Wichita, Kansas

Name: Wichita, Kansas
Address: Wichita, KS

Everything Wichita is known for

68 songs mention this city 96 artists from here

RoadyGoat plays music like this when you drive through Wichita. It's free on iPhone, and full songs play through Apple Music.

Wichita, Kansas, known as the "Air Capital of the World" due to its significant aircraft industry, also boasts a rich musical heritage. Our collection features 54 songs that mention Wichita and 100 artists who call it home. Among these artists is jazz legend Stan Kenton, and the city is also referenced in iconic songs like "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell. The city's music scene has a vibrant history, with a notable blues tradition and a past that includes a bustling soul scene in the mid-20th century.

Music in Wichita

Songs About Wichita

Intro

De La Soul

90%

"Just came all the way down from Wichita just to be on this show."

Wichita Skyline

Shawn Colvin

85%

"Song about Wichita, KS"

Wichita

The Jayhawks

83%

"Come to Wichita"

Back to Wichita

Tanner Legg & The Heaters

83%

Wichita Falls

Trailor Trash

83%

Wichita Ain’t so Far Away

The Delines

83%

"Wichita ain't so far away"

Wichita (Revival Outtake)

Gillian Welch

82%

"She went back to Wichita"

Wichita Lineman

Stoney LaRue

82%

"And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line"

Wichita Lineman

Jimmy Webb

81%

"And the Wichita lineman"

Wichita Lineman

Glen Campbell

81%

"And the Wichita lineman"

Wichita Falls

Houston Marchman

81%

Witch in Wichita

Kenneth Waters

80%

Wichita

Tim O'Brien

79%

As Wichita Falls; So Falls Wichita Falls

Mike Ethan Messick

79%

Things to Do in Wichita

Mark Chesnutt

79%

"Things to do in Wichita"

Wichita

Dirt Road Sweetheart & Nora Jane Struthers

78%

Here to Wichita

Logan Lotz

78%

"Here to Wichita"

Wichita

Houston Marchman

77%

Wichita Falls

Houston Marchman & The Contraband

77%

Wichita Jail

Charlie Daniels

77%

"The Wichita Jail"

Showing top 20 of 68 songs · Hear more in the free iPhone app

Artists From Wichita

Showing top 20 of 96 artists · Hear more in the free iPhone app

Rivers & Roads in Song near Wichita

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Wichita.

Arkansas River 8 songs Interstate 35 45 songs

History of Wichita

Air Capital, Pizza Pioneers RoadyGoat

Wichita earned its 'Air Capital of the World' nickname the hard way, by actually building the planes. Cessna, Beechcraft, Learjet and Stearman all took root here, and to this day a huge slice of the world's general-aviation aircraft are stamped 'made in Wichita.' But the city's other claim to fame is dinner: in 1958, brothers Dan and Frank Carney borrowed six hundred dollars from their mother and opened the first Pizza Hut in a tiny rented building on the corner of Bluff and Kellogg. The hut-like roof and a sign with room for only eight letters gave the chain its name. Within a year they had six more shops; within a couple decades it was the biggest pizza chain on earth. (That original building was later moved to the Wichita State campus, where it's now a small museum.) Wings overhead, pizza on the ground.

Satellite Tornadoes: the Dance at Ground Level RoadyGoat

1955

The textbook Fujiwhara effect is a big-storm phenomenon, hurricanes and typhoons circling each other out over the ocean. But out here over the plains, the same dance sometimes shrinks all the way down to the ground. It is called a satellite tornado: a smaller, separate twister that forms near a large tornado and begins to orbit around it, both of them feeding off the same rotating thunderstorm overhead. The little one swings around the big one counterclockwise, holding a gap of anywhere from half a mile to a few miles, exactly the way two cyclones circle a shared center. Storm researchers literally call this a binary, or Fujiwhara, interaction. It is one of the eeriest things a storm chaser can witness in Tornado Alley: not one funnel, but two, waltzing across an open field.

How the air-raid siren learned to mean tornado RoadyGoat

1952

That siren you hear in storm country was built to warn you about something else entirely. On April 22, 1952, Wichita tested its first air-raid siren, mounted on Roosevelt School at 2200 E Douglas, a Cold War gadget meant to signal an enemy attack. The Federal Civil Defense Act, signed in 1951, had put sirens on rooftops all over America. Then on May 20, 1957, an F5 tornado leveled the Kansas City suburb of Ruskin Heights and killed 44 people. Officials there realized the bomb sirens could warn for weather instead. Sedgwick County copied the idea and, on April 1, 1958, sounded 13 sirens together for the first time as a tornado test. Within months they ran for a real one. The nuclear-age howl had quietly become the sound that means take shelter now.

Chisholm Trail: The Road That Built the Cattle Kingdom

1867

Wichita served as a major railhead on the Chisholm Trail, where millions of Texas longhorns were driven north to Kansas cattle towns and shipped east by rail.

Wichita: Air Capital of the World

1920

Wichita earned the title Air Capital of the World after becoming home to Cessna, Beechcraft, Learjet, and Stearman, producing more aircraft than any other city in the world.

Carrie Nation: The Hatchet and the Saloon

1900

On December 27, 1900, temperance crusader Carrie Nation stormed into the Carey Hotel bar in Wichita declaring herself the right arm of God, launching her nationally famous hatchet-wielding campaign against saloons.

Things to Do in Wichita

food 0.5 mi away

White Castle (Original)

The first fast food hamburger chain opened in 1921 in Wichita KS. Sliders started here.

Everything Near Wichita

17 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Chisholm Trail: The Road That Built the Cattle Kingdom · Historical Marker
Wichita served as a major railhead on the Chisholm Trail, where millions of Texas longhorns were driven north to Kansas cattle towns and shipped east by rail.
Wichita, KS · Local history
Wichita rises from a landscape once defined by tallgrass prairie, a place where the vast sky presses down, hinting at the deep time etched in the Permian redbeds beneath the surface. The city owes its name and its…
Sedgwick County Memorial Hall and Soldiers and Sailors Monument · 0.1 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Take a moment to honor the brave men and women of Sedgwick County at this Civil War monument. The idea for a Civil War memorial in Sedgwick County began around 1904 with two local Grand Army of the Republic posts.…
Orpheum Theatre (Wichita, Kansas) · 0.3 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Pull over for a second and check out the Orpheum Theatre, a Wichita landmark where vaudeville once reigned supreme! Designed by John Eberson, the Orpheum opened its doors on September 4, 1922. Local investors funded the…
Air Capital, Pizza Pioneers · 0.5 mi
Wichita earned its 'Air Capital of the World' nickname the hard way, by actually building the planes. Cessna, Beechcraft, Learjet and Stearman all took root here, and to this day a huge slice of the world's…
Satellite Tornadoes: the Dance at Ground Level · 0.5 mi
The textbook Fujiwhara effect is a big-storm phenomenon, hurricanes and typhoons circling each other out over the ocean. But out here over the plains, the same dance sometimes shrinks all the way down to the ground. It…
How the air-raid siren learned to mean tornado · 0.5 mi
That siren you hear in storm country was built to warn you about something else entirely. On April 22, 1952, Wichita tested its first air-raid siren, mounted on Roosevelt School at 2200 E Douglas, a Cold War gadget…
Why tornadoes happen HERE · 0.5 mi
Ever wonder why the Plains breed so many tornadoes? It's geography. Right over country like this, three different air masses come barreling in from three directions. Warm, wet air pushes up off the Gulf of Mexico. Hot,…
Wichita: Air Capital of the World · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker
Wichita earned the title Air Capital of the World after becoming home to Cessna, Beechcraft, Learjet, and Stearman, producing more aircraft than any other city in the world.
Carrie Nation: The Hatchet and the Saloon · 0.5 mi · Historical
On December 27, 1900, temperance crusader Carrie Nation stormed into the Carey Hotel bar in Wichita declaring herself the right arm of God, launching her nationally famous hatchet-wielding campaign against saloons.
The Tornado Capital of the World · 0.5 mi
Out here on the Plains, you are sitting in the tornado capital of the entire planet. The U.S. National Severe Storms Laboratory says about 1,200 tornadoes touch down across the United States in an average year. No other…
White Castle (Original) · 0.5 mi · Things to Do
The first fast food hamburger chain opened in 1921 in Wichita KS. Sliders started here.

Show all 17 nearby places

The Wichita Triangle · 0.5 mi
Somewhere in the Wichita metro, geocachers have been playing with the idea of a local Bermuda Triangle — a zone where caches mysteriously vanish and things go missing for no good reason. The puzzle cache called the…
Allen–Lambe House · 2.5 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Pull over here for a sec; this unassuming house is a piece of architectural history. It's the Allen-Lambe House, one of the few Prairie Style homes in Kansas, and it was designed by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright.…
Kansas Aviation Museum · 5.4 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Prepare for takeoff into Wichita's soaring aviation legacy at the Kansas Aviation Museum! This isn't just another museum; it's housed in the original Wichita Municipal Airport terminal, built in 1935. For nearly two…
The 37th Parallel UFO Highway · 6.7 mi
The 37th parallel has a nickname: America's UFO Highway. Cut a line across the country at 37 degrees north latitude and you string together a wildly disproportionate number of unexplained events — strange lights, cattle…
Theorosa's Bridge · 13.3 mi
This little concrete bridge over Chester Creek doesn't look like much by daylight. A low span on a quiet county road between Valley Center and Sedgwick, north of Wichita. But locals have been whispering about it for…

Explore Wichita on the Map

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Wichita, Kansas

Music in Wichita

Songs About Wichita

Artists From Wichita

Rivers & Roads in Song near Wichita

History of Wichita

Air Capital, Pizza Pioneers RoadyGoat

Satellite Tornadoes: the Dance at Ground Level RoadyGoat

How the air-raid siren learned to mean tornado RoadyGoat

Chisholm Trail: The Road That Built the Cattle Kingdom

Wichita: Air Capital of the World

Carrie Nation: The Hatchet and the Saloon

Things to Do in Wichita

Everything Near Wichita

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