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Bold Beginnings
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The confluence of the Arkansas and
Little Arkansas rivers has been a natural
gathering place for more than 10,000 years. As a
center of trade for Native Americans, the
tallgrass prairie around the rivers drew traders
and settlers in the years just after the Civil
War. In 1870, Sedgwick County was organized and
Wichita was incorporated with a combined
population of 1,095 people. |
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The coming of the railroad in 1872 made Wichita a
terminus on the cattle trails leading up from Texas and
turned the town into a boom town. The cattle boom lasted
a scant three years. The railroads moved farther west
and so did the cattle trade. Wichita then turned to
manufacturing and agriculture and weathered several
downturns in its economy. By 1900, almost 25,000 people
lived in Wichita. In the decade following, the
population doubled again. The city’s entrepreneurs
invented Mentholatum and the Coleman lantern. They built
plows and stoves and automobiles, one of them
steam-powered. They also discovered oil under the
prairie around the town.
The Air Capital of the World
By the end of World War I, the city found
itself poised for the arrival of the industry that in
the next 50 years would define its image. In 1919, the
Wichita Airplane Company was incorporated, and its
lyrically named “Swallow” left the ground for the first
time a year later. Wichita built its first airport as a
stop on the airmail route from Chicago to Dallas. Other
aviation companies sprouted. By 1928, the city’s
aircraft factories produced 1,500 planes, a fourth of
the nation’s output that year. The following year, 11
different manufacturers employing nearly 1,000 people
were sending their products skyward.
The city suffered through the Depression, losing
seven of its 13 banks, losing its library, watching dust
storms and unbearable heat arrive in the summer of the
worst epidemic of influenza in the city’s history.
Typically, Wichita bounced back. The unemployment
lines shortened, and the city built itself a new
baseball stadium, poured concrete runways at the
airport, widened its downtown streets, and opened new
buildings at Wichita University, the first municipal
university west of the Mississippi River. The $400,000
Boeing plant in south Wichita found new strength in the
pre-war years as did Beech Aircraft Company and Cessna
Aircraft Company. The plants were ready when, a few
years later, the U.S. entered World War II.
Wichita’s aircraft factories turned out hundreds of
airplanes for the war effort, including several models
of bombers. The B-29 Superfortress was made here,
including the Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic
bomb.
At war’s end, many of the thousands of people who
had moved to town to work in the aircraft factories
chose to stay. The swell of population brought with it
numerous challenges in housing, transportation, schools
and public facilities. Wichita responded as a community
and overcame those problems.
Still Making History
Today, Wichita’s aircraft companies continue
the forceful expansions of the early years. No employer
in Kansas or the contiguous states can match Boeing’s
labor force or its impact on the local and national
economy. Astoundingly, nearly 70 percent of general
aviation aircraft built in the United States are
constructed in Wichita. Beech Aircraft Corporation, the
outgrowth of Walter and Olive Ann Beech’s singular
dream, is now Raytheon Aircraft Company, part of
Raytheon Company, the defense and aerospace giant.
Raytheon Aircraft now makes its defense, aerospace and
general aviation masterpieces in the factory complex
that was Beech’s home since 1934. Cessna is again
producing the small piston aircraft that predated the
Citations, the most successful business jet in the
history of aviation. Bombardier Aerospace is enjoying a
renaissance under the corporation that has meant
stability and opportunity for the company Bill Lear
built in Wichita.
But Wichita’s economic base has diversified in the
past 20 years. The city has kept pace with the growth in
services and information technology, thus providing a
strong and vibrant economy. Wichita is now home to
hundreds of companies whose products and services spread
all over the world and help to feed it, energize it,
transport it, communicate with it and, finally, to
understand it.
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