It's time for Positively Kansas.

Coming up, the largely forgotten story of one of the highest decorated naval officers of all time began in Wichita.

Chris Frank did some investigating and uncovered some fascinating details.

Also, we traveled to Manhattan to the historic home of a Kansas education pioneer.

You may not know the name, but you'll appreciate his efforts to shape Kansas into the state that it's become.

Plus, we uncover some secrets of Kansas largest city and discover there's much more to Wichita than meets the eye.

Im Sierra Scott, those stories and Kansas Wild Edge are cued up and ready to roll in this edition of Positively Kansas.

Kansas has been the birthplace of many famous Americans throughout the generations.

Five Congressional Medal of Honor winners have Wichita Connections alone.

Now, our Chris Frank has uncovered the largely unknown story of a famous wartime heros local connection.

You would likely say someone is in an exclusive class to have a U.S. Navy ship named after them.

This Spruance class destroyer is the USS Paul F. Foster.

Vice-Admiral Paul Frederick Foster is one of the highest decorated Navy officers of all time.

And he was born in Wichita, Kansas.

Yet likely few in Wichita know of this Navy hero.

Foster was born March 25th, 1889.

That was only 19 years after Wichita Incorporated.

And according to an 1889 Wichita City Directory, The Fosters lived at 2410 East 15th Street.

That was the parsonage of the Fourth Congregational Church.

The church and parsonage were then located at what is now 15th and Grove.

That church building has long been gone from this location.

His father, Festus Foster, was a congregational church minister here.

And so they were kind of out there in that middle America feeling the call of the Lord to spread the word of the gospel.

Retired Lieutenant Commander Paul R. Foster is the grandson of Paul F. Foster.

Lieutenant Commander Foster is an attorney formerly with the Navy Judge Advocate Generals Corps.

Foster says as a congregational minister, his great grandfather moved regularly around the country.

With the family living in south central Kansas in the early 1890s, Reverend Foster may have got caught up in the early Cherokee land rush frenzy of the time.

The great Cherokee Strip Land Run occurred September 16th, 1893.

But it was anticipated and talked about by pioneers in Kansas for years before it opened.

One of son Paul's earliest and long lasting memories is of his father participating in the rush for free Oklahoma land.

Paul would have only been four years old at the time.

Paul F remembers as a young boy seeing his father on a on a horse along the line with the thousands of other people waiting, waiting for the the gun to fire for them to start running to the west and claim their plot of land.

Years later, Paul Frederick got an appointment to the U.S.

Naval Academy.

After graduation from the Academy and with the rank of Ensign, Foster was first assigned to the Navy battleship Utah.

He was dispatched to Veracruz, Mexico, on his first assignment.

The battle of Veracruz lasted seven months.

It was during the Mexican Revolution, and at a time when relations between the United States and Mexico were at a low point, Ensign Foster's boat and sailors were the first from the Utah to land at Veracruz.

Their orders to forcibly seize the port's customs office and confiscate the weaponry.

Ensign Foster was one of 63, receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for the battle of Vera Cruz.

And he personally said, you know, I didn't deserve it.

But I think he said that in retrospect and putting in it his mind, comparing what he did with the valor of naval officers during World War One and World War Two.

Ensign Foster, now a Medal of Honor recipient, shunned offers for cushy assignments.

Foster was assigned to the presidential yacht, the Mayflower, where he would have entertained the wives and daughters of politicians and socialites.

Foster instead got himself assigned to a submarine, leading him to his next big recognition after an encounter with a German U-boat.

The German sub torpedoed the U.S. sub Foster was commanding.

Despite being damaged, Foster ordered his sub to pursue and ram, if necessary, the German sub that would have destroyed both submarines with the loss of the crews.

But because of the American subs pursuit, the German sub dove to a depth which destroyed it, leaving Foster's crew to live to fight another day.

Foster was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for that encounter.

A few years later, Foster found himself in another fiery situation on the Trenton, a naval cruiser.

During training exercises, there was an explosion and fire in the forward six inch gun turret.

13 sailors were killed.

Foster again put himself in harm's way, entering the turret, seeking survivors and to put out the fire.

He said, I told the chief, I'm going up into the turret and you close this, close this hatch or trapdoor behind me, and I don't want anybody else coming in unless there's another explosion.

And so he says that in his own words, it was a burning inferno when he got there.

Foster got the fire under control.

He was awarded the Navy Cross.

And there was an attempt to award foster a second Congressional Medal of Honor.

I mean, basically, three times during his early naval career, he had choices to make, either self-preservation or be the type of shipmate that he was taught to be at the Academy and at the point of the decision making, he chose to go with the greater cause.

And the vice admiral few in Wichita ever heard of was the first naval officer to be the recipient of the three highest medals.

A U.S. Navy sailor can be awarded.

He was from Wichita, Kansas.

On a more personal note.

Foster was shy when it came to meeting women.

Officers had to order Foster to come to dances and mixers at the Naval Academy.

At one point, a fellow officer set Foster up on a blind date with the officers sister.

His sister was a Broadway stage star named Isabelle Lowe.

Within 30 days of that first date, Foster proposed and the two married.

Foster retired from the Navy, but was recalled to active duty during World War II.

Foster became a personal assistant to President Roosevelt, serving the president on inspection and investigation tasks.

He retired again in 1946 with the rank of Vice Admiral.

During the Eisenhower administration, Foster was a representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.

Vice Admiral Paul F. Foster died in 1972.

Now, you may not find streets, parks or buildings named after him in Wichita, but the Wichita born naval officer repeatedly put duty and others ahead of his own welfare, making him a true American hero, born here in Wichita.

This is Chris Frank for Positively Kansas.

So even in Vice Admiral Foster's post naval career, he had such high respect, Presidents routinely called the Wichita born admiral to the White House for advice.

The next story is also about history and the impact one couple had on civil rights in education in Kansas.

Jim Grawe shows us how their home in Manhattan reveals the legacy of their efforts.

130 miles northeast of Wichita, a group of New Englanders settled at the junction of the Kansas and Big Blue Rivers.

Isaac and Ellen Goodnow were among these abolitionists that arrived in 1855.

We do have to remember and imagine what a underdeveloped place it was.

This really was frontier.

So if you were coming out here, you were brave and you were pushing boundaries.

With the Civil War and Kansas statehood just a few years in the future, the Goodnows and their fellow settlers hoped to influence Kansans to reject slavery and be admitted to the union as a free state.

He has been coined as a renaissance man, so he was involved in education, in natural history and sciences, politics, community building, government railroad.

Pretty much anything that anybody would need in someone that's coming in and establishing a community in a frontier town.

Isaac Goodnow had been a science professor in Rhode Island.

In Kansas, he would be elected as the first state superintendent of schools.

Goodnow was also instrumental in establishing Bluemont Central College, which later became Kansas State University.

And the neat thing about this college is both genders could attend at that time in history, which was unusual for institutions of education at that time.

If he had not been here at the time, he was.

It's hard to say whether or not the college would have developed like it did.

He was just so forward thinking and modern and really it was very imperative for him to have a quality education for the people who lived out here.

Ellen was also well-educated and taught at the college.

The couple soon moved out of their small country cabin and into a New England style two story limestone house that had been built a few years earlier.

It sat on a small six acre farm not far from the college.

Originally, a more basic farmhouse, the Goodnows had it enlarged to create a home that was more refined and comfortable.

That included the addition of a formal parlor, something you wouldn't find in many homes in this rural area at the time.

This was created or built at the time where they were hosting a lot of visitors.

And so they needed a location where they could bring in guests and welcome them into their community and have a formal area for conversation and business and whatever else they might be discussing.

And the Goodnows decorated the parlor with classy, upscale accouterments that surely impressed.

The furniture in this room.

Actually came from a purchase that Isaac Goodnow made himself in the 1860s.

When he was in Chicago, he purchased this parlor set for $55 and had it shipped to Manhattan free on the railroad.

The Goodnows interest in culture and science was on display at every turn.

From the fossils, shells and minerals they collected to the library and artwork.

It was clear that civilized, educated people lived in this house.

Now, 160 years later, Manhattan has grown up around it.

But the house itself outside and in, looks pretty much like Isaac and Ellen left it.

Mr. and Mrs. Goodnow passed away, and the home was left to their adopted daughter, Harriet.

She lived in the home until her death in 1940.

But prior to that, a few years, I believe it was 1938, she was unable to pay the taxes that were owed on the home.

So some community members stepped in and covered the cost.

They allowed her to live in the house until her death in 1940.

The house became a rental property, mostly for professors and students.

By the late 1960s, it was falling apart.

At that time, it wasn't even worth charging a monetary amount for rent.

So they allowed students to stay here rent free as long as they took care of the property.

A nonprofit group was established that purchased the home and then donated it to the Kansas Historical Society in 1969.

In 1971, it was restored to its original condition.

We are very fortunate that we have a pretty vast collection of items that were actually owned by the Goodnow family.

So the majority of what you see in this building is property of the Kansas Historical Society, and it was acquired at the time of the donation of the House.

This opened as a state historic site in 1972.

It keeps alive the story of Isaac and Ellen Goodnow., two of the state's first great educators and promoters of freedom and equality.

Isaac Goodnow, this was his property.

He was instrumental and essential to the development of both Manhattan and Riley County and the State of Kansas.

The Isaac Goodnow house is just so important to our community and the history of our county, our city, state, and even nationally.

The Goodnow House sits right next to the Riley County Historical Museum, just a few blocks from the Kansas State campus.

It's open for free tours every day, but Monday.

Well last week we took you on a tour of some interesting but often overlooked or unknown places in Kansas.

Well, this week, Chris Frank focuses on Wichita and some secret places that even lifelong residents may have never heard of.

There are some things about Wichita you may expect everyone to know about.

For example, knowing that Wichita was a cowtown and a stop along the Chisholm Trail, Texas cattle drive.

Now, knowing that you still may not be familiar with this in plain sight.

Chisholm Trail.

Historical Marker.

While driving past it regularly at Douglas and McLean, the historical marker placed in 1941 by Kansas Veterans of the Spanish-American War.

That's just one of 84 stories Wichita journalist and author Vanessa Whiteside writes about in her book Secret Wichita A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure.

I interviewed Whiteside at the PBS Kansas Station because one of her stories is about the Bonovia Foundation PBS Kansas Museum, she titles “The Small Screen ”.

It fits the book's obscure label because the free to the public museum is so new, many likely don't know about it.

She poses the question Could it be the city's smallest museum?

Now talk about weird, wonderful and obscure.

Whiteside asks Why is a robot buried underground on the Wichita State University campus?

This, the celestial mechanic, was dedicated in 2019.

But this is much smaller and it's only emerging from the ground a few inches.

So you could miss it if you walk by.

And there have been people that said, well, I was an engineering student and or I've been on campus recently and I've never noticed it.

It's there.

One might be surprised to see what they can learn at a cemetery.

So it may not be everyone's first thought to learn about their city or their town's history by walking a cemetery.

But there's a lot to learn.

A lot to learn, she says, including about two of Wichita's founders buried in north hillside cemeteries, one in the Maple Grove Cemetery on the east side of Hillside, the other in the Highland Cemetery on the west side.

James R. Mead, one of our founding fathers, is buried over there, and his mausoleum has a very interesting aesthetic.

You think if you could read about more about why he decided to make it look like an Egyptian design.

I tell that story in the book.

She also writes of the original Buffalo Bill.

William Matthewson.

He is one of Wichita's founders, along with Mead and others.

His monument in Highland Cemetery, which is on the west side of Hillside on Wichita's Chisholm Creek Park, is a popular spot for outdoor enthusiasts.

But you do have to look for this tree tunnel.

It's off the paved pathways.

So it's an unmarked natural tunnel.

The trees formed on their own that way.

And it's another one of those things that's a little bit obscure.

If you're on the actual concrete path or the paved pathway that goes through the park at that area, you may miss it.

Just keep your eyes peeled.

And once you realize where it's at, the directions are in the book.

You'll certainly most want to take a detour and go through the path.

Now Secret Wichita highlights several of the plain insight landmarks such as the Keeper of the Plains.

The author says she takes a deeper dove into those subjects for the readers.

Whiteside says she considered three different readers of the book.

One, The New Transplant to Wichita.

Secondly, those who have lived here for a long time.

And thirdly, someone who's never been to Wichita.

She was Oscar winning actress and she's from Wichita.

This historical marker at 925 North Wichita Street honors the Wichita born movie legend Hattie McDaniel.

McDaniel was the first African-American actor to win the Academy Award for best supporting Actress in the 1939 film Gone With the Wind.

Younger generations might not be as familiar with McDaniel because she acted from the 1920s to the early 1950s.

McDaniel Born in Wichita in 1893, the family lived near ninth and Waco Avenue before moving to Denver when Hattie was seven.

So I grew up here.

I knew nothing of it.

And I don't think any of my friends knew anything about it.

There's people that have picked up the book and thumbed through it and they said they didn't know anything about it.

The book directs the reader to Central Riverside Park to these 14 foot limestone rocks.

So some people call it Wichita's mini Stonehenge, but it's actually a solar calendar.

These were placed here in 2003.

Not only is this a type of mosaic art installation of some sort, there is a purpose to this.

So the blue stone, when the sun hits it at a perfect time of day, reflects onto another stone.

And all of it tells us about what's happening with the weather.

What season it is based on the movement of this light.

Whiteside points out a museum many may be blown away with, so to speak.

It's the House of Tank Museum.

This museum opened in 2020.

So things ranging from World War One to modern day more modern day tanks, tanks from Russia, Germany, the US used them.

There was one that is a replica of a Sherman tank and it's a replica from the movie Fury, which starred Brad Pitt.

So a lot of people like to go look at them, that one, and take their picture with it.

Being a self-guided museum means those with a casual interest may quickly get through it, while the person with a keen interest in tanks might take all day here.

Now, if you've driven on Commerce Street in the art district just south of Intrust Bank Arena, this site may have given you pause to think it's called rail grass.

And it's kind of hidden.

I mean, that's why I consider obscure, especially if it's daytime.

You may not even notice that it's there.

And after sunset, these curved rails light up.

The old railroad tracks are bent to resemble prairie grass blowing in the wind.

Because I don't want you to keep walking past these things in your community and taking them for granted because there is people that made our city what it is.

That's why I'm taking you to their gravesites or to a museum to look at it, an artifact or historical marker that tells more about them.

There's a little bit of everything about Wichita people, places and things in Secret Wichita, places such as the building the Spice Merchant has occupied for years at Douglas and Cleveland.

A century ago, this is where Mr. A.A. Hyde developed and manufactured Mentholatum.

The reader can learn from the individual stories about interesting characters like Carrie Nation and why she's holding a hatchet in this statue in front of the former Eaton Hotel.

Author Whiteside hopes readers will learn more by using the book as a tour guide and visiting the featured sites.

For Positively Kansas, this is Chris Frank reporting.

Secret Wichita is available at local bookstores.

You can pick up a copy and start exploring.

Well it's been said, that dancing is the language of the soul.

But if you're a sandhill crane, dancing is the language of love.

It's how you get lucky and find a mate.

Mike Blair captures it all on camera in this week's Kansas Wild Edge report.

The journey is long, 3000 miles or more, when sandhill cranes leave South Texas and Mexico to head for their nesting grounds in the Northwest Territories.

They fly about 30 miles per hour, soaring on thermals whenever they can to conserve energy.

They usually fly 8 to 10 hours at a time before stopping to rest at their favorite high energy food source.

Corn.

And central Kansas has plenty of places where the birds can refuel.

There's something to see with their large size, rusty caps and loud rolling calls.

But there's more.

In between bites, they often bust some amazing moves.

Nesting season lies just ahead.

And it's courtship time.

And that means crane dances where young birds do their best to attract a mate, a field full of dancing, sandhill cranes is a special viewing treat.

You can't call it elegant.

In fact, the dancing birds seem to make things up as they go.

Jumping, flapping, prancing forward and backwards.

It's something between a running fight and a disco competition as males vie for the attention of unmated females.

Suitors peck at each other and scratch with their feet leaping high in the air to gain advantage.

Feathers sometimes fly, but in the end, the winner gets the girl.

Often sealed when the pair stand together, raise their heads and utter a duet of blasting calls.

Once mated, they stay together for life.

They sometimes exhibit stately, synchronized flight to display this bond.

Courtship is continuous throughout spring migrations, as plenty of youngsters keep the party going.

In their excitement, young males often grab plant stalks and toss them high in the air as they dance.

Potential couples bow and dip, chasing among congested birds.

It can all look quite confusing, sometimes bordering on the ridiculous, but it's always entertaining and it works just fine for them.

Look for dancing sandhill cranes in central Kansas crop fields during early March.

Areas near Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in Cheyenne Bottoms are best since large crane gatherings use these famous roosting sites.

While there, you might be lucky enough to see these cranes larger white cousins, the rare whooping cranes.

Altogether, it's a spring birding spectacle you won't want to miss.

I'm Mike Blair, for Positively Kansas.

Well, that's a wrap for this week.

Im Sierra Scott.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you again soon.