Prairie Fire: A Great Plains History

January 30th, 2024 - January 30, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Zoom meeting

Stimulate your intellect and expand your horizons through our Winter Lecture Series in January, February and March. Featured topics for this coming series are a Great Plains History of Fire, Bison Ecology, and Prairie Pollinators. One lecture will be remote and the other two in person. Lectures begin at 7:00, followed by a time for questions. The event will end by 8:30 p.m. Cost: $5 per person.

Join historian, author and teacher Julie Courtwright as she discusses the role of fire – human-caused and natural – in shaping the Great Plains and the lives of its residents. Using newspaper accounts, diary entries and pop culture artifacts, Courtwright explores how fire has benefitted and sometimes terrorized humans. She’ll give special attention to prairie fires in Central Kansas. Courtwright grew up in the Flint Hills of Kansas. She’s an associate professor of history at Iowa State University.