It was billed as the biggest event to take place at Alcove Spring— a stop along the Oregon Trail in Marshall County, Kansas—since the westward expansion in the mid-nineteenth century. In early September, the Topeka Symphony Orchestra headed to a meadow in Alcove Spring Historic Park, where 1,550 people braved 99-degree heat to hear Kyle Wiley Pickett lead the orchestra in music by John Williams and John Philip Sousa, as well as Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite and Copland’s Rodeo. The concert capped a day that included botany hikes and guided history tours, as well as performances by country, folk, and jazz musicians and a cowboy poet. At the end of the concert, a line of horsemen—riders with the Kansas Division of the National Pony Express Association—stood on a bluff overlooking the concert site.
