Kansas PBS stations air Cottonwood Ranch documentary

The Legacy of Cottonwood Ranch, a documentary produced by Story Pocket Productions will air on PBS station KTWU, Topeka, Kansas at 3:00 PM April 10, 2022. With this airing, KTWU will make the third PBS affiliate in Kansas to air the documentary after Smoky Hills PBS and PBS Kansas, Wichita, aired it in December, 2021.

The film tells the story of Cottonwood Ranch, a Kansas Historic Site also listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. The ranch was established by Abraham and Fenton Pratt, English immigrants who settled in northwest Kansas in the late 1800s. Along with the beautifully preserved and restored stone ranch home and outbuildings, the historic site is significant for how it tells the story of settlement, agriculture and society in the area through carefully detailed financial records kept by Fenton Pratt along with his photographs reprinted from a collection of glass negatives recovered at the site.

The film also tells the story of how the ranch became a historic site under the careful curation of Don Rowlison, once the state’s public archeologist for the Kansas Historical Society. Raised in the northwest Kansas community of Hoxie, 15 miles from Cottonwood Ranch, Rowlison elected to return to the area to take over curation of the historic site when the state acquired it.

The Legacy of Cottonwood Ranch was presented by The Friends of Cottonwood Ranch, directed by Ed Lowry and featured stunning drone photography by Jackson Lowry.