A municipal friendship 80 years in the making gets renewed this month when visitors from Orleans, France, arrive for an event-packed visit. The relationship goes back to August 1944, when the Kansas Regiment of the 137th Infantry 35th Division helped liberate Orleans from Nazi occupation.
Located about 80 miles southwest of Paris, Orleans had been turned into a major logistical hub by the Germans. Over three days of fighting, 17 Kansas soldiers were wounded and seven were killed. Mines planted by the retreating German army had to be detonated and the water supply restored.
After the war, the United States sent a Friendship Train to France with 4,000 tons of foodstuffs aboard. Two years later, France responded with the Merci Train — with a boxcar for each of the 48 states then in the U.S. filled with gifts of historical or artistic significance. The Kansas Merci Boxcar is on permanent display in Hays, Kan.
In 1949, official visits between the two cities began. Three years later, Wichita schoolchildren gifted Orleans a Chance Manufacturing miniature train which still puffs away in that city’s Pasteur Park.
At right, former Mayor A. Price Woodard, Jr. and the mayor of Orleans in 1970.
In 1964, the U.S. State Department sponsored Wichita’s visit to Orleans, with transportation provided by military aircraft. Mayor (and my father) Vincent Bogart, a former WW II Army Air Corp fighter pilot, several city commissioners and two former members of the 137th Infantry Regiment attended the 20th anniversary celebration of the liberation.
In 1970 — the City of Wichita’s centennial anniversary — the mayor of Orleans traveled here to present a statue of Joan of Arc, known as the Maid of Orleans, to Mayor A. Price Woodard, Jr. A copy of the statue sits in front of the former downtown library while the original was recently reinstalled in City Hall.
In 1973, the Sister Cities program was started, and Orleans was paired with Wichita. (Our other Sister Cities are Kaifeng, China; Cancun, Mexico; Tlalnepantla, Mexico.) There have been student, musician and art exchanges between our cities along with numerous other gifts, including stained glass from the Cathedrale Sainte-Croix that sits outside Wichita City Council chambers. Black Bear Bosin presented Orleans with a copy of his Keeper of the Plains sculpture, and artists from the Mid-America All-Indian Center sent an elaborately beaded Native American headdress.
Wichita will host eight Orleans visitors April 4-12. They will experience the Flint Hills, watch a gunfight at Cowtown, attend opening night of the Wind Surge season, tour Botanica gardens and visit the Frank Lloyd Wright Allen House, Carnegie Library Fidelity Bank, Wichita-Sedgwick County Historic Museum and Exploration Place. They will hear a performance of the New York Paramount Wurlitzer, see the restoration of a WWI plane at the Bleckley Foundation and listen to the Wichita Symphony Orchestra rehearse Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Shopping in Old Town, Bradley Fair, and Delano is part of the experience. Members of the nonprofit Wichita Area Sister Cities are hosting the guests in their homes.
Sister City public events
Here’s a list of events that are open to the public, though there may be an admission fee. Please come by and say “bonjour.” Our visitors would love to have a conversation in either French or English, and several interpreters will be present.
• Sunday, April 6:
10 a.m. Laying of wreath at Joan of Arc statue, 223 S. Main
12:30 p.m. Tour Cowtown Museum with historian Dr. Jay Price
• Monday, April 7
10 a.m. “Kansas” shown in Exploration Place’s Dome Theatre
3 p.m. View Bleckley Foundation WW I plane restoration, 359 N. Mosley
• Tuesday, April 8
9 a.m. City Council meeting and Sister City proclamation, City Hall
1 p.m. Botanica gardens tour
3 p.m. Delano Clock Tower talk with Chisholm Trail historian Jack Kellogg
4 p.m. Reception at The Monarch
6 p.m. Wind Surge Riverfront Stadium Delano concourse for meet and greet
• Friday, April 11
9:15 p.m. Farewell reception at Nortons Brewing Co., 125 St. Francis
Celeste Racette is president of Wichita Area Sister Cities, Inc.
Sister Cities membership
Individual, family and student memberships in Wichita Area Sister Cities are available. Members receive information about events and opportunities for travel. If interested, contact WASC President Celeste Racette at (765) 491-6583 or by email: mcr112@yahoo.com. For more information on the Orleans visit, contact Kelly Harper at (316) 304-2198.
