 | |  |
|
 Forklift Masts Topeka - Topeka is a city within the central state of Kansas. It is the state capital and county seat of Shawnee County. Located on the Kansas River in the northeast section of the state, the city of Topeka has a population of 127,473. The Topeka Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population of 230,824. Other counties within the metro area are Jackson, Jefferson, Wabaunsee, Shawnee and Osage.
Topeka is famous in the legal history of the United States as the site of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declared racial segregation within public schools to be unconstitutional. Three Navy ships have been named after Topeka to commemorate its importance.
"Topeka" is word taken from the Loway and Kansa which means "to dig good potatoes." The Native Americans who inhabited the area utilized the prairie potato as a key food source. The Kansa people referred to what is now known as the Kansas River as "Topeka." The name was initially recorded during 1826, but the settlement was not called Topeka until 1855 when the founders declared it "novel, of Indian origin and euphonious of sound." Joseph James (also called Jojim) was a mixed-blood Kansa Indian who thought of the name. Topeka was a Free-State township founded by Eastern antislavery men following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Topeka was chartered as a city in 1857.
A lot of the economy in the city of Topeka is based around the sectors of government and services. Roughly 25 percent of the workforce is employed by state, city and county governments, with Kansas State being the biggest employer within the city. 30 per cent of the labor force is employed in services industries. A lot are employed in food processing, printing and publishing, flour mills and iron foundries. There are a number of Fortune 500 companies with distribution or manufacturing facilities in the city of Topeka. Popular businesses include Frito-Lay Inc, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, Hallmark Cards and Payless Shoe Source.
The city of Topeka boasts a lot of fine art galleries with important selections of art, like for example the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University and the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. A little known fact regarding Topeka is that it is the home of the character Alfred E. Neuman, the logo character for Mad Magazine.
| |
 | |  |
