A Sunflower Salute

It’s an honor and a privilege for this opportunity to share with you The Kansas Edition—Celebrating the Past 50 Years of Business. 

For years, we’ve published Destination Kansas, a contemporary assessment of the factors that make the Sunflower State an ideal location to live, work, raise a family and own or operate a business. This issue takes a deep dive into history that created those conditions. As we celebrate our own 50th anniversary here at Ingram’s, we focus on the giants of business and industry and we honor the individuals, teams and companies that built the great state of Kansas. In a very real sense, successful businesses in the state today stand on their shoulders. 

Throughout this issue, we’ll step back in time to explore the ingenuity and innovation of earlier generations, and we’ll see many examples of how industry continues to thrive, and many of the people responsible for that vitality.

I have a remarkable appreciation for history, and at some point, I’ll further archive my Dad’s efforts—pieced together long before the Internet—to archive our family history as far back as 600 A.D.—of our roots in Ireland and an era our ancestors we’re less-than-free builders of two pinnacle historic castles in Scotland. For now, however, I’d like to explore the westward movement through Kansas and the ironclad settlers that rooted here and were the founders of commerce and industry.

Consider if you will, the Territory of Kansas in the 1850s—a decade before becoming a state, and all the obstacles settlers encountered crossing the unsettled prairies. The Santa Fe Trail that runs through southwest Kansas is among the best examples of rugged pioneer travel. Thankfully, this trail is protected, including the ruts from wagons crossing to the west. The California National Historic Trail, or Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, extends through northeast Kansas and for some 3,700 miles from Illinois, to the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. The greatest passage of them all is the Oregon Trail, where some 350,000 to 400,000 traveled through unsettled Kansas territory between 1840 and 1860. 

Mind you, this was during an era when several families noted in this very edition were putting down roots as merchants, traders, bankers and more throughout the Territory of Kansas. With history as a reminder, it should come as no surprise that Kansas settlers, regardless of designation, were not only farmers and ranchers, but they were also engineers, architects and entrepreneurs in the purest sense.

On the heels of that grueling work came a phenomenon that, in south-central Kansas especially, continues to define the state economically today: The development of flight and the explosion of early-stage innovation and manufacturing of aircraft. I’m astounded by the history and dominance of Wichita earning the title of the Air Capital of the World. The pages that follow explore each of the pioneers of flight, but what’s nearly impossible to fathom is, why did it happen here and how did Wichita forever cement aviation as a foundational sector?

But it goes beyond aviation. Did you know that Wichita just may have produced more millionaires and billionaires per capital than any other city in the world? Let’s just explore a few sectors. Start with restaurants. There is no explanation why Wichita became the fast-food franchise capital of America, but it did. Furniture and appliance rental giant Rent-A-Center is another firm and sector that emerged here, as did many of the finest hotel concepts in history. There must be something in the water—in this case, the Arkansas River or something more deeply rooted in the Ogallala Aquifer.

A great example optimizing entrepreneurship in Wichita came from Frank and Dan, the Carney brothers. If you don’t know who they are now, you will. They recruited accomplished entrepreneurs to invest in the Pizza Hut concept as franchisees and thus the Pizza Hut Millionaires Club was born.

I believe the settlers had to improvise on a daily basis and engineer, design, fabricate and do whatever it takes to fix and make equipment and tools work. For these reasons and more, I consider Kansas the nation’s most industrious state, and a region where residents bear down and do whatever it takes to go well beyond surviving and to absolutely thrive. 

There really is no reason arguably the finest pleasure boats built in America are assembled at the Cobalt plant in Neodesha, or why private jets and aircraft come off the line at plants in south central Kansas. Perhaps poor planning and lack of retention from neighboring Jackson County, Mo., contributed to the rise of Johnson County as one of the wealthiest, most productive and best-educated counties in America, but it is just that.

To the coasts, we’re known as a flyover zone, but I delight knowing that the jets they navigate were likely assembled thousands of feet below them in Wichita. Despite a comparatively small population, I can think of no other state that punches so far above its weight as an economic power. We’re proud and honored to deliver this unique snapshot in time to recognize the titans who built the modern-day Kansas we enjoy today.

On behalf of our small team that punches a bit above our own weight class, we’re honored to call Kansans our neighbors and friends, and to deliver this edition recognizing so many innovators and true visionaries. Here’s to those who have leveraged our past to build a remarkable home and an optimistic future for our neighbors throughout this great state.