LARNED — The Fort Larned Historical Society will sponsor a presentation “Orphan Trains in Kansas,” by Marilyn J. Holt at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14 at the Santa Fe Trail Center Museum and Library. The presentation will be part of the annual meeting for the Fort Larned Historical Society.
Anyone is invited to attend the free program. The program is funded by the Kansas Humanities Council.
Marilyn J. Holt is an independent historian who consults on Kansas history. Her publications include books on the orphan trains, rural women, Kansas teenagers, Indian orphanages, and children in the American West.
The orphan trains transported poor children from the eastern cities to rural Kansas from 1867 until the 1920s. Holt will share first-hand accounts of orphan train riders that challenge the picture of childhood in the good old days.
Orphan Trains in Kansas is part of the Kansas Humanities Council’s Kansas 150 Speakers Bureau commemorating the Kansas sesquicentennial. The special edition Speakers Bureau features presentations and discussions about Kansas and what it means to be a Kansan over time and across generations.
For more information about the program Orphan Trains in Kansas contact the Santa Fe Trail Center, Larned, KS  at 620-285-2054 or visit www.santafetrailcenter.org.
The Kansas Humanities Council conducts and supports community-based programs, serves as a financial resource through an active grant-making program, and encourages Kansans to participate in their communities. For more information about KHC programs contact the Kansas Humanities Council at 785-357-0359 or visit online at www.kansashumanities.org.