It's time for Positively Kansas.

Coming up, turning an eyesore into an eye opener and a signature city landmark.

See how the Salinas skyline has been transformed with this amazing work of art.

Also, the arts take center stage in Halstead, which is bursting at the seams with creativity and talent.

Wait to see what we discovered.

Plus, learn about the medicine tycoon and his iconic company that helped shape Wichita in its early years.

And in our Kansas Wild Ed report, enjoy some spectacular scenes of the Kansas countryside in transition during the pivotal month of October.

Isaiah Scott.

Those stories are cued up and ready to roll in this edition of Positively Kansas.

Positively Kansas is brought to you in part by.

Before investing your hard earned money, make sure your financial advisor understands your objectives.

Mark Douglass CFP Serving our community for over 20 years, providing customized financial solutions that focus on the individual.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas serves more than 930,000 Kansans in various programs.

Independent member.

Of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, an independent licensee of Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Association, supports.

Keeps programs support provided by the F. Price KOSMAN Memorial Trust and Trust Bank Trustee.

Bringing you the Kansas Wild Edge segments on Positively Kansas.

Kansas grain elevators are sometimes called the skyscrapers of the prairie.

Some of them no longer use for storage or getting a second life as giant canvases.

Kris Frank shows us how an artist in Salina is turning a drab looking grain silo into a work of art and a real showpiece for the city.

Paris has its Eiffel Tower.

New York City has Lady Liberty.

Our nation's capital has the Washington Monument and Mall.

Saint Louis has the arch.

Salina has.

Well, Salina doesn't have an iconic attraction.

It can point to to draw visitors to the city.

Folks in Salina point to attractions other Kansas communities have.

Abilene has the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum as an attraction.

Lucas, as we've shown you here on Positively, Kansas, has the Garden of Eden and grassroots Art Museum.

Salinas sits right smack in the middle of the state at the intersection of two major freeways.

Interstate 70 has more than 20,000 vehicles daily passing on the north end of Salina.

Interstate 135 has similar traffic patterns on the city's west side.

But locals here would like to see more of those motorists pull off the interstates into the city to stop, look and spend.

But first, Salina needs an attraction, something to wow a person's imagination.

They think they have it with large mural art.

But we don't really have an Eiffel Tower per se.

So we're trying to build these larger murals as a way of, you know, pulling people off the interstate, getting them to stay downtown and activating those spaces, getting them to, you know, visit businesses around town and just connect with the community more.

Erik Montoya and Travis Young co-founded the Salina Canvas Project as a way to improve the community through art.

The project includes some smaller artwork, but it's this large mural on the sides of a tall grain elevator downtown.

That's the shining jewel of the overall work.

We've noticed a big boom in murals, especially in Kansas and rural towns.

The big boom in murals, as Montoya puts it, includes murals in Wichita's North End, anchored by the beach and an elevator mural.

According to the tourism group Visit Wichita, it's the largest mural in the world painted by a single artist.

SALINA, Kansas Project members hope these murals being painted in their downtown sparks conversations and interest among the general public.

And I love it when they put these paintings on these buildings, too.

It just revives them.

Make Salina stronger, I think.

Do you ever get nervous about going up on those heights?

No, nothing more.

That's Guido Van Helton getting on the powered lift to be raised along the silos.

North Face.

Van Helton is the artist brought in from Down Under Australia to design and paint the mural.

The idea of bringing world class artists from not only Kansas but from outside of the U.S.

I think is a huge draw to the project and a lot of the artwork that's being created right now.

This isn't the first large art project for Guido Van Helton.

Just take a look at the mural he painted on this Wellington Australia Dam.

It is part of a one and a half million dollar mural art trail project in south west Australia.

The State Government there funded 60 murals throughout the city of Collie.

It is part of a plan to diversify the economy of that traditional coal mining community.

It's a testament to this artist's skills and why folks in Salina pursued him for the canvas project.

When we kind of stumbled across Guido, we felt that what he was doing was really unique.

Taking these larger silos and turning them into these these large murals was something that I don't think a lot of people were really doing and utilizing those those structures that are just large canvases.

It's kind of the idea of finding these walls that are blank and and beautifying the surrounding area with them.

The Australian artist has been painting murals on the sides of American grain silos for four years.

Then Hilton's works in the U.S. can be seen in Nashville, Tennessee, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota.

What's drawn me to those projects is the is the architecture and the scale and the size of these buildings that are most often found in the Midwest.

So I'm specialized.

I become specialized in that very large scale work and in silos.

That specialized mission led him to the Midwest and now to Kansas.

That's because there are so many grain elevators, silos across the Sunflower State, Kansas perhaps is perfect for this type of work.

Kansas is known as the leader in wheat production, but is also a leading state in the production of Milo, corn and soybeans.

Well, that grain production requires silos for storage.

Grain elevators are likened to skyscrapers of the prairie.

They've also been called prairie castles.

So many of them are in decay from age and many aren't in use any longer, but can be too expensive to tear down and remove.

This town particularly has a whole skyline worth of of their often disused buildings.

And that to me was my interest in them from the start.

This work is called the mural at the mill.

The HD Leave Flour Mill hasn't been in service for many years.

Developers in 2015 had considered turning the mill into mixed use multi-unit housing.

It would have included a restaurant and swimming pool high above the Salina skyline.

Now, it was an ambitious plan, but it was abandoned.

Now Van Hilton's precious and faint along with the assistance of artist Ian McCallum, will give new life to the elevator and mill that was put into operation in 1899.

These buildings are really interesting to me.

They're inspiring to me because they they represent the identity of a town.

You know, the shapes of them, the history that is often, you know, connected with these with these sites, former industries.

And.

But the interesting thing about them is they are completely blank and they are they weren't really designed with any decorative ideas.

Guido visited Salina in 2020 while he was working on a minnesota project.

He arrived here for work in July of 2021 to set up shop and begin this work.

The artists didn't immediately start painting, though.

As with other art projects, then Hilton takes time to research and take photographs of people and places.

So I spent about a month on that here.

I've really build this whole series of images that I then look at and think, What is really meaningful in here?

What do I really?

What attracts me to a certain image?

And does that also suit the space and.

Other murals around the city will be painted.

Getting more artists involved.

Well, tell me what you see on the building behind me.

A blank wall.

Well, those at the Salina Canvas Project see a blank canvas with its potential for being an artistic mural.

I was thrilled.

Brett Anderson is the executive director of Salina Arts and Humanities.

He believes art can be a magnet to attract visitors, having a chance to celebrate creativity, to celebrate the human ingenuity in such a visible way and a personal way.

Makes for healthy conversations and a great opportunity to learn more, not just about the specifics of a community, but of the spirit of humanity.

SALINAS Downtown also has passageway tunnels for pedestrians to get to alleyway parking lots.

Now, most of the tunnel walls are blank and are set up to be canvases for an artist.

Creativity and more reason to attract the eyes of visitors here.

I think it's good that brings the people downtown so that these buildings, these buildings are empty, but it's bringing more business downtown.

It's a bonus for Salina is that the funding for the Salina Canvas project is all private.

Van Pelt Ann's mural work, including preparation, is about $250,000.

Project leaders are hoping to raise an additional 1.5 to $2 million for additional works in Salina.

We just felt that going from it from a private angle was something that we wouldn't have to maybe jump through some of the hurdles that I think are challenging.

I think the arts and humanities here does a great job of navigating those situations, and help helps bring art to a public that the public in a way that is appealing to everyone.

Anderson says the only involvement of the city is to offer advice.

When asked when the private sector steps up and helps fulfill our mission of transforming this place, you know, of enriching lives and building community.

And they're doing that on their own.

It's a win for everybody.

A local win which will have people stopping and lifting their heads to get a full view of the work.

It's just so it's great.

It's like a photograph.

He is just excellent in his vision.

It's just togetherness.

Love.

Love of all.

Looks like going to be several races.

Painting a mural on the curved walls presents a challenge for the artist.

He says it's a complicated process.

Another reason why, you know, form is very important.

I feel like is it?

There's a beautiful form in these shapes.

I you know, I like that they have, you know, some flat areas, some curved areas.

But the real the real trick is to almost painted sculpture, really, you know, and I need to adapt these figures to to fit these forms and create a kind of an illusion that they that, you know, it's 3-D and it's continuing around and that's what that's a very challenging thing that I find with the sounds.

It's not it's not just like a flat wall, which I guess you can kind of put anything on.

With favorable fall weather.

Van Helton was able to complete the project in early October a bit sooner than he thought he would.

The artist quickly jetted off to Switzerland for his next project.

So visitors to Salina who've watched the work in progress can return to see and enjoy its completion in Salina.

This is Chris Franke for Positively Kansas.

Van Helton says he doesn't plan on doing other murals in Kansas, so his Salina work will stand unique in its presentation.

It's a chance for talented, hardworking folks across south central Kansas who produce handcrafted goods to show off their amazing work.

Dozens of vendors lined the brick streets of downtown Halsted as part of the city's 54th annual arts and Crafts Festival.

Anthony Powell was there.

Halstead comes alive, a tradition more than half a century old.

The second Saturday in October.

The brick of Main Street crowded with vendors and shoppers from all over south central Kansas.

We only look for hand-crafted fine art and vintage or repurposed items.

So nothing that's mass produced.

That's why Lynette Allen, owner of Lynette's Interiors in Mound Ridge, has had a booth here for several years.

Like many small business owners, Lynette finds marketing a challenge.

But the Halstead Brick Street Arts and Crafts Festival provides a great opportunity for people to get an up close view of her beautiful handmade pillows and flowers.

It's a very good exposure, and I feel like people are looking for artwork and are interested in her paintings.

There are there's some photography.

There's canned goods, baked goods, handmade jewelry.

There is repurposed glass.

There's woodworking that we have a blacksmith.

This year.

There was also plenty of food available.

With so much to take in the 2021 festival was packed.

Some vendors visiting with as many as 200 customers, making the folks who call Halstead home beamed with pride.

It's just a fun little activity.

Kind of brings the community together.

Shows a little bit more about the surrounding area and not just inside the homestead and brings.

People on.

The festival also offers educational opportunities.

We stopped by the Sunflower Woodworkers Guild booth, where members talk to folks about how picking up the woodworking hobby can enrich their lives, something they really stress to kids as an alternative to devices.

Really having that pride that you've made something by hand.

It is a hobby that is ever learning, ever evolving.

You cannot master it.

You can't have perfection.

But showing kids, you know, you can start with building a simple table or a simple sign like what we did today and then seeing and building on that skill set and going from there.

So whether you learn something new, bought something new from a hardworking small business owner or just got out and enjoyed some beautiful weather.

The 2021 Halstead Brick Street Arts and Crafts Festival strongly carried on a tradition that's been going strong for 54 years, an event that so perfectly captures the small town feel of the host city.

And plans are already underway to make the 2022 Brick Street Halstead Arts and Crafts Festival bigger and better than ever before.

Based on the momentum they saw here in 2021, organizers think they can easily go from 33 booths up to as many as 50.

In Halstead, I'm Anthony Powell for Positively Kansas.

In particular, organizers would love to add food vendors and live music to the event, so if you're interested, they'd love to talk to you.

The onset of autumn is a beautiful and mysterious show, and this week's Kansas Wild Ed segment, Mike Blair explores the changes through candid images and original poetry.

What happens in October in the touring of the words We're Halcyon days are ending with.

A trove of summer goods.

What happens in October, when the chilly morning dew reflects the living images of everything that grew?

When webs are hanging heavy with their autumn jewels of gold and torpid weavers struggle through a year that's growing old.

What happens in October when the birds must find their way?

The ease of warmth behind them on a windy autumn day when creatures fill their baskets while the harvest can be found in days of waning plenty as life's clock is winding down.

What happens in October when the glassy shards of frost come marching through the night time?

As the summer warmth is lost?

What happens in October?

Well, the ducks and cranes come flying while the cottonwoods.

Are.

Sighing.

In the ivy vines are drying.

What happens in October?

New spider lungs are hatching.

Red and yellow leaves detaching.

Sky and earth and glory matching.

The hills are in their splendor.

As the aster flowers surrender and shimmer in a current ripples lines as if they weren't.

Yes, the hunter's moon is rising as the calendar turns sober, making golden days more precious.

That's what happens in October.

I'm Mike Blair for Positively Kansas.

Next week, Mike gives us an up close look at how Kansas Wildlife reacts to the season's first snow.

Wichita is the birthplace of many iconic companies and brands Pizza Hut, Coleman, White Castle, Cessna and menthol item.

That deep heating menthol sap was invented by A.A. Hyde.

Hyde played a major role in establishing Wichita as a regional hub for industry and commerce, and he used his success to improve the quality of life for which towns across the social spectrum.

Jim Gray shows us how he did it.

If you get a lot of colds, get a lot of relief, get mentally trimmed heating, rub with DPD action D. Heating.

Meant the late arm was also invented by a Wichita man whose legacy continues to impact the city more than 100 years later.

Well, mentally, Tim comes out of a personal crisis.

The story really is that of a high.

Hyde comes here in the 1870s, at the time of the cattle industry, gets involved in.

Banking and then transitions.

Into real estate and.

Development in the late 1880s.

Wichita is the third largest real.

Estate market in the country after New York and Kansas City.

Then there's a depression in the early 1890.

So all of those investment speculative ventures evaporate.

And poor AA Hyde is left to try to.

Make a living.

With what he can with a wife and nine kids to support.

Hyde and some partners started making and selling soap to stay afloat.

But it wasn't long before Hyde had a better idea.

This is his grandson, John Hyde.

Grandfather got interested, as he often did.

He was a he was a fiddler.

He liked to fiddle.

He got interested in menthol.

The product itself.

And he decided that this would also be useful if you could make a salve.

So he spent, I think, about nine months using the kitchen stove as his laboratory, trying to melt down menthol and finding a formula that would create a side of a jelly that would would hold its consistency in all weather and in all kinds of climate.

The result was a cooling ointment that soothed congestion and sore muscles.

And Hyde knew just how to sell it.

It was marketed as the little nurse for Little Ills.

And in particular.

Hyde was interested in promoting the idea of the.

Sample size.

Giving these out, distributing them to ministers and others to show what it could do, and that would get people on board with buying this.

Eventually, they're going to shift into using that distinctive light green glass so people can identify it very quickly.

And so the Palladium.

Model.

Becomes a national.

Success and they start buying up other companies.

And because there are lots of little.

Patent medicine types of companies that were producing similar salves, and so forth, so mentally them buys these buys at the.

Competition.

The original mental home building still stands here at Douglass and Cleveland.

Now it's the spice market where fine coffee and tea are so very unique.

The building had deteriorated and was being used as a thrift store when Bobby we bought it 20 years ago.

He tore out the false ceiling and shag carpeting to restore the place to its 1909 glory.

The floor we're standing on is where methylated was, was mixed up and poured into the bottles and labeled and ready to be shipped.

The floor behind this, the main floor was the packing and shipping floor.

And then in the very far background was the office.

Bailey says it was important to preserve this building and keep alive the history of mental lay them and A.A. Hyde.

And he had experienced all the booms and busts of the city of Wichita and everything and survived, supported a family with many, many children in it, having lots of employees, and created a worldwide business organization.

So it's it's a real example of entrepreneurship and citizenship.

By the 1930 is meant to lead them had become a household name with a jar in almost every medicine cabinet across the country.

A.A. Hyde was now a wealthy old man, and the company was about to pull up stakes for Buffalo, New York, for better access to international trade routes.

But it stayed here with the understanding of his sons who ran it, that the company would stay here and have its headquarters here until Grandfather died, and then he dies in 1935, at which point my family, after two years closing everything up leaves and the company ends its presence as a company in Wichita.

While the mantle laid him company left Wichita some 80 years ago, the legacy of its founder lives on now.

But grandfather said if you've got as much money as I'm getting, you've got to give that all away.

And when you die, you, you if you haven't, you died.

A disgraced man.

A devout Christian.

Hyde created a charitable foundation to help the poor and improve the quality of life for all which it is.

His commitment to the community is still evident to this day.

His name appears in three places, which represent different forms of the legacy.

The elementary school at first and Oliver is a high school.

The second was in the section of the town where the streets bear the name of women Laura, Patti, Ida.

That section of the town was known as the Hyde addition and they had bought up the land early on platted it and named the streets and then sold the lot.

But he saved a square block for a park because he felt that people living here in Kansas should have a shady place.

These are his words that on summer evenings and everything in the summer days, you could go and go into the park and it's still there and it's called.

Hyde.

Park.

And the third was a YMCA organization, which is still in existence, I'm quite sure, called Camp Hyde for Children.

Out on the Little River.

Meanwhile, Hyde's grandson, who was eight when his family moved to New York, returns on a regular basis to serve on the Wichita Public Library Foundation Board.

The Hyde family sold mental aid them to a Japanese company in the 1980s.

But the influence of this generous genius and his therapeutic sav lives on in this city where it all started.

That's a wrap for this week Positively Kansas at CP.

Its story is our email address.

If you have a story idea, we always need them.

Until next time.

I'm Ciara Scott.

Be safe and happy.

See you later.

Positively Kansas is brought to you in part by.

Program support provided by the F. Price Kosman Memorial Trust and Trust Bank Trustee bringing you the Kansas Wild Ed segments on Positively Kansas.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas serves more than 930,000 Kansans in various.

Programs.

Independent member owned.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, an independent licensee of Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Association.

Supports KPS.

Before investing your hard earned money, make sure your financial advisor understands your objectives.

Mark Douglass CFP Serving our community for over 20 years, providing customized financial solutions that focus on the individual.