Wichita, Kansas

Everything Wichita is known for

66 songs mention this city 100 artists from here

Wichita, Kansas, known as the "Air Capital of the World" due to its significant aircraft industry, also boasts a rich musical heritage. Our collection features 54 songs that mention Wichita and 100 artists who call it home. Among these artists is jazz legend Stan Kenton, and the city is also referenced in iconic songs like "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell. The city's music scene has a vibrant history, with a notable blues tradition and a past that includes a bustling soul scene in the mid-20th century.

Music in Wichita

Songs About Wichita

Intro
De La Soul
90%
"Just came all the way down from Wichita just to be on this show."
Wichita Skyline
Shawn Colvin
85%
"Song about Wichita, KS"
Wichita
The Jayhawks
83%
"Come to Wichita"
Back to Wichita
Tanner Legg & The Heaters
83%
Wichita Falls
Trailor Trash
83%
Wichita Ain’t so Far Away
The Delines
83%
"Wichita ain't so far away"
Wichita (Revival Outtake)
Gillian Welch
82%
"She went back to Wichita"
Wichita Lineman
Jimmy Webb
81%
"And the Wichita lineman"
Wichita Lineman
Glen Campbell
81%
"And the Wichita lineman"
Wichita Falls
Houston Marchman
81%
Witch in Wichita
Kenneth Waters
80%
Wichita
Tim O'Brien
79%
As Wichita Falls; So Falls Wichita Falls
Mike Ethan Messick
79%
Things to Do in Wichita
Mark Chesnutt
79%
"Things to do in Wichita"
Wichita
Dirt Road Sweetheart & Nora Jane Struthers
78%
Here to Wichita
Logan Lotz
78%
"Here to Wichita"
Wichita
Houston Marchman
77%
Wichita Falls
Houston Marchman & The Contraband
77%
Wichita Jail
Charlie Daniels
77%
"The Wichita Jail"
Wichita Falls
BAILEY WESBERRY
77%

Showing top 20 of 66 songs

Artists From Wichita

K
Kendall Schmidt
pop Pop: 69
S
Stan Kenton
jazz Pop: 60
A
Anson Seabra
pop Pop: 60
X
XV
hip-hop Pop: 56
M
Manilla Road
metal Pop: 48
G
Gezebelle Gaburgably
rock Pop: 45
M
Moreland & Arbuckle
folk Pop: 44
P
Pillar
rock Pop: 42
M
Matt Alber
folk Pop: 39
C
Clocks
rock Pop: 39
S
Sanctus Infernum
metal Pop: 36
H
Henry W. Butler
jazz Pop: 34
R
Robert Dean Smith
classical Pop: 32
E
Ellery Eskelin
jazz Pop: 32
N
Navé Monjo
other Pop: 31
S
Seasons After
rock Pop: 30
A
Abby the Spoon Lady
folk Pop: 30
M
Marvin Rainwater
country Pop: 29
G
Gordon Goodwin
jazz Pop: 29
E
Evil Intentions
metal Pop: 26

Showing top 20 of 100 artists

Rivers & Roads in Song near Wichita

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Wichita.

Arkansas River 8 songs Interstate 35 42 songs

History of Wichita

Air Capital, Pizza Pioneers RoadyGoat

Wichita earned its 'Air Capital of the World' nickname the hard way, by actually building the planes. Cessna, Beechcraft, Learjet and Stearman all took root here, and to this day a huge slice of the world's general-aviation aircraft are stamped 'made in Wichita.' But the city's other claim to fame is dinner: in 1958, brothers Dan and Frank Carney borrowed six hundred dollars from their mother and opened the first Pizza Hut in a tiny rented building on the corner of Bluff and Kellogg. The hut-like roof and a sign with room for only eight letters gave the chain its name. Within a year they had six more shops; within a couple decades it was the biggest pizza chain on earth. (That original building was later moved to the Wichita State campus, where it's now a small museum.) Wings overhead, pizza on the ground.

Satellite Tornadoes: the Dance at Ground Level RoadyGoat

1955

The textbook Fujiwhara effect is a big-storm phenomenon, hurricanes and typhoons circling each other out over the ocean. But out here over the plains, the same dance sometimes shrinks all the way down to the ground. It is called a satellite tornado: a smaller, separate twister that forms near a large tornado and begins to orbit around it, both of them feeding off the same rotating thunderstorm overhead. The little one swings around the big one counterclockwise, holding a gap of anywhere from half a mile to a few miles, exactly the way two cyclones circle a shared center. Storm researchers literally call this a binary, or Fujiwhara, interaction. It is one of the eeriest things a storm chaser can witness in Tornado Alley: not one funnel, but two, waltzing across an open field.

How the air-raid siren learned to mean tornado RoadyGoat

1952

That siren you hear in storm country was built to warn you about something else entirely. On April 22, 1952, Wichita tested its first air-raid siren, mounted on Roosevelt School at 2200 E Douglas, a Cold War gadget meant to signal an enemy attack. The Federal Civil Defense Act, signed in 1951, had put sirens on rooftops all over America. Then on May 20, 1957, an F5 tornado leveled the Kansas City suburb of Ruskin Heights and killed 44 people. Officials there realized the bomb sirens could warn for weather instead. Sedgwick County copied the idea and, on April 1, 1958, sounded 13 sirens together for the first time as a tornado test. Within months they ran for a real one. The nuclear-age howl had quietly become the sound that means take shelter now.

Chisholm Trail: The Road That Built the Cattle Kingdom

1867

Wichita served as a major railhead on the Chisholm Trail, where millions of Texas longhorns were driven north to Kansas cattle towns and shipped east by rail.

Wichita: Air Capital of the World

1920

Wichita earned the title Air Capital of the World after becoming home to Cessna, Beechcraft, Learjet, and Stearman, producing more aircraft than any other city in the world.

Carrie Nation: The Hatchet and the Saloon

1900

On December 27, 1900, temperance crusader Carrie Nation stormed into the Carey Hotel bar in Wichita declaring herself the right arm of God, launching her nationally famous hatchet-wielding campaign against saloons.

Things to Do in Wichita

food 0.5 mi away
White Castle (Original)

The first fast food hamburger chain opened in 1921 in Wichita KS. Sliders started here.

Everything Near Wichita

17 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Wichita on the Map
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