Thomas Hopkins Post 4 ALR - 10th Annual Veterans Benefit
Saturday, October 10, 2026 · 8 AM · American Legion Post 4, 816 N Water St · Wichita, Kansas
About this event
Most American Legion posts are named after a local man nobody at the bar can tell you much about. Wichita's Post 4 can tell you exactly.
Thomas Hopkins had served in the Kansas National Guard and re-enlisted when the United States declared war on Germany. In France he heard a wounded man calling out and went after him, caught in barbed wire on the way, and was hit by enemy fire while carrying him clear. The post historian's summary is that he saved his buddy's life and gave his own doing it. He was the first Kansas officer killed in the First World War, and he is buried at Old Mission Cemetery in the city whose post now carries his name.
Post 4 was chartered in June 1919 and is the oldest and largest in Wichita, the only Kansas post that stayed open through the Second World War. Its Riders chapter is a riding association rather than a motorcycle club: parades, ceremonies, safety work, families welcome.
The benefit is a poker run out of the post hall, and it funds the post's own work — Honor Flight, the Young Marines, move-in kits for struggling veterans.
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