Kansas mining revisited

My two older kids did their undergraduate studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.  I recall the old town, its beauty, its quaintness, and the many wooden boxes I found in the second-hand stores that line the streets. I recall average food, carelessly served by students, in old, bare-brick wall buildings.  I recall cold winters and steaming summers as we blundered through Wal-Mart to get that which was constantly needed to feed and clothe them. 

I do not recall any mines in the area that we drove through so often.  I do not recall any talk of mining.  I knew there were many excavations into the limestone and these now housed cold-storage and safe-storage companies.  My daughter, who studied civil engineering, says that in class the civil engineers talked only of tractors, pigs, and corn.  My son, studying political science, talked about those things that young men with ROTC scholarships talk about—and it is best I do not mention them here. 

Now I have found a site put up by the Lawrence Journal, LJWorkd.com that has a long spread on mining in southeast Kansas, a part of the state I never visited.   Go take a look at the site, as much for the stories it tells, as for the layout and graphics and utility of the site.  It is worth a visit, regardless of your mining affiliations and afflictions.