Wilson’s descendants of Czech migrants preserve their heritage through public art, traditions, and community events. Known as the Czech Capital of Kansas, Wilson is especially famous for its annual After Harvest Czech Festival, which honors the city’s Czech heritage with a parade, dancing, music, and other activities that draw visitors from across Kansas and surrounding states while encouraging community and education about Czech culture and traditions. Other notable expressions of this heritage include the former Wilson Czech Opera House and the World’s Largest Hand-Painted Czech Egg. The 1901 Turner Hall, better known as the Wilson Czech Opera House, was once the center of culture and social life in Wilson, seating 500 and hosting stage shows, dances, movies, social gatherings, a gym, Czech fraternal organizations, and the Czech athletics club Sokol; later it also served as a museum before a 2009 fire destroyed the building, leaving a façade and other elements now forming the framework for an outdoor amphitheater project. Wilson also celebrates local and state artists, craftsmen, and food producers at places such as the Kansas Originals Market & Gallery, and students have taken part as well, with art teacher Betty Belton teaching Wilson students Kraslice, the Czech technique of hand-painting eggs. That tradition, brought to Kansas by migrants, is especially visible in Wilson through the World’s Largest Hand-Painted Czech Egg, a 20-foot-tall and 15-foot-wide fiberglass egg begun in 2003 with local artist Erika Nelson, funded over several years including support from the Czech Republic embassy, and decorated by local artist Christine Slechta with a traditional design.