Либерал қаласы: тарихы мен географиясы

City in Seward County, Kansas

Liberal is the county seat of Seward County, Kansas, United States. It is located in southwest Kansas, along U. S. Route 54 highway, near the Kansas Oklahoma state line. Liberal is home of Seward County Community College.

Early settler Seymour S. Rogers built the first house in what would become Liberal in 1872. Rogers became famous in the region for giving free water to thirsty travelers. Reportedly, Liberal gained its name from the common response to his acts of kindness, "That's very liberal of you." In 1885 Rogers built a general store, and with it came an official U. S. Post Office. Rogers named the post office 'Liberal'. After the railroad was built close by, a plan for the town site was created in 1888. A year later the population was around 800. The city lies approximately 10 mile (16 km) southwest of the Cimarron River in the High Plains region of the Great Plains. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 11.75 square miles (30 km2), of which 11.61 square miles (30 km2) is land and 0.14 square miles (0 km2) is water.

Liberal has a commission manager government with a city commission consisting of five members elected at large. Elections occur every two years in the odd numbered year, and commissioners serve two year or four year terms depending on the number of votes they receive. Each year, the commission appoints a member to serve as mayor and another to serve as vice mayor. The city manager heads the city administration.

U. S. Route 83 runs north–south along the east side of the city, intersecting U. S. Route 54 which runs northeast southwest. In addition, Liberal is the western terminus of U. S. Route 270 which runs concurrently with U. S. 83 south from the city. Publicly owned, it has two operative paved runways and is used primarily for general aviation. United Express provides airline service with daily flights to Denver. The Tucumcari Line of the Union Pacific Railroad runs parallel to U. S. 54 northeast–southwest through the city. The City Bus provides fixed route and dial a ride transit services Monday through Friday.

Four newspapers are published in Liberal. The Leader & Times is the city's main daily newspaper, published six days a week. It is the result of the merger between the city's two previous dailies, the High Plains Daily Leader and the Southwest Daily Times. The publisher of the Leader & Times also prints a weekly Spanish language paper, El Lider. Seward County Community College publishes a bi weekly student newspaper, the Crusader. The fourth paper is the Liberal Light, published weekly. Liberal is a center of broadcast media for southwest Kansas and the Oklahoma Panhandle. Two AM and seven FM radio stations are licensed to and broadcast from the city. Liberal is in the Wichita Hutchinson, Kansas television market, and one television station broadcasts from the city: KSWE LD, a sister station of KDGL LD in Sublette, Kansas. On cable, viewers can receive stations from the Wichita/Hutchinson market (via semi satellite stations in Garden City/Ensign), PBS' Tulsa affiliate, KOED, as well as Amarillo, Texas's CBS affiliate, KFDA TV.

Liberal is famous for its annual Pancake Day race that is held in competition with the town of Olney, United Kingdom for the fastest time between both cities.

Liberal has a water park known as Adventure Bay. The fifth largest collection of civilian and military aircraft in the United States is located at the Mid America Air Museum. Started with a gift of fifty planes by General Tom (Thomas) Welch, Jr., the museum has more than one hundred aircraft. The Coronado Museum has items from the Native Americans that lived in the area, as well as items from Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's expedition to the area in 1541, and the history of farming and ranching in the county in more recent times. Liberal is home to "The Land of Oz" exhibit from The Wizard of Oz, a recreation of Dorothy Gale's house and the famed Yellow Brick Road, featuring donated bricks bearing the names of former U. S. Senator Bob Dole, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and Liza Minnelli (Judy Garland's daughter). This exhibit was originally designed and displayed for Topeka in 1981, but relocated here eleven years later by its creator Linda Windler. Liberal Memorial Library is located on North Kansas Avenue between Fifth and Sixth Streets in Cooper Park. The Book Front entrance was completed in April 1955 and designed by the building's architect George L. Pitcher. Wheeler Williams, a sculptor from New York, signed an agreement in October 1960 to mold the "Pioneer Mother of Kansas." This six foot statue, sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. D. K. Baty, was to be erected in Cooper Park on Memorial Day, May 30, 1961. It was placed opposite of the "Statue of Liberty," which was donated and placed in Cooper Park by the Boy Scouts of America.

The Liberal Bee Jays, a semi professional baseball team, have won five national championships and 13 state championships. The Bee Jays have been coached by three major league managers and have sent 165 players to the major leagues.

B. H. Fairchild wrote the poem, "At the Excavation of Liberal, Kansas" (in: The Art of the Lathe, Alice James Books, 1998), in memory of William Stafford; it contains Stafford's poem, "What I Heard Whispered at the Edge of Liberal, Kansas" (from: Stories That Could Be True: New and Collected Poems, Harper and Row, 1977). In the film National Lampoon's Vacation, Clark W. Griswold suggests altering the family's route of travel in order to visit Liberal so they can see the world's largest house of mud. The idea is rejected by his wife, Ellen, in favor of getting to her cousin Eddie's home. Season 4, Episode 9 of Fargo is set in Liberal.