Arthur Capper's Stained Glass Windows

Long before becoming a senator, though, he celebrated the farmer in his Topeka home in the form of stained glass windows.

These windows depict the early days of agriculture in Kansas and show scenes of plowing, planting, and harvesting. The first set of windows depicts a team of horses pulling a plow across a field (pictured at top, left). The second set features a man spreading seeds before a field of ripened wheat (below, right). The third set shows two men harvesting grain with scythes (below, left).

When Capper built his home at 1035 Topeka Boulevard in 1910, the windows were placed on a landing of the grand staircase leading to the second floor.

Arthur Capper (1865-1951), a native of Garnett, was a successful newspaperman who owned several papers, including the Topeka Daily Capital. As his business enterprises grew he became better known around the state, enabling him to enter politics. In 1912 he lost the closest governor's race in state history--just 29 votes kept him out of office. Two years later he ran again and won, serving as governor from 1915 to 1919. Because his Topeka Boulevard residence was a short distance from the Capitol, Capper chose to live there during his term rather than at the Governor's Mansion at 801 Buchanan.

When Capper began his thirty-year career in the United States Senate in 1919, he and his wife, Florence, moved out of their home. His successor as governor, Henry J. Allen, was permitted to use the Capper home during his term. The Cappers themselves would never live there again. Florence Capper died in 1926 and her funeral was conducted from the house, but when Arthur returned to Topeka from Washington, he chose instead to live in rooms at the Jayhawk Hotel.

In 1927 Capper acquired radio station WIBW, originally licensed to operate in Logansport, Indiana, and moved it into an office building in downtown Topeka. In 1934 he moved it again, this time into the Capper home, with studios on the first floor and offices on the second. The radio station operated from this building until 1957.

For forty-seven years, these stained glass windows were viewed by the Cappers and their visitors, first by those attending state functions during the eight years the home was the governor's mansion, and later by the WIBW staff at the station. When the radio station moved its facilities to the Menninger campus in 1957, the windows also were moved and were placed at the reception desk. They were donated to the Kansas Museum of History in 2001.

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