Poking and dusting around on the home bookshelves, I discovered a book crammed far back in a corner. It was in good shape, seemingly gently used and seldom read. The pages were only slightly yellow and not too crisp. A book in good shape for sure.

So, I dropped my duster and checked it out.

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"Kansas: A Guide to the Sunflower State," of the American Guide Series, was compiled and written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Kansas. Sponsored by the State Department of Education, it was published by The Viking Press of New York in MCMXXXIX (1939).

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In its preface, "Contemporary Scene," William Allen White wrote:

"On the continental map, Kansas is in the exact center of the United States, a parallelogram with one corner nibbled off by the Missouri River. The State on this map looks flat and uninteresting topographically, for within its boundaries are no lakes, no mountains, no really navigable rivers.

"It seems to be a rectangle of prairie grass with no more need for a guide book than is met by its highway junction signs."

That's pure WAW. But then, he goes on to tell of its distinguishing features which, he wrote, "come not from rivers, mountains or inland seas, but from the fact that this grass plot rises nearly 3,000 feet in 400 miles."

He continues, "In that slanting slab of prairie sod which begins descending eastward just beyond the foothills and rough country of the Rockies, lie at least two separate economic units. They amount to two different states."

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Here are some notes about our chunk of Kansas almost 70 years ago:

Garden City, with a population of 6,121 and altitude of 2,830 feet, was described as "lying on the Arkansas river in an extensive irrigated belt producing sugar beets as the chief crop." Less than a decade after the town had been founded, residents voted bonds for the purpose of planting trees in both business and residential districts. When plans were made to stretch telephone wires along Main Street in 1900, residents objected so strenuously to having their trees ruined by the erection of poles and wires that the telephone line had to run down the middle of the street.

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Holcomb, 2,836 altitude and population 215, was described as "a hamlet at the head of the Garden City irrigation ditch." A receiving station for sugar beets, its large consolidated school had 500 students brought in daily in 11 buses from a surrounding area of 125 square miles. A dormitory for teachers adjoined the school building.

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Deerfield, with an altitude of 2,943, had a population of 325. "A one-crop town," the book said. "It ships beets to Garden City. Most of its inhabitants work in the beet fields from spring to fall."

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Lakin, the county seat of Kearny County, had a population of 739. It was dominated by a large consolidated high school and had once been an important shipping point for beef cattle fattened on buffalo grass.

The book said, "The old pump in front of the courthouse, the only public source of water in the town, is a gathering place for old and young, who congregate here at almost all hours of the day, buckets in hand, to visit or discuss important matters."

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Of Syracuse with a population of 1,383, the book has this to say:

"Syracuse, seat of Hamilton County, one of the most favored towns on the High Plains, is a green cool oasis. Inhabitants of distant towns motor here to relax and enjoy the beauty of its tall graceful poplars, weeping willows and other trees."

E-mail Dolores Hope at dandchope@juno.com.