Researcher of Ford, Edwards, and Kiowa Counties in the State of Kansas. What transpired in these counties and early settlements previous to this settlement.

What criteria whet my appetite for 1800 - 1890 history in this particular area of Kansas?

Several things I suppose.
First, I suppose is my thirty seven years of teaching school, teaching Kansas History.
Next would be the enjoyment and interest of historical events that was part of my growing up environment.
But most of all it is the excitement of the hunt it's self. The process of finding the information on which I base my research on. The new people I meet and places to visit and find new and exciting information. This is what it's all about. It's kind of like the feeling you would get after mining for gold for years and one day chipping away just another rock only to find that you've uncovered a large vein of pure gold. This is the feeling I get when I find that little bit of information that has eluded me for a long time and finely turning that page in a book, talking to someone and there it is, out comes that vein of information that a person has been searching for all alone.

After retiring, I became very involved in early settlement research. As a result, I have authored three {1800 - 1890} historical maps of Ford, Edwards, and Kiowa Counties. Ford County map is copyrighted, printed, and ready for sale. Edwards and Kiowa County maps are in the final stages of completion and will be ready for printing in the very near future.

The 1800 - 1890 map of Ford County in Kansas is 19" by 25" inches and printed on heavy bounded map paper. Map locations are numbered and color coded for easy references on the map indexes. Ford County Historic Map alone has 34 marked hostile encounters.