In the winter of 1918, an illness was spreading in Haskell County, Kansas. The remote farming community in the state's southwestern corner sat roughly 300 miles from anywhere most Americans would recognize. Its residents raised hogs, tended cattle and scraped by on the prairie. But starting in January, a local physician named Dr. Loring Miner began seeing patients struck with an influenza unlike anything in his decades of practice. This was not a typical seasonal illness. Strong, healthy adults