August 14, 2022: Tattooed: The Tale of Maud Wagner

Text reads Tattooed The Tale of Maud Wagner. Image is of a woman in a sequined strapless dress and dark hair upswept with a flower. The woman's skin is covered in tattoos of plants and people.

Tattooed: The Tale of Maud Wagner presented by Lisa Soller August 14, 2022, 2 p.m. Ottawa Memorial Auditorium, 301 South Hickory Street, Ottawa, Kansas Born in Emporia, Kansas, in 1877, Maud Stevens left home at the age of 19 to join the circus. While working as an aerialist and contortionist at Louisiana Purchase Exposition (also known as the St. Louis World’s Fair), she met and married Gus “The Globe Trotter” Wagner, a “most artistically marked up man” who would collect more than 800 tattoos during his lifetime. Soon covered in…

Read More

POSTPONED: Foam on the Range, presented by Isaias McCaffery – December 16

A man wearing a gray suit and burgundy tie stands in the foreground. Newspaper text from 1866 announcing Ottawa's new prohibition law is in the background. The Humanities Kansas logo is in the background.

Foam on the Range Wednesday, December 16, 7 p.m. Watch via Facebook Live Wherever You Are Watch at Not Lost Brewing and enjoy a round courtesy of The Gun Guys in Ottawa, KS This event has been postponed. A new date will be announced in the spring. Settle in with your favorite beverage for a story about prohibition, an attempt to thwart immigrant brewers, and immigrant perseverance in Kansas! Watch this program live online from wherever you are or watch it over dinner and beer at Not Lost Brewing! Details…

Read More

Presentation, exhibits explore Women’s Suffrage in Kansas and Franklin County

The Franklin County Historical Society will host a presentation and outdoor and indoor exhibits to commemorate the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote. On August 18, 7 p.m., FCHS will host “The Long Road to Women’s Suffrage in Kansas,” a presentation and discussion by Diane Eickhoff.  The free program will be offered via Facebook Live at facebook.com/olddepotmuseum. The program is made possible by Humanities Kansas. Kansas was historically a leader in women’s rights, yet the campaign for voting rights in Kansas…

Read More

January 26: Franklin County’s Civil Conservation Corps topic of this year’s historical society annual meeting

From 1933 until 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps employed millions of young, unmarried men in jobs related to conservation and natural resource development as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Tod Bevitt will explore how the C.C.C. impacted Kansas and Franklin County during their presentation at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Members of the Franklin County Historical Society on Sunday, January 26, 2 p.m. at Neosho County Community College in Ottawa, Kansas. The Civilian Conservation Corps was arguably one of Roosevelt’s most successful New Deal programs. The…

Read More