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 Forklift Masts Kansas - The US state of Kansas is situated within the Midwestern area of the country. The state of Kansas got is name from the Kansas River, that flows through the state of Kansas. The Kansas River was named after the Native American tribe that colonized the region, known as the Kansa. The tribe's name is normally said to mean "people of the south wind" or "people of the world", although this was most likely not the term's original meaning. Residents of Kansas are called "Kansans."
For thousands of years what is currently the state of Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes within the Eastern part of the state generally resided within villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the Western area of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted big herds of bison. Kansas was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery problem. When officially opened to settlement by the United States government during the year 1854, abolitionist Free-Staters from New England and pro-slavery settlers from neighboring state of Missouri hurried to the territory to find out if Kansas will become a slave state or a free state. Therefore, the region was a hotbed of chaos and violence in its early days as these forces collided, and was referred to as Bleeding Kansas. The abolitionists eventually prevailed and on January 29, the year 1861, the state of Kansas entered the Union as a free state. Following the Civil War, the residents of the state of Kansas grew rapidly, when waves of settlers turned the prairie into farmland. Today, the state of Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, producing high yields of sunflowers, wheat and sorghum.
The agricultural outputs of the state are sheep, cattle, wheat, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, hogs, corn, and salt. Eastern Kansas is part of the Grain Belt, an area of major grain production in the central United States. The industrial outputs are private and commercial aircrafts, transportation equipment, publishing, food processing, chemical products, machinery, apparel, petroleum and mining.
The state of Kansas ranks 8th within United States oil production. Production has experienced a steady, natural decline as it becomes increasingly difficult to extract oil over time. Ever since oil prices bottomed during 1999, oil production in the state of Kansas has remained fairly constant, with an average monthly rate of about 2.8 million barrels during 2004. The recent higher prices have made carbon dioxide sequestration and other oil recovery methods more economical.
The state likewise ranks 8th in natural gas production, although production has declined since the 90's. This is mostly because of the gradual depletion of the Hugoton Natural Gas Field, which is the largest natural gas field in the state of Kansas. During 2004, slower declines in the Hugoton gas fields and increased coalbed methane production contributed to a smaller overall decline.
The economy of the state is dependent upon the aerospace industry, because Kansas has numerous big aircraft manufacturing facilities in Wichita and Kansas City, such as Spirit AeroSystems, Boeing, Learjet, Cessna, and Hawker Beechcraft (previously Raytheon). A lot of these major company's have their headquarters within Kansas, including: the Sprint Nextel Corporation, Embarq, YRC Worldwide, Garmin, Payless Shoes, and Koch Industries.
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