100 years ago in Kansas, January 14 – 19, 1918:

January 14, 1918

-The State Fuels Administrator ordered a three-day embargo on coal shipments from Kansas to Missouri (Blogger’s note:  Insert your own Border War joke here!)

January 16, 1918

-The Kansas crop lost from insects in 1917 was about $8,000,000 as compared with $40,000,000 in 1916, according to K.S.A.C.  (Kansas State Agricultural College.)

January 17, 1918

-A Kansas war conference at Topeka discussed food production and conservation and war education.  A resolution was adopted forbidding instruction in any foreign language in elementary grades.

January 19, 1918

-Emergency closing orders were issued to business men.  Dance halls were closed.  Billiard halls did not open until noon and theaters and movies closed at nine o’clock.

Blair Tarr is the Museum Curator of the Kansas State Historical Society. He oversees the three-dimensional collections of the Society, but has special interests in the Civil War, Wichita-made Valentine diners, and Leavenworth's Abernathy Furniture. In the last few years he has also done a lot of cramming on The Great War. He is a past president of the Kansas Museums Association and the Civil War Round Tables of both Kansas City and Eastern Kansas. He is currently a board member of the Heritage League of Greater Kansas City.