Press Releases
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts today announced the Senate approved legislation he and Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) introduced to designate 29 counties in Eastern Kansas a National Heritage Area, to showcase the importance of the region’s contributions to the struggle for equality in the nation.
The legislation, S. 203, creates the Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area. It joins communities throughout eastern Kansas to document, preserve and celebrate Kansas’ significant role in the political struggle, known as Bleeding Kansas, that led to the Civil War and in other historic struggles for equality that took place in the state. "Though far from the main campaigns, Bleeding Kansas became a prominent symbol in the fight for the freedom of all people, and the territory would become a battleground over the question of slavery," Senator Roberts said. National Heritage Areas are regions in which residents, businesses, and local governments have joined together to conserve and celebrate heritage and special landscapes. Congress has established 24 National Heritage Areas around the country, in which conservation, interpretation and other activities are managed by partnerships among federal, state, and local governments and the private sector. According to the National Park Service, each National Heritage Area is a settled landscape that tells the story of its residents. It is a landscape in which the land and the local environment, over time, have shaped traditions and cultural values in the people who live there, and where the residents' use of the land has, in turn, created and sustained a landscape that reflects their cultures. Senators Brownback and Roberts’ efforts echo the work done by the Lawrence City Commission, the Douglas County Commission, The Kansas State Historical Society, the Territorial Kansas Heritage Alliance and the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, who also worked diligently on the federal heritage area designation.
