Journalist and local historian Cindy Higgins presents an illustrated talk about the brewers and breweries of early Kansas, their role in fostering a sense of community within the state’s German enclaves, and their surprising legacy among today’s beer aficionados.

As settlers streamed into Kansas, brewers followed and set up their strange contraptions – “mash tuns” and “wort kettles.” The manufacture of beer was as much art as craft during a time before out-of-state competition, temperance societies, and state prohibition laws killed the budding industry. Kansas boasted more than 90 breweries, fixtures in German communities. Leavenworth had at least six operating at one time in the 1850s.

Based in Eudora, Higgins’ research interests focus on Kansas industry before technology and mechanization dramatically changed early twentieth century work and workers.