
30:11of school segregation in Topeka and across America and guaranteed equal educational opportunities
30:18to all, making Linda Brown and Topeka twin symbols of a time when America reaffirmed
30:25and re-embraced its greatest ideas. A time that began when the Browns and 12 other brave
30:32families took a stand for freedom here in Kansas.
30:41Sometimes, the vast unbroken horizon of Kansas' Great Plains can have an unnerving impact.
30:50In 1877, author Richard Irving Dodge compared it to being on an ocean and warned that, like
30:57the ocean, its disorienting emptiness could make those who stepped out on it for the first
31:02time feel sick. With less than 3 million residents spread out over 82,000 square miles, it can
31:10also leave a person feeling completely alone. Out here, there's no guarantee that anyone
31:16will be around to hear you when you cry out or to notice when strangers come to your door.
31:22Strangers like the ones who came here to the remote home of farmer Herbert Clutter, his
31:29wife Bonnie, son Kenyon, and daughter Nancy, late on the evening of November 14, 1959,
31:36then left again a few hours later without ever being seen. The next morning, two of
31:46Nancy's friends found her body in her blood-splattered room. The police found the rest of the family
31:52and other parts of the house. Each had been brutally murdered.
31:58Herb Clutter's close friend, Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent Alvin Dewey, was among
32:03the first officers on the scene. Dewey was also among the 1,000 mourners who gathered
32:11for the Clutter funeral at Garden City's First Methodist Church, a church Clutter had
32:16helped to build. And he was there alongside the graves at Valley View Cemetery when the
32:22Clutter family was laid to rest. He told a reporter,
32:34At first, the only clues were some boot prints next to Herbert Clutter's body.
32:41And a lot of leads that turned out to be dead ends.
32:46Then, a convict with a guilty conscience revealed he'd heard a fellow inmate plan the crime.
32:53He gave the police the names of two petty crooks who'd since been paroled, Dick Hickock
32:59and Perry Smith. A vast manhunt soon tracked the ex-cons to Las Vegas.
33:06Alvin Dewey himself went to bring them back here to the Finney County Courthouse to stand trial.
33:13By the time they got here, Hickock and Smith had already confessed.
33:18But they weren't done telling their story.
33:22New York author Truman Capote was waiting on the courthouse steps to hear it for himself.
33:29Capote was already famous for writing witty urban fables like Breakfast at Tiffany's,
33:34now he hoped to write a new kind of book about the Clutter murders.
33:39A non-fiction novel based on interviews with everyone involved, especially Hickock and Smith.
33:45Interviews that began at the Finney County Courthouse.
33:50And continued for years, here just south of Leavenworth at the Kansas State Penitentiary.
33:58Hickock and Smith were sent here shortly after they were convicted.
34:01They would spend the next five years waiting out appeals and talking to Truman Capote.
34:08The book they were helping him write would become a smash bestseller after they were dead.
34:14Capote called it In Cold Blood.
34:19It would go on to sell millions of copies, inspire a movie and a television miniseries,
34:24and win a place in literary history as one of the 20th century's most influential books.
34:30In it, Capote used the killer's own words to reveal what really happened in the Clutter house on that horrifying November night.
34:44How the two recently paroled friends set off from Hickock's parents' house in Olathe,
34:50stopped in Emporia to buy rubber gloves and nylon cord.
34:54Then, in Great Bend, for dinner and duct tape.
34:58And finally, at a Phillips 66 gas station in Garden City,
35:04more than 400 miles from where they had started.
35:09Then Capote wrote of how, shortly after midnight on November 14th,
35:14Hickock and Smith drove cautiously up the road to the Clutter house and parked beneath these trees.
35:19Then, slipped in through an unlocked office door in search of a safe full of cash a fellow convict had told them about.
35:27When they didn't find it, they tortured and killed Herbert Clutter.
35:32Tied Bonnie, Kenyon and Nancy Clutter up,
35:36killed them one by one with shotgun blasts to the head,
35:41and disappeared into the endless prairie with just four men.
35:45And disappeared into the endless prairie with just $40 in cash
35:51and a transistor radio to show for their grisly spree.
35:58Capote also wrote of Agent Alvin Dewey, the investigation and the trial,
36:03and of the early hours of April 14th, 1965,
36:07when Hickock and Smith finally paid the price for their crimes.
36:12Executed in the penitentiary's death house,
36:16as Capote watched the hanging in what would become one of the most powerful scenes in his book.
36:22A scene played out behind the grim walls of the Kansas State Pen.
36:28Now known as the Lansing Correctional Facility,
36:31the penitentiary opened its doors in 1862.
36:35Today, residents here have a lot of neighbors.
36:39More than 5,000 inmates are locked up in this corner of Kansas at any time,
36:44in civil and military facilities.
36:47Those set up on a federal wrap end up seven miles north of Lansing,
36:51in one of America's most infamous prisons, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary,
36:56better known as the Big House.
37:01Gangsters Machine Gun Kelly and Bugs Moran,
37:04assassin James Earl Ray,
37:06and quarterback Michael Vick,
37:09have all done time beneath its vault.
37:12Vick served 23 months here for animal cruelty,
37:16a big change from his life as an NFL star.
37:20He spent his days playing chess here, just outside the Big House,
37:25in Leavenworth's minimum security sector,
37:28and his nights mopping floors for 12 cents an hour
37:31to keep from hearing things he later refused to describe.
37:33Things he said that should stay in prison.
37:38Today, Leavenworth's forbidding Big House
37:41stands just outside Fort Leavenworth Army Base,
37:44overshadowing the many other prisons on the base,
37:50including the Army's Midwest Joint Regional Correction Facility,
37:54current home of WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning,
37:58and the United States Disciplinary Barracks.
38:02Built in 2002 to replace a crumbling facility dating back to 1875,
38:07it is the military's only maximum security prison.
38:12But prisons aren't all Leavenworth is famous for.
38:18Perched above the Missouri River,
38:21it's one of the Army's most beautiful and historic bases.
38:25Founded in 1827 to protect settlers heading west
38:28on the Santa Fe and Oregon trails,
38:31Fort Leavenworth quickly grew from a tiny outpost
38:34to a key Army installation,
38:37and the oldest remaining active base west of Washington, D.C.
38:42Grant Hall is perhaps its most impressive building.
38:46Built in 1904 and named for General and President Ulysses S. Grant,
38:51its tower is the heart and symbol of the U.S. Army's intellectual center,
38:55the Command and General Staff College.
38:58During its more than 100 years of operation,
39:01many of the Army's greatest officers have passed through its halls,
39:05including all five of the men to reach the rank
39:08of five-star general in modern times.
39:11George Marshall, Douglas MacArthur, Henry H. Arnold, Omar Bradley,
39:19and a future president from Kansas, folks called Ike.
39:28Not that Dwight Eisenhower had to travel far to get to Fort Leavenworth.
39:33The world-famous warrior was raised just 126 miles to the southwest,
39:38here, near the spot where his presidential library now stands,
39:42in Abilene.
39:45From these peaceful central Kansas streets,
39:48he would go on to West Point, the Army War College,
39:51the front lines of World War II, and the White House.
39:55Ike grew up in this white-frame house, with five brothers,
40:00in a postcard-perfect town he later recalled as pastoral and happy.
40:05Ike would still recognize the old town today,
40:08but some of the fields he once played in are gone,
40:12replaced by the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum,
40:17and the Place of Meditation,
40:20where Ike was laid to rest after his death in 1969.
40:24But Dwight Eisenhower's greatest memorial isn't this tiny chapel,
40:29and it isn't in Abilene alone.
40:32It's here, and across the United States.
40:36The vast interstate highway system he championed as president,
40:41a web of asphalt and concrete stretching from coast to coast,
40:45tying the nation together,
40:48and connecting remote rural towns in places like Kansas
40:52to the outside world.
40:59In the early 1940s, the U.S. Army Air Force went looking for land
41:04to build the bases it needed to fight a new kind of air war in World War II.
41:08They found what they were looking for in Kansas.
41:11By the time the war was over,
41:13the Air Force had built 13 gigantic new bases in the state.
41:17This one, Pratt Army Airfield, opened in 1943.
41:21But with the end of the conflict,
41:24most of the bases the Air Force had built were no longer needed.
41:28Pratt was turned over to civilian use.
41:31Today, only one of the landing strips here is still active.
41:35Any pilot who tries to land on the other two is in for a shock.
41:39Cattle.
41:41Lots of cattle.
41:44In giant feedlots that have replaced the old runways.
41:47Proving that folks in Kansas
41:50know how to take an outdated resource
41:53and reimagine it for a new era.
42:01And it works even better when Mother Nature lends a hand.
42:06In southeastern Kansas,
42:09decades of strip mining for coal left the land heavily scarred.
42:13But when mining ended,
42:14water began to fill the scars.
42:17Greenery began to cover the land.
42:20And the once desolate mines were reborn as fertile wetlands,
42:24the centerpiece of a reinvented mined land wildlife area.
42:29Now, instead of miners, it's hunters that come here
42:33in search of quail and white-tailed deer.
42:36And adventurous Kansans come on summer days
42:39in search of a spot to swim and cool off.
42:42Ignoring signs that say, keep out.
42:45And cautionary tales of swimmers
42:48who got caught in submerged mining equipment here and drowned.
42:53No one may ever know exactly what lurks beneath
42:56the acres of water in the former mines.
43:00But there's one piece of abandoned equipment
43:03looming over the land here that's impossible to miss.
43:06Regional Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark No. 10.
43:12Otherwise known as Big Brutus.
43:17Bought in 1962, Brutus is as tall as a 16-story building
43:22and once weighed 11 million pounds.
43:25In its heyday, its massive shovel devoured
43:28up to 150 tons of rock at a time.
43:31It's the largest mine in the world.
43:33Making Brutus one of the most effective destroyers of the land.
43:38Once the coal had been stripped from the soil,
43:41Brutus itself was stripped and abandoned.
43:44Left to rust in the midst of the desolation it helped to create.
43:48But as the land came back, Brutus did too.
43:53Kansans returning to the revived wildlife area
43:56began to see the giant shovel as a symbol of survival.
43:59Kansans returning to the revived wildlife area
44:02began to see the giant shovel as a symbol of the state's mining past.
44:06And even a thing of beauty.
44:09On July 13, 1985, the state made it official,
44:13naming Big Brutus a museum and memorial
44:16dedicated to the rich coal mining history in southeast Kansas.
44:24But in Kansas, mining hasn't always been all about black gold.
44:29In 1987, about 170 miles to the west,
44:32outside Hutchinson, a local businessman went drilling for oil
44:36and found another treasure instead.
44:39Salt.
44:41Here, at the Lions Mine, workers still descend 1,000 feet into the ground
44:46to blast veins of salt out of the Kansas rock.
44:50Next door, another mine, is also a museum.
44:53Deep underground, the constant 68-degree temperature
44:56and nearly 50% humidity make the mine an ideal storage locker.
45:02Thousands of precious artifacts and documents are stored here,
45:06along with the original negatives for hundreds of classic films,
45:10including one Hollywood favorite that earned windswept Kansas
45:14a beloved spot in America's pop culture landscape,
45:17the Wizard of Oz.
45:21In that 1939 classic,
45:23a special effects tornado blew Judy Garland right out of Kansas.
45:28On May 4, 2007,
45:31a real tornado nearly blew one Kansas city right off the map.
45:37The city of Greensburg, located in the heart of the Great Plains,
45:41about 100 miles west of Wichita,
45:441.7 miles in diameter,
45:47with winds in excess of 200 miles an hour,
45:49the tornado entered Greensburg from the southwest shortly before 10 p.m.
45:54By the time it left, 95% of the town was rubble,
45:58and 11 people were dead.
46:01Nearly half of those who survived never came back.
46:05Those who did were determined to rebuild their town,
46:08and to do it in eco-friendly ways that would put the green in Greensburg.
46:14Today, those efforts are paying off.
46:16From the green roof of this model silo eco-home built like the grain silos
46:21that were the only things the tornado couldn't knock down,
46:25to the County Commons building,
46:28winner of the U.S. Green Building Council's highest platinum rating
46:32for leadership in energy and environmental design.
46:35Its windows are positioned to let just the right amounts of sunshine in,
46:40while the solar panels on its roof use that same sunlight to generate power.
46:44Greensburg's new 547 Arts Center also won top marks for its sleek new building.
46:51Named for the date the tornado struck,
46:54it is winning even more praise for its innovative programs
46:57and for filling a cultural void as the only arts center between Wichita and Dodge City.
47:04But the building that may symbolize Greensburg's rebirth best
47:08is a dramatic, futuristic new building
47:10that sits atop its oldest attraction.
47:13The Big Well.
47:15Dug in 1887, the well is 109 feet deep and 32 feet across.
47:21Big enough to earn it billing as the world's biggest hand-built well,
47:26and to lure over 3 million people to Greensburg over the years just to see it.
47:31Today, its curvaceous new pavilion
47:34invites visitors to climb down a beautiful spiral staircase
47:37to get their own look at the well,
47:40or up to a glass-enclosed deck to get a 360-degree view of the town.
47:45The perfect vantage point to track the progress
47:48of a community forced to make a whole new start
47:51and committed to using new sources of power to do it,
47:54from solar panels to windmills like these.
47:59But the people of Greensburg aren't the only Kansans
48:02working hard to build a greener tomorrow.
48:05Or to seek an alternative to fossil fuels in the power of the Kansas wind.
48:1043 miles southwest of Wichita, at Flat Ridge,
48:14a new power-generating wind farm is rising on the prairie.
48:18When it is done, it will be the biggest in the state.
48:22But first, a little assembly will be required.
48:27Each windmill arrives at Flat Ridge
48:29Its parts are then spread out on the prairie,
48:32and the work begins.
48:35Huge concrete pads are prepared.
48:38Then, the three tubes that will make up the windmill's tower are put together.
48:44While down below, giant propeller blades are attached to their hub.
48:49The tower is then crowned with a boulder.
48:53The tower is then crowned with a boulder.
48:57The tower is then crowned with a powerful generator.
49:02Finally, the hub and blades are lifted into place
49:06in a surprisingly delicate dance between machine and man,
49:10in which each gear and part must be perfectly aligned.
49:27This dance will have to be repeated 262 times in all
49:32before this 66,000-acre farm is complete.
49:44Once on line, Flat Ridge will generate 419 megawatts of power,
49:49and its rose-hued tower will be the largest in the state.
49:52Flat Ridge will generate 419 megawatts of power,
49:56and its rows of windmills, rising suddenly out of the plains,
50:00will take their place among this state's unexpected landmarks.
50:04Where the sky goes on forever,
50:08the horizon knows no limits,
50:11and the surprises never end.
50:15The urban, rural, peaceful,
50:18violent, old-fashioned, futuristic,
50:23and always fascinating state of Kansas.
50:48For more information, visit www.fema.gov