Wichita is a city on the Arkansas River, and it is the largest city in the state of Kansas. The area was French until 1803, when the United States acquired Louisiana. In 1854 it became part of the Kansas Territory, which became an American state in 1861. In the 1860s, Jesse Chisholm established a trading post here along the so-called Chisholm Trail. Later, James R. Mead formed the Wichita Town Company with some investors, and in 1870 Wichita formally became a city.

Two years later the railroad came to Wichita, which became a popular town for cattle from Texas brought here to the rail transports to markets in the east. Across the Arkansas River, the town of Delano thrived with entertainment, saloons, brothels and lawlessness until Wyatt Earp and other sheriffs restored order. Wichita boomed and had 24,000 residents in 1890. Growth picked up again after gas and oil discoveries from 1914, and many new businesses were established. Well-known brands such as White Castle and Pizza Hut also originated in Wichita in the 1900s.

Today, you can see some interesting sights in downtown Wichita that developed around the intersection of Main Street and Douglas Avenue. Here you can start with a stroll around the city’s former town hall building, which was built in 1889-1892. Today, the large building houses The Sedgwick County Historical Museum, where you can learn more about Wichita’s history.

West of the old town hall is the circular Century II building from 1969, which is home to the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and Opera. Close to this is the fine building Orpheum Theatre, which opened in 1922 as a vaudeville stage. The theater was constructed as a so-called atmospheric theatre, which in this case was designed as a Spanish courtyard. The theater was converted to a cinema, where Gone with the Wind premiered in Kansas in 1940.

East of downtown you can go to the old Union Station, which opened in 1914 as the city’s railroad terminal. The station was closed in 1979 when Amtrak stopped passenger services to Wichita. Today it has been renovated and rebuilt for office purposes.

Across from Union Station, you can visit the Great Plains Transportation Museum and see the Old Town Marketplace, which consists of cobblestone streets between old warehouses that are redeveloped as shops, restaurants, galleries, etc. In the middle of the area there is an open square with the Museum of World Treasure, which is a world history museum with many highlights such as Egyptian mummies, a tyrannosaurus rex and a piece of the Berlin Wall.

In Wichita, there are many other interesting museums as well, and some of them are located along the Arkansas River, where you can enjoy several trails in the city’s parks along the banks of the river. The Exploration Place is a science museum that was almost built as an island in the Arkansas River, and here you can explore many different exhibitions. On the opposite side of the river, you can visit the Mid-America All-Indian Museum, whose collections describe the culture and history of the Indian tribes.

The well-known monument The Keeper of the Plains from 1974 stands at the museum. In the same part of the city is the Botanical Garden and the museums Wichita Art Museum and Old Cowtown Museum, which is a fantastic open-air museum that recreates 19th-century Wichita. In the city’s university campus, you can visit the Pizza Hut Museum is the very first Pizza Hut, which two students started in 1958 on the corner of Bluff and Kellogg streets.