Ten ways to celebrate Wichita’s 145th birthday (VIDEO)

Wichita turns 145 on Tuesday.

On July 21, 1870, when Sedgwick County was just a sprinkling of cabins and lean-tos with fewer than 1,000 residents, 124 people signed a petition and presented it to a judge requesting that Wichita be incorporated.

The 124 signing the request included Billy the Kid’s mother, Catherine McCarty.

Here are 10 ways to observe the day.

▪ Attend a party. The Wichita/Sedgwick County Historical Museum is serving ice cream from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday to celebrate Wichita’s 145th and the 125th birthday of the old City Hall where the museum is located at 204 S. Main. Bring a birthday card and get in free.

▪ Look into the past. Kansas.com is featuring several photo galleries and a video highlighting the city’s past.

▪ Take a selfie. Pose in front of one of Wichita’s historic landmarks. There are plenty to go around, beginning with the letter “A” at the Ablah House at 102-104 Pinecrest and ending with the Woodburn House at 547 N. Brookfield.

▪ Display the Wichita flag. The Workroom, 150 N. Cleveland, sells flags, decals, shirts, tins and Wichita flag lapel pins starting at $1. Or follow Wichita Flag on Twitter and try winning a flag.

▪ Visit the “Keeper.” Blackbear Bosin’s “Keeper of the Plains” statue at the confluence of the Little Arkansas and Arkansas rivers has become a symbol of Wichita. Go at 9 p.m. to watch the firepots light up.

▪ Take a bite of history. No restaurants survive from the 1870s, but some have been around for decades. Nu-Way has been serving crumbly burgers at 1614 W. Douglas for 85 years. The Nifty Nut House, 537 N. St. Francis, has been a Wichita snacking institution since 1937. Pizza Hut was started here in 1958 by Frank and Dan Carney. The original restaurant is on display at Wichita State University and no longer serves food, but there are about 30 Pizza Huts in the area. Finally, the White Castle hamburger chain was started here in 1921 by Walt Anderson and Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram. There are no more White Castles in Wichita, but you can go to Dillons and buy frozen White Castles burgers.

▪ Light a Coleman lantern. W.C. Coleman tried selling gas-fueled lights in Kingfisher, Okla., but farmers were skeptical after another salesman sold defective lamps and skipped town. Unable to sell lanterns, Coleman leased them by the week to families in areas without electricity. He moved to Wichita in 1902 and eventually expanded into coolers, tents, cook stoves and sleeping bags. Learn about the company’s history and score some bargains at the Coleman Factory Outlet and Museum at 235 N. St. Francis.

▪ Celebrate planes. Wichita’s claim as the Air Capital of the World began when Clyde Cessna, a Kingman County farmer, flew his first plane in May 1911. More than 40 percent of the world’s general aviation aircraft is still made here. The Kansas Aviation Museum, 3530 George Washington Blvd., is one of 12 early air terminals remaining in the nation.

▪ Sniff Mentholatum. Wichitan A.A. Hyde developed Mentholatum, that aromatic ointment of menthol and camphor sold in the little green jars and smeared on ill children’s chests and noses by mothers everywhere. The original Mentholatum factory at 1308 E. Douglas now houses The Spice Merchant and Company.

▪ Visit Cowtown. Wichita’s first plats were drawn up by William Greiffenstein and Darius Munger in the spring of 1870. Munger’s house, a cottonwood log cabin built in 1868, is the oldest surviving structure in Wichita and can be seen at Cowtown.

This story was originally published July 19, 2015 at 7:12 PM with the headline "Ten ways to celebrate Wichita’s 145th birthday (VIDEO)."