Metal-De Soto TB

I maintain records on my trackables. For a US-based trackable, this one is unusual for its longevity and movement. In the six-year period, 2010-19, the owner released a total of 3,793 trackables in the United States (96%) and Europe (4%). This trackable is one of the 5% of the total that circulated for at least 5 years and had been moved at least 25 times. That is a target rate of at least five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 2-Mar-24 this trackable had survived for 7.1 years and had been moved by 32 cachers, for an average drop every 81 days, or 4.5 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

While I have lived in Texas for nearly 50 years, I was born and grew to an adult in Kansas.  When I tell someone of my origins, they almost always respond in one of two ways:  “I have been there but I don’t remember much about it” or “that 400 mile drive across the state on Interstate 70 is really boring.”  There is more to the state than that.  The wheat grown there feeds the world, and the people are nice.  I watch for items I can convert to travel bugs.  Some some metal beads having a raised letter on the face were encountered and each bead was named for a Kansas town whose name starts with the letter on the face of the bead.  The towns remembered either have a connection to my youth or have an interesting name or history.

De Soto is a city in Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties.  It was named for sixteenth-century Spanish explorer, Hernando De Soto. The town was founded in 1857, on 80 acres sold by John and Hattie Possum, Shawnee Indians.  It was a sleepy little town in the Kansas River valley until WWII.  With the construction of the 9,080 acre Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant south of De Soto, the population boomed.. In May 1943, The Kansas City Star article reported "a town rapidly growing, with a population increase from 400 to 1,000 persons in under a year". This sudden overflow in population put a great strain on housing and other resources in the city; however, many original residents prospered during this time, buying property and starting new businesses. Production flowed steadily at the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant until the plant went on standby in March 1948, with small scale production following shortly after until its closure in 1993. It is now part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area.