My first full day in Kansas took me through the Flint Hills in east central Kansas. The name is a misnomer, the hills are actually comprised of a similar substance, chert, not flint. The flint, uh, chert that is, made the hills essentially unplowable--leaving the area somewhat similar to what it looked like before settlers moved through Kansas.
The Flint Hills can be seen from Interstate 70 near Manhattan and Kansas State University, however, to fully appreciate their magnificence, take the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway between Topeka and Wichita. The Tallgrass National Prairie is there, centered in Chase County.
The area is not highly-populated, and is struggling to keep the people it has from moving on. Besides this schoolhouse, I saw other abandoned buildings in the hills region.
Over on the right is some chert.
And below is a typical Flint Hills hilltop, with chert clearly visible.
The Flint Hills got their name from explorer Zebulon Pike, who traveled through the region in 1806, on his way to, you guessed it, Pikes Peak.
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