Metal-Greensburg Silver Laser-Cut Gear TB

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of 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 25-Apr-25 this trackable had survived for 3.7 years and had been moved by 5 cachers, for an average drop every 272 days, or 1.3 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. Each of the items in this metal series is named for a Kansas town with a connection to my youth or have an interesting name or history.

Kansas achieved statehood in 1861, but it was far from civilized. From 1850 until 1900 the region was a frontier, and at the center of important events in US history: there was the westward movement of pioneers from Europe and the eastern US and the subsequent conflicts with Native Americans; the Santa Fe Trail crossed the state and the Pony Express and the Oregon Trail passed through a corner; there was a border war because Kansas was a free state and a center of the abolitionist movement, whereas neighboring Missouri and Arkansas were slave states; and finally the several new railroads were extending westward into hostile territory and furthermore some of the railheads were the destinations of cattle drives from Texas. Each trackable in this series of metal travel bugs is named for towns with interesting histories, some of which have connections to my youth.

Greensburg is a city in, and the county seat of, Kiowa County, Kansas, United States.[1] As of the 2010 census, the city population was 777, and before the tornado, in 2000 the population was 1,544.

The first settlement was in 1885. Greensburg was named for D.R. "Cannonball" Green, who owned a stagecoach company and who helped to form the city. The Cannonball Golf Course was also named in his memory. For over 50 years the "World's Largest Hand-Dug Well" was just a big, rock-lined hole in the ground, 32 feet wide and 109 feet deep. It was dug in 1887-88 by men using picks, shovels, a pulley and rope, and half a barrel to haul up the dirt. A staircase and lighting were added in 1916, but it wasn't until 1939 that the Well was opened to tourists, who would pay for the adventure of walking down to its dank bottom.

On the evening of May 4, 2007, Greensburg was devastated by an EF5 tornado that traveled rapidly through the area, leveling at least 95 percent of the city and killing eleven people between the ages of 46 and 84.

Greensburg today stands as a model "green town", often described as the greenest in America. The hospital, city hall, and school have all been built to the highest certification level issued by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).