The Legend of Burnett's Mound
A myth that the tornado debunked was that a local landmark named Burnett's Mound would protect the city from tornadoes. According to a local Native American legend, if a tornado tracked approached Topeka, the 250-foot hill (named after Potawatomi Indian chief Abram Burnett, and also believed to be an ancient Native American burial ground) would cause them to disintegrate.
A few years earlier, a water tower was built directly on the mound, which sparked controversy by many Topeka residents as they felt it would negatively affect the mound's ability to keep the city safe from tornadoes.
However, ten other tornadoes had struck the city since Kansas state tornado records were first kept in 1887. This tornado was significantly stronger than the other ten tornadoes that struck Topeka prior to June 8.
Read more about this topic: 1966 Topeka Tornado
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—Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)
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“Worn down by the hoofs of millions of half-wild Texas cattle driven along it to the railheads in Kansas, the trail was a bare, brown, dusty strip hundreds of miles long, lined with the bleaching bones of longhorns and cow ponies. Here and there a broken-down chuck wagon or a small mound marking the grave of some cowhand buried by his partners “on the lone prairie” gave evidence to the hardships of the journey.”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)