Emporia--Home of William Allen White

The board mentions White's 1924 run for governor but not its reason. His Gazette editorials had attacked the Ku Klux Klan since 1921, and he ran to carry that message to a wider state and national audience. He did not win, but he was widely credited with deflating the Klan's intentions in Kansas. Two years earlier he had been arrested in a dispute over free speech, after objecting to the state's handling of the men in the 1922 railroad strike. His editorial To an Anxious Friend, published on July 27, 1922, won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize.

What the plaque says

Emporia--Home of William Allen White When native born William Allen White entered college at Emporia in 1884, the city, incorporated in 1857, already was called the Athens of Kansas because of its two higher schools. The State Normal, now Kansas State Teachers College, was established in 1863, and the College of Emporia where White enrolled was founded in 1882. In 1895 Bill White, now a journalist, became owner of the Emporia Gazette. As he rose to literary and political prominence, he brought national fame to his home town. Will Rogers had White in mind when he said, "Kansas has more real newspapermen than all the rest of the states combined." White was an independent Republican who took his politics seriously, yet was the friend and confidant of leaders of both major parties. If he thought the occasion demanded, he could forsake the organized parties, as he did in 1924 when he ran for governor as an independent. But White's greatest influence derived from his writings. Through his eloquent editorial voice, he interpreted the eagerness of Middle Western people for a rule of true democracy. W.A. White died January 29, 1944. His courage, conscience and intelligence, abetted by a keen sense of humor, made him highly respected. He helped mold the America of his day.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Allegawaho Memorial Heritage Park — 17 mi
  The Kaw Nation's own land south of Council Grove, site of the last Kanza villages in Kansas, with stone house ruins, a dance arbor, and since 2024 the sacred red boulder Iⁿ'zhúje'waxóbe.
• Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve — 20 mi
  A Chase County cattle ranch of the 1880s with its limestone house, three-level barn and one-room school intact, set among 40 miles of trails through unplowed tallgrass where bison and cattle both graze.
• Chase County Courthouse — 20 mi
  A Second Empire courthouse of local limestone, built in 1872 and 1873 to John G. Haskell's design and, by the county's account, the oldest courthouse in Kansas still in daily use.

More markers nearby

• Chase County & the Bluestem Pasture Region of Kansas — 18 mi
• A Landmark of Distinction — 21 mi
• Council Grove — 21 mi