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KANSAS
A Guide to the Sunflower State
KANSAS >
A GUIDE TO THE SUNFLOWER STATE
Complied and Written by the Federal Writers' Project
of the Work Projects Administration
for the State of Kansas
AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES
ILLUSTRATED
Sponsored by State Department of Education
THE VIKING PRESS NEW YORK
MCMXXXIX
FIRST PUBLISHED IN SEPTEMBER 1939
COPYRIGHT 1939 BY THE STATE OF KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
PRINTED IN U.S.A. BY AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS
55
All rights are reserved, including the rights to reproduce this book
or parts thereof in any form.
Preface
ALTHOUGH men and women have been writing books about Kansas for
almost a century, this is the State's first guide book. To residents of other
States it will open new vistas. And the Kansan who wants to know more
about his own State its history, its industrial background, its vast agricul-
tural and mineral resources, its numerous points of historical interest and
scenic beauty, as well as its many recreation spots will find that this vol-
ume is comprehensive and informative.
The Federal Writers' Project was designed to give employment to needy
writers and research workers in compiling information directly from the
field and from research through various sources. The Kansas guide is, to
date, the State's major contribution to the project's American Guide Series,
which will include a guide to each of the forty-eight States, Puerto Rico,
and Alaska, as well as numerous city and regional guides.
Many Kansans have had a part in making this book. Consultants have
rendered valuable voluntary assistance in providing factual material and
verifying information obtained from other sources. Federal, State, and lo-
cal governmental agencies have given appreciated help. Thanks are espe-
cially due to Mr. Kirke Mechem, secretary of the State Historical Society ;
and his assistants, Mr. George A. Root and Mr. Nyle Miller, for the use
of the Society's library, archives, and newspapers and photograph files. The
gratitude of the Kansas Writers' Project also is extended to Professor Ken-
neth K. Landes, assistant State geologist; Professor James Malin, of the
State University; J. C. Mohler, State secretary of agriculture; Professor
Paul Weigel, Professor John Helm, Jr., and Professor Charles E. Rogers
of Kansas State College.
HAROLD C. EVANS, Chief Editor
Federal Works Agency
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
F. C. HARRINGTON, Commissioner
FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner
HENRY G. ALSBERG, Director of the Federal Writers' Project
Contents
PAGE
PREFACE V
GENERAL INFORMATION XV
CALENDAR OF EVENTS XXviii
/. The State and Its People
CONTEMPORARY SCENE By William Allen White 1
NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 4
ARCHEOLOGY 20
INDIANS 25
HISTORY 39
AGRICULTURE 65
TRANSPORTATION 77
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 87
FOLKLORE 100
EDUCATION 105
RELIGION 112
SPORTS AND RECREATION 116
JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISTS 121
LITERATURE 129
ART 137
MUSIC AND THE THEATER 146
ARCHITECTURE 153
//. Cities and Towns
ARKANSAS CITY 161
ATCHISON 165
COFFEYVILLE 173
DODGE CITY 177
EMPORIA 185
FORT SCOTT 192
CONTENTS
HUTCHINSON
KANSAS CITY
LAWRENCE
LEAVENWORTH
LlNDSBORG
MANHATTAN
MEDICINE LODGE
NEWTON
OTTAWA
SALINA
TOPEKA
WICHITA
TOUR 1
TOUR
TOUR
2.
3.
TOUR 4.
TOUR
TOUR
4A.
4B.
III. Highways and Byways
(St. Joseph, Mo.)-Marysville-Belleville-St. Francis-
(Denver, Colo.) [us 36]
Section a. Missouri Line to Belleville
Section b. Belleville to Colorado Line
Manhattan-Clay Center-Stockton^Goodland-
(Colorado Springs, Colo.) [us 24]
(Kansas City, Mo.) -Kansas City-Topeka-
Manhattan-Salina-Hays-( Denver, Colo. )
[us 24-40, us 40]
Section a. Missouri Line to Manhattan
Section b. Manhattan to Colorado Line
(Kansas City, Mo.) -Baldwin City-Council Grove-
Great Bend-Garden City- (La Junta, Colo.)
[us 50, us 5oN]
Section a. Missouri Line to Junction with us
and us 508; us 50
Section b. Junction with us 50, us 50$, and us 59
to Garden City
Section c. Garden City to Colorado Line
Junction us 50 5oN and us 59-Emporia-Newton-
Hutchinson-Dodge City-Garden City, [us 508]
Dodge City-Sublette-Hugoton-Elkhart-Oklahoma
Line [STATE 45]
198
205
220
232
244
249
255
261
266
270
276
294
307
307
316
325
337
338
348
369
370
374
388
390
400
CONTENTS
TOUR 5. (Jefferson City, Mo.)-Fort Scott-Wichita-Pratt-
Liberal-(Hooker, Okla.) [us 54] 407
Section a. Missouri Line to Wichita 408
Section b. Wichita to Oklahoma Line 416
TOUR 6. (Springfield, Mo.)-Pittsburg-Parsons-Winfield-
Medicine Lodge-Ulysses- (Trinidad, Colo.)
[us 160] 423
Section a. Missouri Line to Wellington 423
Section b. Wellington to Junction with us 83-160 430
Section c. Junction with us 83 to Colorado Line 436
TOUR 7. (Joplin, Mo.)-Baxter Springs-Coffeyville-Arkansas
City-South Haven [us 66 and us 166] 439
TOUR 8. (Kearney, Nebr.) -Norton-Oakley-Scott City-Garden
City-Liberal- (Turpin, Okla.) [us 83] 445
TOUR 9. (Columbus, Nebr.)-Concordia-Salina-Wichita-
Wellington-(Enid, Okla.) [us 81] 453
TOUR 10. (Lincoln, Nebr.)-Marysville-Junction City-Eldorado-
Arkansas City- (Oklahoma City, Okla.) [us 77] 464
TOUR 11. (Omaha, Nebr.)-Sabetha-Topeka-Yates Center-
Independence- (Tulsa, Okla.) [us 75] 470
TOUR 12. (St. Joseph, Mo.)-Atchison-Lawrence lola-Parsons-
(Vinita, Okla.) [us 59] 479
TOUR 12 A. (Falls City, Nebr.) -Hiawatha- Atchison-Leavenworth-
Victory Junction-Kansas City (Kansas City, Mo.)
[us 73] 492
TOUR 12B. Junction with us 59-Osawatomie [Osawatomie Rd.] 496
TOUR 13. (Kansas City, Mo.)-Fort Scott-Pittsburg-Columbus-
(Muskogee, Okla.) [us 69] 499
IV. Appendices
CHRONOLOGY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
511
523
531
Maps
STATE MAP back pocket
TOUR KEY MAP front end pages
TRANSPORTATION MAP reverse of State map
OLD TRAILS MAP OF KANSAS Pages 32 and 33
KANSAS CITY 212 and 213
TOPEKA 280 and 281
Illustrations
THE PRAIRIE facing page 1
Photograph by f. W. McManigal
TORNADO page 7
Painting by John Steuart Curry
MONUMENT ROCKS, NEAR GOVE 12
Photograph from Kansas Geological Survey
FIELD PLOWED BY DAMMING LISTER, A FLOOD CONTROL FEATURE 15
Photograph from Soil Conservation Service
"DUST BOWL" FARM AFTER THE STORMS, NEAR LIBERAL 17
Photograph jrom Farm Security Administration
CHEYENNE CHIEFS IN CAPTIVITY, FORT DODGE (1878) 29
Photograph jrom Dodge City Chamber of Commerce
POTTAWATOMIE AND KlCKAPOO HOLY MEN, RESERVATION NEAR
HORTON 37
Photograph by /. W. McManigal
PORTRAIT OF JOHN BROWN 51
Photograph from State Historical Society
WILD BILL HICKOK, CITY MARSHAL OF ABILENE 55
"Photograph from State Historical Society
WHEAT 64
Photograph by J. W. McManigal
A COOPERATIVE ELEVATOR IN SHAWNEE COUNTY 67
Photograph jrom Department of Agriculture
THRESHING 71
Photograph by J. W. McManigal
CATTLE FEEDING IN SHELTER OF COTTONWOOD WINDBREAK 74
Photograph from Soil Conservation Service
4-H FARMERS ARE VISITED BY THE COUNTY AGENT 75
Photograph from Department of Agriculture
COAL BARGE ON THE MISSOURI (c. 1888) 82
Photograph from State Historical Society
FREIGHT YARDS, KANSAS CITY 83
Photograph from "Life" Magazine
AIRPORT, WICHITA 85
Photograph from Works Progress Administration
ILLUSTRATIONS
OIL WELLS NEAR WICHITA 89
Photograph from Wichita Chamber of Commerce
KANSAS BEEF 91
Photograph by Richard H. Stewart; reproduction by special
permission from the "National Geographic Magazine"
COAL MINER 95
Photograph from Farm Security Administration
THE CAMPUS, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, LAWRENCE 107
Photograph by W. T. Bodin
NORTH HIGH SCHOOL, WICHITA 109
Photograph by Richard H. Stewart; reproduction by special
permission from the "National Geographic Magazine"
JAYHAWKERS IN ACTION, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS 117
Photograph from Lawrence Chamber of Commerce
INDIAN BOXING TEAM, HASKELL INSTITUTE, LAWRENCE 119
Photograph by W. T. Bodin
THE COUNTRY EDITOR WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE 122
Photograph by Bernard Hoffman. (Courtesy of "Life" Magazine)
MEMORIAL TO PIONEER WOMEN, TOPEKA 138
Photograph from Wolfe Studio
"JOHN BROWN," DETAIL FROM MURAL IN CAPITOL, TOPEKA 142
Painting by John Steuart Curry
MUNICIPAL ART MUSEUM, WICHITA 143
COWBOY BAND, DODGE CITY (1884) 148
Photograph from Dodge City Chamber of Commerce
A SOD RANCH HOUSE (1898) 154
Photograph from State Historical Society
HOME OF HENRY J. ALLEN, WICHITA 158
Photograph from Bulla Studios
FREE BRIDGE, ATCHISON 167
Photograph from Atchison Chamber of Commerce
CITY HALL, DODGE CITY 179
Photograph from Municipality
MEMORIAL IN BOOT HILL CEMETERY, DODGE CITY 181
SODEN'S MILL, EMPORIA 189
Photograph by F. W. Cowan
IN A SALT MINE, HUTCHINSON 201
Photograph from Carey Salt Company
SALT PLANT, HUTCHINSON 203
Photograph from Morton Salt Company
WYANDOTTE COUNTY COURTHOUSE, KANSAS CITY 206
Photograph by Don Ballou
ILLUSTRATIONS
IN THE STOCKYARDS, KANSAS CITY 209
Photograph from Farm Security Administration
GREEN HALL, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS 223
Photograph from University of Kansas
COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF SCHOOL, FORT LEAVENWORTH 233
FEDERAL PRISON, LEAVENWORTH 243
Photograph from Department of Justice
ART MUSEUM, BETHANY COLLEGE, LINDSBORG 246
AIRVIEW, KANSAS STATE COLLEGE, MANHATTAN 253
Photograph by K. W. Given
CARRIE NATION 259
Photograph from State Historical Society
SANTA FE AVENUE, SALINA 271
Photograph by C. W. Marsh
THE CAPITOL, TOPEKA 287
Photograph from Wolfe Studio
EXECUTIVE MANSION, TOPEKA 289
Photograph from Wolfe Studio
LOG CABIN (1870), GAGE PARK, TOPEKA 293
TERMINAL ELEVATOR, WICHITA 297
Photograph from Barnes Aerial Surveys
AIRVIEW, RIVERSIDE PARK, WICHITA 301
Photograph by Edgar B. Smith
TWO-YEAR-OLD TIMBER BELT PLANTING 306
Photograph from United States Forest Service
APPLES FROM THE COOPERATIVE PACKING PLANT, TROY 30S>
Photograph by J. W. McManigal
LAMBS FATTENED FOR THE STATE FAIR 323
Photograph from Department of Agriculture
NEGRO FARMER 330
Photograph from Farm Security Administration
FARM WOMEN'S LITERARY MEETING 332
Photograph from Department of Agriculture
IN A COUNTRY STORE 340
Photograph by J. W. McManigal
DUTCH WINDMILL, WAMEGO 347
TERRITORIAL CAPITOL, FORT RILEY 351
Photograph from U. S. Army Signal Corps
AT THE AUCTION, HORTON 357
Photograph by J. W. McManigal
ILLUSTRATIONS
WATER BOY 361
Photograph by J. W. McManigal
BUILDING TEMPORARY SILO OF SNOW FENCE AND TAR PAPER 375
Photograph by J. W. McManigal
HARVESTING WITH BINDER 395
Photograph from International Harvester Company
DUST STORM APPROACHING WESTERN KANSAS TOWN 401
Photograph from Soil Conservation Service
STONE FENCE POST ON TREELESS PLAIN 406
Photograph by Richard H. Stewart; reproduction by special
permission from the "National Geographic Magazine"
YATES CENTER 411
Photograph from Farm Security Administration
REFINERY, ELDORADO 415
CEMENT SILOS IN SORGHUM FIELD 421
Photograph from Soil Conservation Service
HELIUM PLANT, DEXTER 429
Photograph from Staley Studio
SAINT JACOB'S WELL, CLARK COUNTY 435
Photograph from Kansas Geological Survey
UNION MEMBERS, GALENA 441
Photograph from Farm Security Administration
BUFFALO PRESERVE, SCOTT COUNTY STATE PARK 451
Photograph by K. W. Given
ALONG THE CHISHOLM TRAIL 459
Photograph by Ralph 5. Hinman
CHANGING GUARD, A ROUND-UP SCENE IN THE 1890*5 461
Photograph from State Historical Society
A CCC CLASS, NEODESHA 477
Photograph from Soil Conservation Service
A POLITICAL DISCUSSION, OSKALOOSA 483
Photograph from Farm Security Administration
JOHN BROWN'S CABIN, OSAWATOMIE 497
Photograph from State Historical Society
TRANSPORTING STEAM SHOVELS FOR STRIP MINING 505
Photograph from Farm Security Administration
COURTHOUSE, COLUMBUS 507
Photograph from Farm Security Administration
General Information
Railroads: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. (Santa Fe) ; Chicago, Bur-
lington & Quincy R.R. (Burlington) ; Chicago, Great Western R.R. (Corn
Belt) ; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. (Rock Island) ; Kansas City
Southern Ry. ; Kansas, Oklahoma & Gulf Ry. (KO&G) ; Missouri-Kansas-
Texas Lines (Katy) ; Missouri Pacific R.R. (MOP) ; Midland Valley R.R. ;
Northeast Oklahoma R.R. (NO) ; St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. (Frisco) ;
St. Joseph & Grand Island Ry. (GI) ; Union Pacific R.R. (UP) ; Joplin-
Pittsburg R.R. ; Kansas City, Kaw Valley & Western R.R. ; Arkansas Val-
ley Interurban Ry. (Arkansas Valley) ; Missouri & Kansas R.R. (M&K) ;
Southwest Missouri R.R. (Electric). (See TRANSPORTATION map.)
Highways: Nineteen Federal highways, all with transcontinental or inter-
national connections. No motorcar inspection. Gasoline tax 3$. Highway
patrol. Bus lines follow most Federal highways. (See STATE map for
routes.)
Air Lines: Transcontinental & Western Airlines (TWA) and BranifT Air-
lines (BA), from Kansas City, Mo. to western and southwestern points,
stop at Wichita.
Motor Vehicle Laws (digest) : No speed limit except on certain stretches
of road where warnings and limits are posted. Spotlights prohibited. No
licenses required for non-residents. Minimum age for drivers, 16 yrs. Per-
sonal injury or property damage (over $50) must be reported to some
civil authority. Parking on highway prohibited. Interstate transport trucks
must register at port of entry stations ; these are situated within short dis-
tance of border on all routes.
Radio: Sixteen stations now operate within the State: at Abilene, Coffey-
ville, Dodge City, Emporia, Salina, Garden City, Hutchinson, Kansas City,
Great Bend, Lawrence (two), Manhattan, Topeka, Pittsburg and Wichita
(two).
Accommodations: In east and central part of State: hotels chiefly in cities;
ample tourist accommodations in well-furnished tourist cabins and mod-
ern lodging houses in rural communities and small towns. In western part:
hotels in larger towns; accommodations in rural districts scattered and
limited to small tourist cabins and private homes.
XV
GENERAL INFORMATION
Liquor Regulation: Beer of 3.2 percent alcoholic content sold legally. Sale
or possession of spirituous liquors prohibited.
Climate and Equipment: Slight variation in temperature within the State.
Extremes of temperature in summer and winter with sudden changes in
winter and early spring. Daily newspaper and radio reports on highway
conditions and weather. Topcoats and overcoats necessary September i to
June i.
Poisonous Snakes and Plants: Copperheads and rattlesnakes, while not
common, are found occasionally in rocky wooded areas. Water moccasins
found infrequently in muddy streams and ponds. Poison-ivy common in
wooded areas, but may be easily recognized by its three-petaled leaf.
Fish and Game Laws (digest) : Unlawful to hunt or fish without license
on person, or to trespass upon property without first obtaining consent of
owner. Hunting and fishing license required for men and women between
ages of 1 8 and 70. Shooting from cars, airplanes, or motorboats or upon a
public highway prohibited. Killing of migratory birds prohibited, except
on the wing. Commercial fishing in Missouri River only.
Licenses: Non-resident: hunting, $7; fishing, $3.
Open Season for Fishing: Year round except during spawning season
(Apr. 15 to May 15) for bass, crappie, rock bass, or channel cat.
Limits: Daily catch not to exceed more than 15 total of all species; 30 in
possession. No bass less than 10 in. ; crappie, less than 7 in. ; ring perch,
less than 6 in.; catfish (not including bullheads), less than 12 in.; drum,
less than 10 in.
Prohibited: Use of more than two poles and lines, one trotline having 25
hooks, or 6 banklines with 2 hooks each. Trapping, seining, spearing,
dynamiting, poisoning, ice fishing, or any manner of taking fish except
with artificial lures or baited hooks.
Open Season for Hunting (inclusive) : Fur-bearing animals, Dec. i-Jan.
31 ; quail, Nov. 20-30; doves, Sept. i-Oct. 15; fox-squirrels, Aug. i-Jan. i.
Limits: Quail, daily bag 10, season bag 25 ; doves, daily bag 20. No sea-
son or limit on rabbits.
Prohibited: Killing pheasants, trapping or killing beaver and otter, molest-
ing any wild songbird or insectivorous bird, or destroying its nest or eggs.
Season bag limits and other regulations on ducks, geese, brant, coot, jack-
snipe, rails, turkeys, grouse and partridges, are established by the U.S. De-
GENERAL INFORMATION
partment of Agriculture Biological Survey, and vary. Information pub-
lished shortly before the season opens; available on application from
county clerk.
General Information and Service: State Chamber of Commerce, National
Reserve Bldg., Topeka. See also general information under cities.
Calendar of Events
(njd means no fixed date)
Jan. 29
nfd
nfd
Feb. 22
nfd
Mar. i
nfd
3d week
last Sun.
4th week
Apr. ist week
after Easter
2 d or 3d week
3d week
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
May 5
4th week
nfd
nfd
Topeka
Kickapoo
Reservation
Manhattan
Topeka
Wichita
Emporia
Wichita
Topeka
Fort Scott
Emporia
Kansas City
Emporia
Lawrence
Emporia
Leavenworth
Lindsborg
Lindsborg
Kickapoo
Reservation
Pittsburg
Troy
Kansas City
Fort Riley
Abilene
Emporia
Kansas Day Club Banquet
New Years' Dance
Farm and Home Week
Washington Day Club Banquet
State Choir and Orchestra Con-
certs
St. David's Day Celebration
Girls' National Basketball Tour-
nament
State High School Basketball
Tournament
Holy City Sacred Cantata
County School Music Festivals
Music Week
College of Emporia Music Fes-
tival
Kansas Relays
State High School Music Festi-
val, State Teachers' College
Competitive ROTC drill
Music Festival, The Messiah
Art Exhibit
Spring Dance
Hi-school Music Festival
Apple Blossom Festival
Mexican Fiesta
Cavalry School Horse Show and
Race Meet
National Coursing Association
Spring Meeting
State-wide Scholarship Contest,
State Teachers' College
xvm
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
June nfd
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Hays Academic Music Festival
Lawrence Music Week
iFort Leavenworth Horse Show
Newton Mennonite Music Festival
Wichita Spring Concerts, Singing Quak-
ers of Friends University
Newton
Institute of International Rela-
tions
July 4
Aug.
nfd
Topeka
nfd
Kickapoo
Reservation
nfd
Pottawatomie
Reservation
4
Nicodemus
ist week
Phillipsburg
4th week
Stockton
4th week
Goodland
4th week
lola
4th week
Hanover
nfd
Salina
nfd
Wichita
nfd
Hutchinson Fourth of July Fiesta and Ath-
letic Carnival
Mexican Fiesta
Corn Dance
Pottawatomie Fair
Emancipation Celebration
Rodeo
Western Kansas-Nebraska Fair
Northwest District Free Fair
Southeastern Kansas Exposition
Days of Forty-Nine
Salina Race Meeting
National Semi-Pro Baseball
Tournament
Winfield Winfield Race Meet
Sept. ist week Coffeyville Montgomery County Fair
ist week Ottawa Franklin County Fair
ist week Belleville North-Central Kansas Free Fair
ist week Horton Tri-County Fair
ad week Topeka Kansas Free Fair
15 and 1 6 Kansas City Mexican Fiesta
3d week Dodge City Great Southwest Free Fair
3d week Hutchinson Kansas State Fair
nfd Fort Scott Dairy Show
nfd Dodge City Pioneer Picnic
nfd Troy Apple Harvest Festival
nfd Abilene Central Kansas Free Fair
nfd Hiawatha Fall Festival
Oct. 31
Arkansas City
Independence
Arkalalah
Neewollah (Hallowe'en)
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
4th week of
Oct. or ist
week of
Nov.
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
Kansas City
Leavenworth
Kickapoo
Reservation
Abilene
American Royal Live Stock and
Horse Show
Horse Show
Harvest Dance
National Coursing Association
Fall Meeting
State Corn Husking Contest
Nov. ist week
ii
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
Dec. Christmas
Season
Dodge City,
Hays, Pitts-
burg, Salina,
Topeka,
Wichita
Oberlin
Lawrence
Manhattan
Manhattan
Wichita
Atchison
State Teachers' Convention
Annual Armistice Day Celebra-
tion and Athletic Carnival
University Home-Coming
Kansas State College Home-
Coming
Kansas State High School Band
Contest
Stock Show
Music Festival
PART I
Tke State and Its People
JC ,~
m.^-m %*j?v
*fc <*T
^ -^ .
THE PRAIRIE
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<#>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Contemporary Scene
JL *
By WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
ON THE continental map, Kansas is in the exact center of the United
States, a parallelogram with one corner nibbled off by the Missouri
River. The State on this map looks flat and uninteresting topographically,
for within its boundaries are no lakes, no mountains, no really navigable
rivers. It seems to be a rectangle of prairie grass with no more need for a
guide book than is met by its highway junction signs.
Yet this Kansas rectangle has its distinguishing features. These come
not from rivers, mountains, or inland seas, but from the fact that this grass
plot rises nearly 3,000 feet in 400 miles. In that slanting slab of prairie
sod which begins descending eastward just beyond the foothills and rough
country of the Rockies, lie at least two separate economic units. They
amount to two different States. First, they have different soil. The eastern
part of Kansas is a rich, deep, alluvial loam. The western part of Kansas is
a sandy soil made by grinding down the glacial boulders of the Rocky
Mountains in the waters of an ancient inland sea and by great rushing rivers
that rolled along those latitudes. In the second place, not only is the soil
different but the climate somewhat varies in each of these units. Eastern
Kansas is a corn State. We have rainfall three years out of five, generally
eight years out of ten, which will produce corn in most of the counties
east of Hutchinson and Salina. The grass is lush and in central Kansas is
highly charged with lime from those heavily rolling prairies that are called
the Flint Hills, our bluestem pastures. In western Kansas the grass is short,
but shot full of nourishment. Its short fuzz fools strangers into thinking
the land is barren and useless. Yet that short fuzzy will nourish range cattle
adequately and, when the soil is turned over, that sod is rich in those chemi-
cals which make wheat. We like to say "Kansas grows the best wheat in the
world." This is not exactly true, but it is true that Kansas grows splendid
wheat, that it grades high, probably on the whole higher than the wheat of
any other State which grows winter wheat. Further north they grow spring
wheat, that is to say in the Dakotas and Manitoba. There they plant their
wheat in the spring and harvest it in the autumn. In western Kansas they
2 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
plant their wheat in the autumn and harvest it in the late spring and early
summer. The rainfall is so distributed and the heat of summer is so devas-
tating on these high plains that spring wheat will not prosper.
So there abide here two States: the grazing, farming corn land of east-
ern Kansas and the short grass pasture land and great wheat fields of
western Kansas. Eastern Kansas is divided into small farms from 100 to
200 acres. Large-scale farming does not pay except in cattle growing where
the bluestem pastures nourish flocks larger than Abraham ever drove out
of the Land of Ur when he had "cattle on a thousand hills." But mostly in
eastern Kansas the farmer is a barnyard stockman who grows his own
corn, has his own pasture lot, cuts and bales his own alfalfa and hay, puts
up his own fodder in the silo, and is economically sufficient to himself in
the manufacture of the world's beefsteak, ham and eggs, fried chicken, and
butter. In western Kansas, the tendency is to large farms. It is a one crop
country, a statement which needs quick modification, for alfalfa and buffalo
grass pasture and in certain northwest counties of the State an occasional
corn crop makes it possible for the farmer to live on a 2oo-acre farm. But
speaking rather broadly, western Kansas is a wheat bin. Farms are profitable
when they pass 200 acres. Large agricultural units requiring a heavy en-
dowment of machinery are fairly profitable in western Kansas. The people
tend to live in towns and villages. They do their farming in August and
September when the great motor plows furrow the fields, and again the
farmers get busy in July when the combines reap and thresh the grain.
The little farm with its garden, its diversified crop, its chickens, its calves,
its pigs, is not found so often in western Kansas, indeed it is found rarely
there. But in eastern Kansas the diversified crop is the normal type.
These geographical, indeed geological, differences between eastern and
western Kansas make different economic interests and different kinds of
people. The eastern Kansas farmer is a thrifty, cautious, diligent descend-
ant of the New England Puritan, physically and spiritually. The western
Kansas farmer is a gambler, a go-getter. In western Kansas are many
strains that did not come out of New England. The Mennonites live on
the eastern fringe of western Kansas. They were Germans who lived a
hundred years in Russia before coming to America and they have brought
their own culture, their own civilization, which has persisted through all
the 60 years of their Kansas exile !
So in our politics, eastern and western Kansas often find antagonistic
interests, honest and deeply divisory differences. Western Kansas, in poli-
tics, is inclined to be clannish. Western Kansans form blocs in the legis-
lature. They throw their votes in the ballot box to men who best represent
CONTEMPORARY SCENE 3
their interests, which are somewhat different from the interests of eastern
Kansas. Problems of taxes, of education, of transportation are not the same
in the rolling prairie country, four or five tiers of counties in from the
Missouri Line, as they are in that flat, lovely plains country, four or five
tiers east of the Colorado Line.
So the parallelogram 400 by 200 in the center of our Nation is some-
thing different in reality from its appearance on the map. Every State is
unique, but Kansas is visibly so, because of its geography and geology. In
these latter days of the mid-third of the century, oil is coming into western
Kansas to transform its civilization entirely. Oil will modify its politics. It
will change the social outlook of its people. We shall have a kingdom of
oil and wheat out of the high plains west of Newton and Abilene, the old
cow towns of the cattle days, a State which will be rich in spots, polka-
dotted with well-to-do farms and highly civilized country towns. Three
times in the history of Kansas, western Kansas has completely changed. It
had its energized vision in its pioneer days of the i88o's; its discouraging
and desolate days just before the discovery of winter wheat in the 1890'$;
its days of high prosperity in the first two decades of the century, climax-
ing in the wheat bonanza days of the War. And now comes oil to change
it again. In the meanwhile eastern Kansas goes on with a distinctly evolu-
tionary line of progress from the days of the Civil War until today. Noth-
ing has ever changed radically in eastern Kansas in economics or in agri-
culture. Within 70 years prosperity has come in waves, slowly but steadily.
These words of preface are necessary before one reads the Guide Book
to this midcontinental rectangle of grass prairie and high plains that is
known to her neighbors and the world as Kansas: "First in freedom, first
in wheat!"
Natural Settini
and Conservation
A GREAT rectangle in form, with the northeast corner cut off by the
Missouri River, Kansas is bounded on the north by Nebraska, on
the east by Missouri, on the south by Oklahoma, and on the west by Colo-
rado. It contains both the geodetic and the geographic centers of conti-
nental United States. The geodetic center, from which the U. S. Coast and
Geodetic Survey calculates latitude and longitude is on Meade's ranch in
Osborne County ; the geographic center is commonly accepted as being on
the Fort Riley Reservation in Geary County. Kansas extends 410 miles
east and west, and 210 miles north and south. It has a total area of
82,158 square miles, of which 384 are water surface.
Topography and Climate
Contrary to popular belief, the State is not a flat, featureless plain. The
surface slopes eastward from an elevation of 4,135 feet along the western
boundary to 734 feet in the southeastern corner, and is drained by two
main watersheds. The Kansas River with its tributaries flows eastward
through the northern half of the State, and the Arkansas with its tribu-
taries flows in a general southeast direction through the southern part.
Between these two river basins a small area is drained by the Marais des
Cygnes, and in the extreme northeast the streams flow into the Missouri.
Topographically, Kansas may be divided into three sections: the High
Plains, constituting approximately the western third ; a large area of nearly
flat land, called the Low Plains or the Great Bend Prairie in the center;
and the Flint Hills region or, as it has been more recently called, the
Bluestem Belt occupying the eastern third.
In this section the broad river valleys, cutting through the uplands and
affording picturesque vistas, are covered with rich silt deposits, and the
soil permits a more diversified agriculture than is found in the central and
NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 5
western sections of the State. The uplands are rolling, interspersed with
limestone cliffs. The most prominent of these are the Flint Hills which
extend from the Oklahoma to the Nebraska lines and include the greater
part of ten counties and the lesser part of three additional ones. Here
grow bluestem grasses, making a grazing region unlike any other in the
country, excepting the Osage section of Oklahoma which is, in reality, an
extension of the Bluestem Belt. Rainfall is sufficient to permit the growth
of timber in the plains and valley slopes, and even the hills in the north-
eastern part are heavily wooded.
In the central portion of the State, north of the Great Bend Prairie, lie
the Smoky Hills Upland and the Blue Hills Upland. South of the prairie
area are the Cimarron Breaks, heavily eroded cliffs and terraces bordering
the Cimarron River.
Only in the western third of the State is the terrain comparatively
monotonous and treeless. Professor Kenneth K. Landes, assistant State
geologist, has pointed out that, though the Great Plains are undistin-
guished from a scenic standpoint, they have an interesting geological
history. "They were made by ancient streams," he writes, "that flowed east-
ward from the Rocky Mountains carrying an enormous load of gravel,
sand, and silt which was deposited to a depth of many feet along a wide
belt extending from Canada to Texas. . . . Two streams that cross the
High Plains of Kansas, the Arkansas and the Smoky Hill, have excavated
their valleys below the base of the prehistoric river deposits, thereby
exposing the older and underlying rock."
The Smoky Hill River, cutting through the sand and silt deposits which
floor the High Plains in Logan and Gove Counties, has laid bare expanses
of white, yellow, and orange chalk formations. These are considered the
outstanding natural wonders in the State. Water and wind erosion have
exposed fossil beds here containing many specimens of extinct species of
fish, flying reptiles, and prehistoric birds. Castle Rock, a chalk spire in
western Gove County, rises to seventy feet and is visible for miles. Also
in this section are the Monument Rocks or "Pyramids," and a chalk pile
which wind and water have carved into a likeness of the Sphinx.
Other unusual formations are Kansas' natural bridge and a cave cut
through gypsum rock, both in Barber County. The mesas and buttes found
in this area are not unlike those that dot the landscape in New Mexico.
The cap rock is of white gypsum and the slopes are of red shale or sand-
stone. Nearby, in Comanche County, is Hell's Half Acre, a spot of unique
beauty ; and in Clark County is the Little Basin, one of Kansas' sink holes
or sinks, as they are more commonly called.
6 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
These are depressions in the land surface which occur, geologists ex-
plain, when the soluble rock layers are dissolved by underground water.
The roofs of the subterranean caves, thus formed, crumble and the over-
lying rocks sink down below the normal level of the terrain. The Little
Basin is believed to be many centuries old, judging by the evidence of
large trees which grow along its inner walls. One-half mile west of Little
Basin is Big Basin, a crater-like depression a mile in diameter and 100
feet deep. Formerly considered the crater of an extinct volcano, it is now
regarded as a sink of similar origin to others in the State.
The largest of these depressions developed with dramatic speed in Sep-
tember 1937 on a wheat farm near Potwin in Butler County. Shortly after
the completion of fall plowing, the farmer noticed a large depression in
his field. Twenty-four hours later the earth caved in, leaving a hole 300
feet long and 250 feet wide, which later partially filled with water. In
1930 an unusual sink hole developed in Hamilton County. Beginning as
a small circular hollow near the Colorado line, this depression deepened
until whole sections of a county road were engulfed. When last measured
this sink was 100 feet across and nearly 50 feet deep.
The climate is unusually variable with extremes of temperature and an
unusual abundance of sunshine, conditions resulting in great measure from
the State's location. Almost midway between the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans and approximately 600 miles distant from any large body of water,
Kansas lies in the path of air currents moving north from the tropics and
south from the Arctic Circle.
The yearly mean temperature is 54 degrees; January is the coldest
month, and July the hottest. The term "sunny" is well deserved, for no
other part of the country receiving as much rain has so many clear days.
A 38-year record shows that there have never been more than 104 cloudy
days in any year. The amount of cloudiness is greatest in the eastern part
of the State, but even here the record for sun is high. At Lawrence in
northeast Kansas the sky is overcast 59 per cent of the time in April, the
cloudiest month, while in August, the sunniest month, it is overcast only
35 per cent of the time.
The average rainfall is approximately 26 inches, but it is very unevenly
distributed. In the southeast section, where rainfall is heaviest, the annual
average is 40 inches; this decreases to 15 inches at the western border.
Precipitation in the form of snow is common during the winter months
December through March although the ground is rarely covered with
snow for more than a few days at a time.
Differences in wind velocities in the eastern and western sections are
Painting by John Steuart Curry
TORNADO
almost as marked as the differences in rainfall. In the eastern third the
winds are not noticeably higher than those in the eastern part of the coun-
try as a whole; the western third of the State, however, is one of the
windiest inland spots in the Nation. Winds of high velocity in this section
blow loose soil into "dust storms" and lead to wind erosion during the
dry season in winter or early spring.
Though Kansas has acquired the reputation of being a tornado State,
records show that these storms do not occur here with any greater fre-
quency than in other Plains States. Tornadoes strike the eastern part of
Kansas oftener than the western, and are more likely to occur in late
spring or early summer than at other times of the year.
What is believed to be the first fixed schedule of radio transmissions of
weather reports in the United States was inaugurated by the physics de-
partment of the State college at Manhattan in 1912 when station 9YV
began a daily broadcast of weather conditions.
Recent years of almost unprecedented drought have led to the often
expressed belief that the climate of Kansas is changing. Geologists and
meteorologists, however, point out that weather runs in cycles, the most
pronounced being about a third of a century in length. Conditions during
8 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
a cycle are easily mistaken by laymen for permanent changes. Despite year
by year fluctuations in temperature and precipitation, recorded evidence
shows that general climatic conditions remain unchanged.
Glacial Deposits
In the Mississippi Valley the ice cap of the glacial age extended as far
south as the present sites of Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, and Kansas
City in Kansas. The great ice sheets passed over hills and valleys, carrying
with them great loads of rock, gravel, sand, and clay which they ground
and scraped from the surface. Rocks and boulders, frozen into the bottom
of the glacier, scratched and grooved the solid rock beneath. As the ice
sheets melted, the accumulated materials were left behind, either spread
over the surface or piled into ranges of irregular hills, known as moraines.
The second of the four great ice sheets was the only one that invaded
the region, but it left an indelible mark on northeastern Kansas the area
lying north and east of the Kaw and Big Blue Rivers. As a result, this
section differs in many respects from the rest of the State. The surface is
covered by glacial drift or till, a confused mixture of clay, sand, gravel,
and boulders that is found on hilltops as well as in valleys. The pebbles
and boulders are of varying shapes and colors. South and southwest of
Atchison the drift is unusually stony. In many places, however, it is com-
posed of clay with few pebbles and boulders. The heaviest deposits are
found in Nemaha and in portions of Brown and Jackson Counties, where
the drift is from thirty to one hundred feet in thickness. From this central
area of heavy deposit the drift thins to less than five feet in thickness on
the borders of the glaciated region.
Numerous boulders lie scattered over the pastures in this section of the
State, most of them red or pinkish in color and hard as flint. These
boulders of red quartzite have been used to some extent in building con-
struction and are locally known as "niggerheads." Boulders of granite and
other types of rock are also found. They are most abundant south of the
Kaw River in the vicinity of Wamego, a few miles south of Topeka,
and near Westmoreland in Pottawatomie County. None of these belong to
the rock systems of the region; their nearest ledges are in southeastern
Minnesota and South Dakota.
The influence of the ice sheet on northeastern Kansas was, on the whole,
beneficial. The glacier brought vast quantities of rich fertile soil, filled
depressions and valleys, and produced large areas suitable for farming.
The heart of the glacial section in Brown and Nemaha Counties is per-
NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 9
haps the finest agricultural land in Kansas. The glacier also deposited
great quantities of sands and gravels that have been utilized in road and
building construction.
Fossil Remains
The vast deposits of fossils found in the chalk beds of Gove and Trego
Counties have long attracted the attention of scientists. Since their dis-
covery in the i86o's these beds have been visited by distinguished scien-
tists from all parts of the world, and many specimens have been removed
and placed in museums. The majority of these remains of ancient animals
have been petrified. In some instances only an imprint has been left; in
others, part or all of the original skeletal structures are preserved.
"The medieval age of geology," writes Professor Norman D. Newell,
of the University of Kansas geology department, "is sometimes called the
age of reptiles ; the rocks of this age are distinguished by the skeletons of
scores of kinds of reptiles, ranging from huge ones a hundred feet in
length with a weight of several tons, down to lizards the size of a
mouse . . . The conclusion is unavoidable that where now stands Kansas,
the driest of dry land, was formerly a mighty sea in which lived the
thousands of sea denizens now found buried in the rocks beneath the
soil."
Shark teeth and fossil remains of huge whale-like reptiles and of large
turtles, of the type found only in the sea, have been discovered in the
rocks of western Kansas. The deposits also yielded many specimens of
birds with teeth, belonging to the medieval geologic age. Two distinct
types are found, both adapted to swimming. One was a small shore bird
with powerful wings ; the other a small-winged diving bird about six feet
in length. Prehistoric oyster beds have also been uncovered in this part of
the State.
At the time of the earliest Spanish explorations in America there were
no horses in either North or South America. The wild herds that roamed
the Western plains in later years were descended from those brought by
Coronado and other explorers. The horse, however, is known to have
existed in prehistoric Kansas, and is preserved inthe rocks of these west-
ern counties. The skeleton of what is believed to be the oldest horse was
found in these rock strata a small animal, scarcely a foot high, with
three toes on its hind feet and four toes on its front feet. Specimens of
miniature horses, found in each successive stratum, show the evolution of
the modern horse. A progressive loss of toes and an increase in size may
10 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
be traced, until a horse quite similar to the modern animal was developed.
Dinosaurs have not as yet been discovered in Kansas, but geologists are
almost certain that they once existed here, because their remains are found
in the adjoining State of Colorado.
Coal and other types of rock formation known to have been formed on
land rather than in the sea, and evidences of erosion by rivers within the
sequences of rocks, have led geologists to conclude that prehistoric Kansas
was inundated by the sea at least fifty times. An ancient mountain range
of granite peaks and ridges that traversed eastern Kansas from north to
south known to geologists as the Nemaha Mountains was buried be-
neath the floor of the prehistoric sea by the accumulation of sediment.
Some of the deepest wells drilled in Kansas have passed through more
than 5,000 feet of rocks before reaching the granite which underlies the
entire State. This mile deep layer of rock, according to geologists, is the
hardened mud that accumulated in the sea bed during the long period of
advancing and retreating waters.
Natural Resources and Their Conservation
Minerals: The mineral industry is second in importance to agriculture in
Kansas. The value of its mineral products has increased from $58,471,000
in 1932 to $121,723,000 in 1936. For the latter year the principal mineral
products in order of value were petroleum, natural gas, zinc, and stone.
Kansas ranked second among all the States in quantity and value of zinc
and zinc-lead ores, third in quantity and value of chats, and third in value
of salt. For the past twenty years it has taken the lead in the production of
pumice or pumicite (volcanic ash). Other mineral products include cement,
clay products, coal, and gypsum.
Coal, lead, and zinc are mined in the southeastern counties, Crawford
and Cherokee. Here coal stripping operations have created large expanses
of waste land, which have recently been transformed into the Crawford
County State Park by the State forestry, fish and game commission, with
the aid of the WPA. Coal is also mined in Osage and Leavenworth Coun-
ties, and large clay deposits are found in Cherokee County.
The first oil prospecting in Kansas was near Paola in Miami County.
Though oil is now produced in nearly every section of the State, the
largest fields have been developed from the pools in the central counties
of Butler, Cowley, McPherson, Marion, Rice, and Sedgwick. Oil develop-
ment has been moving westward in recent years, however, and new fields
have been opened in Russell, Reno, Barton, Ellis, Stafford, and Clark
NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION II
counties. The principal gas fields are in Allen County in the eastern sec-
tion of the State and in Stevens County in the southwest ; gas has also been
discovered in many other parts of the State. Salt is found in Republic,
Reno, Rice, Ellsworth, and Harper counties. Gypsum is mined in Marshall,
Barber, and Comanche counties. There are large deposits of volcanic ash
in Meade, Sheridan, Rawlins, Wallace, and Comanche counties. Meade
County, which leads the State in the production of volcanic ash, has at
least twelve separate deposits.
Plant Life: Native grasses, which cover about one-third of Kansas, are
its most valuable form of plant life, protecting the soil from erosion and
depletion, and forming the basis for the State's enormous livestock indus-
try. There are 60 different groups of grasses, subdivided into 194 species.
Bluestem has the greatest forage value, and both species big and little
bluestem, also known as blue joint turkeyfoot and prairie beardgrass
grow in almost all parts of the State.
The tall grasses are confined to east Kansas. Indian grass thrives in the
valleys, little bluestem on the uplands, and sideoat grama on the hill-
sides. Prairie dropseed and sand dropseed are found in the drier sections,
while sloughgrass commonly borders the streams.
In western Kansas the short grasses dominate. Buffalo, blue grama, and
hairy grama are, in the order named, the chief forage grasses. Sand reed
and turkeyfoot grow in the semi-arid southwest, and saltgrass and alkali
sacaton in the alkaline soils.
With a few exceptions the short grasses grow in practically every part
of the State. Also ubiquitous, but of little or no grazing value, are tumble-
grass, green bristle, tickle and love grasses, switch grass and western
wheatgrass, which thrives best in the north central section.
The early settlers found few trees in Kansas. The soil and climate of
the western area precluded the natural growth of forests, while the woods
in the central and eastern parts of the State had been repeatedly damaged
by prairie fires. These were set by the Indians to induce early pasturage
for game animals and to prevent invasion by hostile tribes.
Extensive tree planting was begun immediately after the Civil War,
and was stimulated by the Federal timber culture act which gave 160 acres
of free land to anyone who agreed to grow 10 acres of timber on it. In
1887 the State legislature established two agencies which propagated and
distributed many thousand seedling trees during the next twenty years.
This work was taken over by the State nursery at Hays in 1907, in cooper-
ation with the forest service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The
MONUMENT ROCKS, NEAR GOVE
State forestry, fish and game commission, established in 1925, has chiefly
limited its forestation activities to plantings in State parks, but a broader
program will probably be undertaken eventually. About 3,000 acres of
strip-pit land, given to the commission for reforestation in 1934, were
placed under the management of the U. S. Forest Service. This agency,
aided by the Civilian Conservation Corps, leveled the area and planted it,
chiefly with walnut trees.
Today, Kansas has about 225,000,000 trees, not counting its fruit and
street trees. One native conifer, red cedar, is found pretty generally
throughout the State. Hackberry, linden, oak, willow, and sycamore grow
in east Kansas. Black walnut also thrives here and is economically valuable
for furniture and other manufactured products. In western Kansas box
elder and cottonwood predominate; the latter is used for excelsior, berry
boxes and other soft wood commercial containers. A wide variety of other
trees now grow in the State, particularly in the southeast corner. Many
regions, once treeless, are now well wooded with orchards, shelterbelts,
and woodlots ; trees shade the highways and border the fences.
The sunflower's glowing head is seen everywhere in Kansas, and it has
NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 13
been fittingly chosen as the official State flower. A succession of wild
flower blooms dot the prairies delicate yellow, lavender, and white in
the spring; orange and purple in summer, when the hot sun turns the
grass gray-green. Botanists list 80 flower families, and about 450 species
of wild flowers. Among the most widely distributed are the wild daisy,
aster, goldenrod, columbine, prairie phlox, clover, and thistle. Many spe-
cies adapt themselves to different growing conditions. Thus the tall sun-
flower of the eastern farmlands becomes knee high further west; the
spotted evening primrose, ivyleaved morning glory, and large-flowered
verbena of eastern Kansas have western counterparts in the white evening
primrose, bush morning glory, and small-flowered verbena.
Wild Life: In the i86o's Kansas was known as a hunter's paradise, and
shooting parties from as far away as Europe bagged huge quantities of
game. The timbered sections of eastern Kansas abounded with bear and
panther, with timber wolf, deer, otter, beaver, and smaller fur-bearing
animals. Farther west, prairie wolves, wild horses and vast herds of buf-
falo ranged the High Plains. There were quail, wild turkeys, and other
game birds, and migratory waterfowl in great numbers.
The destruction of the buffalo may be taken as an example of what
happened to most of this teeming wild life. Hunters ruthlessly slaughtered
thousands of buffalo, ripping off the hides and leaving the carcasses to rot
on the prairie. One huntsman boasted that he killed 120 buffalo in 40
minutes. By the early i88o's, scarcely a decade after settlement was begun
in western Kansas, the buffalo was extinct. Antelope, bear, and deer met
with similar fate. The wild horse, because of its greater sagacity, survived
and migrated west to more inaccessible regions.
Except for isolated county regulations to protect small game and con-
trol crop-damaging animals, no attempt was made to conserve wild life
until the State forestry, fish and game commission was established by the
State legislature in 1925. By this time grouse and wild turkey had been
exterminated, prairie chicken and quail were diminishing rapidly. The
central flyways of migratory birds, which once crossed Kansas, had shifted
and many species of ducks and geese, formerly abundant, were nesting
farther north.
The legislature gave the commission authority over fish and game,
which were declared to be the property of the State. Subsequent legislative
action has strengthened the original law, until Kansas has, today, conser-
vation measures which compare favorably with those of other States. The
commission's budget, derived from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses,
14 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
has never exceeded $250,000 biennially. But despite inadequate funds,
progress in conservation has been steady. The chukar partridge, an Asiatic
species, and several hardy species of quail have been introduced into the
State, and a method of propagating prairie chickens has been developed.
Approximately 10,500 pheasants and 52,000 quail were distributed in the
decade 1926-36. An important phase of the commission's work is the
development of recreational areas, chiefly in connection with the construc-
tion of artificial lakes. These are stocked with fish from the State hatchery
at Pratt.
Though the abundant wild life of early Kansas can, obviously, not be
restored, game and other animal and bird life is plentiful. Rabbit, musk-
rat, opossum, coyote, and raccoon are relatively abundant. There are twelve
species of bat, two of shrew and of mole, and three of pocket gopher. The
State's native birds include the American goldfinch, American robin, blue
jay, cardinal, Carolina wren, hairy woodpecker, western meadowlark, and
several species of hawk. In winter, tree sparrows, longspurs, and slate-
colored j uncos sojourn in Kansas; among the summer residents are cat-
bird, brown thrasher, ruby-throated hummingbird, and scarlet tanager.
The Nathaniel Stickeny Goss ornithological collection in the State
Historical Museum at Topeka contains mounted specimens of nearly every
variety of bird found in Kansas. Goss (18261891), known as the "Kan-
sas Audubon," spent more than thirty years gathering material for his
History of the Birds of Kansas, completed shortly before his death.
In addition to the State and Federal conservation agencies, private citi-
2ens take an active interest in the restoration and preservation of the
State's plant and wild life through the Kansas Fish and Game Protective
Association, Kansas State Game Preservation Association, State division of
the Isaak Walton League of America, and Audubon Society of Kansas.
Soil and Water: The future welfare of the State depends largely upon
the effectiveness with which its two greatest natural resources water and
soil are conserved. There is very little soil in Kansas unfit for cultiva-
tion ; smooth topography, abundant sunshine, and length of growing sea-
son are all favorable. The one disadvantageous factor is the scarcity of
water. The destructive forces of drought and flood were not unknown in
the State in the nineteenth century; there were 6 droughts and 16 floods
between 1860 and 1900. But in recent years these related problems have
been alarmingly aggravated. Increasing crop failures and flood losses
testify to the fact that droughts have become more severe and destructive
overflow more frequent. Decades of soil-destroying farming methods have
FIELD PLOWED BY DAMMING LISTER, A FLOOD CONTROL FEATURE
stripped the land of its water-retention properties. The resultant rapid
runoff of rain leads, in turn, to three evils flood, erosion, and a lowered
groundwater supply.
Fifty-seven lives and property damage estimated at $36,000,000 resulted
from the floods of 1903. Spurred by this disaster, the legislature passed a
law providing for the organization of drainage districts by cities and
counties; this plan superseded flood control work based on the township
unit. Eighty-five drainage districts were set up, protecting only 265,000 of
the 1,200,000 acres subject to overflow. These districts were widely sepa-
rated; they adhered to no uniform plan, safeguarded no area except their
immediate region, ignored the necessity of water conservation. In short,
they relied on hit-or-miss methods to cope with a problem that called for
long range and State-wide planning.
Between 1900 and 1917 Kansas suffered four severe droughts and 55
destructive floods. These apparently unrelated disasters were gradually
diagnosed as symptoms of a disease that affected the whole State rather
than isolated localities. The legislature consequently established the Kansas
Water Commission in 1917 "to secure the most advantageous adjustment
of interests involved in floods, drainage, irrigation, water power and
navigation." A division of irrigation was organized in 1919 under the
supervision of the State board of agriculture. Later these two agencies
were consolidated as the division of water resources.
At a general conference held in Topeka in 1927 the division of water
l6 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
resources appointed the so-called Paulen Committee to study the flood
control systems of Kansas. The committee's report showed that the drain-
age districts were merely inadequate makeshifts. As a result of these find-
ings the legislature passed a conservancy act in 1929, patterned after the
excellent Ohio conservancy act, which provided for a State-wide program
of irrigation and flood control.
The Kansas supreme court shortly declared the Conservancy Act uncon-
stitutional, thus leaving the problem unsolved. Water erosion continued
to gnaw at Kansas farmlands; the unharnessed rivers continued to wash
away millions of cubic yards of silt ; and the ground water level continued
to fall, thereby jeopardizing the water supply of 80 per cent of the
population.
The various agencies that surveyed the Kansas water problem from time
to time were agreed on two points : that rainfall should be retained where
it fell by means of land terracing, cover crops, contour farming, and
similar devices ; and that runoff at the sources of sub-tributaries should be
prevented by the construction of reservoirs and pasture ponds. None but
the last of these recommendations was acted upon by the legislature. A
law passed in 1929, and amended four years later, provided for the reduc-
tion of taxes on farmlands whose owners constructed pasture ponds.
Engineers estimated that 50,000 pasture ponds, exclusive of five large
reservoirs in each county, would be required to assure adequate flood con-
trol and water conservation. That this number would not be built by
private capital was a foregone conclusion and the aid of the Federal Gov-
ernment was accordingly enlisted. The Kansas Emergency Relief Adminis-
tration undertook a program of reservoir construction and completed 27
lakes and 3,000 farm and garden ponds. The WPA later built 15 lakes
and 256 ponds. But these, together with 125 State lakes and an unknown
number of privately built ponds, fell far short of the required number.
Some distress has been alleviated, however, and the ultimate, adequate
conservation of water has been given a measure of certainty.
About forty million acres, or three-fourths of the area of Kansas, have
been damaged in varying degree by erosion. Water erosion has scarred the
land in eastern and northern Kansas, while wind erosion has worked great
loss in the western part of the State. The general productivity of the soil
has been lowered, in some instances, as much as twenty per cent.
In the period between 1933 and 1937 western Kansas suffered an acute
shortage of rainfall. Crop failures in fields prepared for wheat left the
land without a protective mantle of vegetation, and top soil was lifted by
"DUST BOWL" FARM AFTER THE STORMS, NEAR LIBERAL
the wind and carried away. By 1935 almost nine million acres of once
green farmlands had been scraped and gouged by wind erosion.
Their land made waste by the wind, their reserve capital depleted by
repeated crop failures, the wheat farmers clamored for aid to prevent their
fields from turning into deserts. The extension service of Kansas State
College began to instruct farmers in tillage methods that resisted wind
erosion. The Kansas Emergency Relief Committee appropriated $364,136
which was used in 1935 to buy fuel for tractors and feed for horses. Soil
listing, strip chiseling, basin listing, strip cropping, and similar measures
were applied to 3,350,000 acres.
Under the direction of the U. S. Forest Service, the Prairie States For-
estry Project of the WPA has planted shelter belts in 20 counties in south-
central Kansas. These belts, established on 16,400 acres of farm land, are
now three years old and have proved their worth not only in halting wind
18 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
erosion but in protecting crops. A total of 1,500 miles have been planted
with 5,500,000 trees.
About 5,500,000 acres in western Kansas suffered from wind erosion in
1936. An extensive tillage project was carried on throughout the year with
funds obtained from the U. S. Department of Agriculture. About 2,546,-
834 acres were tilled through Government aid, and 120,000 acres were
tilled at private expense. Funds that remained from the original grant of
the U. S. Department of Agriculture were expended in further tillage
projects in 1937.
The Kansas legislature enacted a law in 1937 which empowered the
board of commissioners in each county to conduct an annual survey of
farmlands to determine the areas damaged by wind erosion; "to order that
the land be disked, or listed, or chiseled, or cultivated in any particular
manner," and to create a "soil drifting fund" by tax levy. The law also
provided that the cost of cultivation be assessed against the farm owner in
cases which involved deliberate failure to comply with certain erosion-
prevention measures.
The Land Utilization Administration of the Federal Government pur-
chased 100,000 acres of sub-marginal Kansas land in 1938 on which
experiments in terracing, contour tillage, and basin listing were con-
ducted. Several varieties of drought-resistant crops were successively
grown, while wind-eroded hills in the area were planted with cover crops.
To enable impoverished wheat farmers to benefit from the methods devel-
oped by experimentation in tillage and crop growing, the Farm Security
Administration has made loans to 18,868 Kansas applicants.
The adoption of a subsistence farming irrigation plan for southwest
Kansas was advocated by Dodge City conservationists, who met with rep-
resentatives of the Farm Security Administration in September 1938.
Officials of this agency and of the Soil Conservation Service had previously
announced that a project had been authorized for a ground water survey
of western Kansas under the direction of these two agencies. Farm opera-
tors may receive assistance in developing stock ponds, pumping plants for
irrigation purposes, and other water resources on a long term loan basis.
The plan is to supplement the rainfall by irrigation in dry years, thus
assuring a crop under unfavorable conditions and enabling the farmer to
raise livestock feed and seed to tide him over until a favorable year. Com-
mercial irrigation projects are discouraged. A preliminary survey, which
began in the late fall of 1938, was conducted for the purpose of deter-
mining water facilities best adapted for the individual farm. All informa-
tion is tabulated for future use and additional data is obtained by drilling,
NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 19
when necessary. Experimental projects have been developed on the
Solomon River in northwest Kansas and in the Walnut Creek Valley in
Ness and Lane Counties. Similar projects are planned for the Crooked
Creek area in Ford County and the Arkansas Valley near Lamed.
Land and water economy must be adjusted to "the State's scant and
unreliable water supply," Professor Harlan M. Barrows, of the Water
Committee of the National Resources Committee, has pointed out. "No
more is possible. Harmonious adjustment to the ways of nature in the
Plains must take the place of attempts to 'conquer' her. To hope that she
may change her ways is futile."
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<&>>>)>>>>>>
Archeology
NO EXHAUSTIVE study has yet been made of the prehistoric past
of Kansas, though the State is rich in archeological remains.
Ancient village sites, mounds, battle fields, stone and clay workshops, and
artifacts have been found in nearly every county. Relics range from the
most primitive stone implements to artifacts and pottery showing skilled
workmanship. One of the most important archeological finds in the State
was the "Lansing Man" exhumed at Lansing, Leavenworth County, in
1902 and now in the National Museum, Washington, D. C. The discov-
ery, consisting of a skull and some other skeletal parts of a human male,
was found in an undisturbed loess drift under a stratum of carboniferous
limestone twenty feet below the surface.
In Douglas, Potawatomi, Riley, Dickinson, Ellsworth, Marion, and
Lincoln counties potsherds, bone and flint artifacts, and other relics have
been found at depths of twenty to thirty feet. In Morris County, on
Clark's Creek near Skiddy, a sort of oven or fireplace of matched stones
was uncovered at a depth of sixteen feet. It rested on a solid ledge of rock
several feet below the present channel of the stream and was surrounded
with ashes, charcoal, bones, and flint artifacts. Of special significance is a
small coin-shaped disk of some brass-like metal found nearby. Seven or
eight feet above the fireplace and at about the same depth from the sur-
face was the stump of an oak tree in the place of its growth, indicating
the great age of the find and pointing to early occupancy of the region by
Stone Age Americans.
Archeological remains show that both sedentary people and hunting
tribes occupied Kansas in prehistoric times. The sedentary folk were agri-
culturists who constructed mounds of stone and earth, made and used
earthen vessels and exquisitely wrought flint implements. The hunters
were probably nomadic, making little pottery and relying upon the chase
to supply them with food. There is evidence that both types of aborigines
alternately occupied some of the village sites.
Although Kansas lacks the impressive earthworks characteristic of the
mound builder sites of the Mississippi Valley, there are numerous earthen
20
ARCHEOLOGY 21
remains within the State, particularly in the eastern part along the river
bottoms. Waterways served the mound builders as highways for travel,
and the distribution of the several groups or subareas correspond to and
were determined by the water systems. According to the classification
adopted by archeologists Kansas mound remains are included in the cul-
tural division known as the Upper Mississippi area. They form a marginal
district, since the mound-building practice reached its western limit among
the Kansas tribes. It is possible that these tribes were akin to the Missis-
sippi people but were culturally different. They seem to have been more
migratory than the advanced eastern tribes, and therefore left less preten-
tious remains and fewer walled defenses. But their many sites scattered
over the State, indicate that they were a numerous people.
Most of the Kansas earthworks appear to be the remains of domiciliary
sites. The common type of mounds are circular in form, twenty to twenty-
five feet in diameter, and from two to three feet high. Some of them are
apparently the caved-in ruins of timber-framed lodges, domeshaped and
covered with earth ; they were perhaps built and occupied by the ancestors
of the present-day Caddoan peoples who left many such remains in the
adjoining states. Those that have been excavated contained the bones of
animals, broken catlinite pipes, metates of sandstone, grooved hammers,
charcoal and ashes, as well as the usual collection of potsherds, arrow-
heads, scrapers, and flint knives. In one of them was also found a piece of
chain mail in an advanced state of disintegration, indicating that these
Indians were in contact with early European explorers, possibly Coronado
or some of his party.
Exploration of Kansas mounds was begun in the i88o's when Professor
J. A. Udden of Bethany College, Lindsborg, explored a series of fifteen
mounds along Paint Creek, a tributary to the Smoky Hill River. His dis-
coveries attracted outside authorities, and in the nineties Jacob V. Brower
of St. Paul, Minnesota, made an extensive survey in Geary, Riley, and
Wabaunsee counties, resulting in the exploration of more than 100 village
sites and the accumulation of nearly 10,000 specimens. This collection,
considered one of the best and most extensive in the country, is now in the
museum of the Kansas State Historical Society at Topeka. It shows the
entire range of aboriginal artifacts, from grindstones to bone fishhooks,
from bird bone and shell beads to ornamented pottery.
Following Brewer's discoveries, George J. Remsburg, of Potter, and
Mark E. Zimmerman, of White Cloud, instituted a series of explorations
in Atchison, Doniphan, and Leavenworth counties, which also yielded a
large collection of relics. On a bluff along the Missouri River near Atchi-
22 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
son they found a dozen skeletons and a quantity of bone, flint, and pottery
articles. They also discovered an unusually large and ancient cemetery at
Oak Mills, containing hundreds of flint and stone weapons, implements,
and potsherds buried with the skeletal remains.
During this exploration, Remsburg discovered the site of "Quans," the
grand village of the Kansa Indians, a tribe of Siouan stock. It had been
described by the early French explorers but was not found for so long a
time that men began to think of it as another fabled city. Remsburg proves
that the town of Doniphan, six miles north of Atchison, occupies the
ancient site.
Zimmerman unearthed two villages near the mouth of the Nemaha
River, containing sixty skulls, and the shell tempered pottery and cist
graves characteristic of the Tennessee-Cumberland area. From this evidence
is deduced that the sites marked the western limit of mound-building peo-
ple in Kansas.
Other mounds have been explored, and many have not yet been touched.
Among the latter are the five or more probably the largest in Kansas
near Edwardsville in Wyandotte County. These mounds are about five
feet high, twenty-five feet in diameter, and stand fifty feet apart. Their
great age is indicated by the heavy growth of oak timber which hid them
before the ground was cleared. Many stone and flint implements have
been found in the vicinity.
The mound-building trait apparently died out in Kansas in early his-
toric times, but the mound builders must have exerted cultural influence
upon the later tribes, or were, some contend, their actual ancestors. The
Caddoan Pawnee, who had many towns along the Smoky Hill River, were
the most distinctly agricultural tribe of the plains in modern times. Among
the Pawnee peoples there survived even in recent years, many customs
found among the Aztec when the Spaniards first met them. The story of
these later tribes the Pawnee of Caddoan stock and the Kansa or Kaw
of the Siouan group is written in the old lodge rings and village sites
scattered in moderate profusion throughout the State and found usually a
foot or so below the surface. Gathering of these data was begun in the
i86o's when Professor Benjamin F. Mudge, first State geologist, made
surveys of certain portions of the State. Goodnow's survey was in the
vicinity of Manhattan, where he accumulated a considerable collection of
flint implements, bone heads, pottery, and other artifacts. Operating prin-
cipally in Rice, Riley, Cloud, and Geary counties, Mudge discovered the
first of the clay workshops in Cloud County, on the Solomon River. It
ARCHEOLOGY 23
contains fragments of the bake ovens, partly moulded clay, and bits of
finished pottery.
About three miles north of Neodesha on the Verdigris River an exten-
sive fort and village site were found, probably a center of considerable
importance. The fort, formed somewhat like a horseshoe with opening
toward the east, was made up of two parallel lines of pits with an elevated
ridge in the center formed from the dirt taken from the pits. Many
specimens of pottery and buffalo bones have been taken from this site,
indicating that the inhabitants were skilled in pottery making and sub-
sisted to a considerable extent on the flesh of the buffalo. Other village
sites found along the creeks in McPherson, Saline, Dickinson, Morris, and
Geary counties, have yielded large numbers of flint hoes, spades, and other
digging implements, from which it is presumed that their owners engaged,
at least to some degree, in agriculture.
Big Springs in southwestern Morris County is another location rich in
relics. This site was discovered in the i86o's on the David Rude farm and
had furnished bushels of artifacts from the ancient flint workshop found
near the spring. A half-mile from the village in an open river bottom has
been found evidence of a battle between the villagers and an attacking
party. Numerous arrow and broken spear points of two distinct types were
scattered about. One type, also found in the town itself, was fashioned
from the ordinary blue flint common in that locality. The other type,
obviously used by the invaders, was much superior in quality and work-
manship, being sharper, better pointed and made of varieties of agate, and
of gray, white, and red flint. Since none of these superior points have been
found in the town it is concluded that the invaders were defeated.
The floor of an Indian lodge and a prehistoric burial ground were
excavated in the summer and fall of 1936 in Saline County, about four
miles east of Salina. They are considered among the most important
archeological finds of recent years. The lodge floor, thirty by thirty-two
feet, was uncovered at a depth of eighteen inches. A central fireplace was
found filled with ashes, and the earth beneath was burned a deep red.
Post holes around the outer side of the floor and near the center indicate
that the lodge was constructed of upright and crossed poles, probably
chinked and roofed with clay and bluestem grass. The clay plainly showed
finger marks of the builders who evidently used their hands as trowels.
Five caches of different sizes and depths were sunk in the floor ; in two of
them were found clam shells, hoes, pipes, beads, pendants, and some
charred corn. Bone needles, awls, scrapers, and flint arrows were on the
24 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
floor. Two interesting pieces of clay modeling, a war club and a screech
owl, were also found. In the two weeks following this discovery, hun-
dreds of people visited the site; it was then covered over, and the soil
sown to wheat.
Of even greater interest is the burial pit near the lodge floor, discovered
in October 1936 on the farm of George E. Kohr. Subsequent investiga-
tions have proved it to be the largest Indian ossuary that has been un-
earthed in this part of the United States. More than one hundred skeletons
of men, women and children lie buried four layers deep, in what careful
observation shows to be a definite arrangement. The first layer is close to
the surface; the lowest one is about forty inches below. Practically all of
the skeletons lie on their right sides in a flexed position, heads to the south
and facing east. Measurements indicate a race remarkable for size,
strength, and endurance many of the adult males being well over six feet
in height. These remains have been expertly exposed and left in the
places and positions of their burial. Near them have been found the
remains of ceremonial pots, necklaces of shell beads, flint knives, and
arrowheads. Several of the individual remains excite unusual interest and
speculation. One small skull evidently that of a child shows double
rows of teeth in each jaw. Near an adult male are the remains of two land
turtles. Another adult male is a pronounced hunchback, and he lies on his
left side with his head to the west. Almost without exception the skulls
are long with low foreheads, although there is one skeleton of small
stature with a round head and high forehead. The pit is now protected by
a small frame building, which contains Indian artifacts found on the spot
and in the vicinity.
An important relic of historic times is the ruin of an old pueblo twelve
miles north of Scott City in Scott County. This had been identified as the
long lost El Quartelejo, established about 1700, or perhaps earlier, by
Picurie Indians from New Mexico, who abandoned the settlement to
escape Spanish oppression. It was originally a stone and adobe building,
thirty-two by fifty feet, divided into seven rooms, and was probably the
first walled house ever constructed in Kansas. In it were found stone, flint,
and bone implements; mealing stones, potsherds, charred corn, and other
relics characteristic of the Pueblo Indians.
&>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
lans
groups of Indians have lived in Kansas, the native tribes
found by the first white men who entered the Territory and the
emigrant tribes. The latter were from the East, settled on reservations in
Kansas by treaties with the Federal Government.
Wandering tribes like the Cheyenne and Arapahoe inhabited sections of
the Kansas region, but their culture is not as representative of Indian life
in the State as that of the Kansa (Kaw), Osage, and Pawnee. These tribes
lived in villages of large and semi-permanent earth lodges, and cultivated
maize, beans, and squash. There were significant differences in their social
organization, religious ideas, and mode of life, but the Kansa may be
taken as an example, since it is from them that the State derived its name.
The Kansa belonged to the Siouan linguistic group and were closely
related to the Osage. Their economy was based upon the cultivation of
crops and hunting of buffalo or other game. Agriculture was women's
work, while hunting was that of the men. Each lodge was a self-contained
economic unit providing all its own material needs.
The tribe was governed by five hereditary chiefs. Each office was con-
trolled by a gens a group of kin related only through the male line. A
chief was generally succeeded by his eldest son, but it was possible for a
woman to hold office if no son were living. In recognition of an outstand-
ing achievement, a man could be elected chief, and the new chieftainship
thus created became hereditary in his gens.
The Kansa lived in earth lodges in permanent villages, which they left
periodically on organized buffalo hunts. Because of its great economic
importance the buffalo hunt was carefully controlled and the hunters were
restricted in many ways. They were divided into three bands, each of
which lived as a unit for the duration of the hunt. An announcer informed
the village of the day of departure and, as soon as the place for the hunt
had been agreed upon, each band chose a prominent warrior as leader. He
paid for a feast and was thanked by the chiefs for his services. Then, for
police, twenty men were chosen from those who had proved their courage
in war by taking a scalp, or slaying an enemy, or in other ways. They
25
26 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
were in charge of the hunt, prevented any individual from attacking before
the signal was given, policed the camp, and punished offenders by whip-
ping them. When the hunters returned to camp, the police shared the meat
as payment for their services.
The most sacred objects possessed by the tribe were the medicine
bundles, which contained many objects believed to be imbued with magical
powers. The bundles used in war were the most prominent because war-
fare held the most important role in tribal life. Each gens had its war
bundle, and among its number were certain men privileged in its owner-
ship and use. These privileges were obtained by acquiring the proper
vision through fasting and prayer. Once a man had been granted his
vision, he went to a former owner of the bundle and paid him for instruc-
tion in its uses. Thereafter he was a potential war chief.
The custom of scalp taking, which was regarded by the whites as a
mere act of savagery, was practiced primarily as a memorial of victory and
was an outgrowth of the more ancient form of head hunting. But it also
had a ritualistic significance as the scalp-lock was held to be the seat of
life, or the spirit of the warrior. It was believed that the scalped victim,
being physically incomplete, could not enter the Happy Hunting Ground
and consequently could have no rest in the hereafter, but must continue as
a spirit-servant to the victor. Therefore, the more scalps a warrior took,
the better; he would have more spirit-assistants and fewer enemies when
he himself entered the future life.
Boys began about the age of twelve to fast in order to obtain dreams
and guardian spirits. A father painted his son's face with clay and sent
him to a lonely spot so that he might receive power to do a brave deed.
Warrior ancestors appeared to the boy and prophesied his future exploits,
and from them he generally acquired war powers. His dreams were'pri-
marily concerned with future acts of greatness in war, and were recited
whenever he joined a war party. Although this was the fundamental type
of vision, others were peopled with the spirits of bear, buffalo, or thunder,
one of which became his special protector throughout life. When the boy
returned he received a new name, usually based on his vision, and became
a member of the tribe.
The great interest of the Kansa and other tribes of the Plains area was
warfare, and only by his achievements in war could an individual attain
social position. The warrior's preeminence was shown upon every possible
social occasion. He was permitted to sit upon a stuffed hide pillow at a
feast, to ride ahead of the police to the buffalo herd, and hunt without
fear of punishment. He acted as an intermediary in marriage, took charge
INDIANS 27
of dances, and functioned in the naming ceremony. The greatest honor
that could be bestowed on a warrior was to have his breast tattooed; and
this was accorded only to those who had slain seven enemies and stolen
six of their horses.
When a marriage was being arranged, the boy's parents asked a tattooed
warrior to be the intermediary. With three other braves of his choosing,
he visited the girl's parents and made the proposal. If the parents con-
sented to the marriage, all the warriors recited their exploits in war, and
recounted them again on the way back to the boy's lodge. (If they returned
in silence, the boy knew that his request had been refused. ) At the lodge
they announced the result of their mission. Then the boy, if accepted,
formally presented a number of horses to the girl's father. On the date set
for the marriage the girl, dressed in her finest clothes, went to the groom's
lodge, taking many presents. Here the boy's parents dressed her again in
a costume they had provided, and seated her upon the ground inside the
lodge. Seated back-to-back, the boy and girl partook of a marriage feast.
Relatives and friends were then admitted to a general feast, presents were
delivered, and the ceremony was ended.
As a tribe, the Kansa were aloof and independent, having little friendly
intercourse with any of the neighboring tribes, except the Osage, with
whom they were closely related by linguistic ties and intermarriage. They
did not penetrate far into what is now Kansas. At the time of the coming
of the Spanish in the sixteenth century, they occupied narrow strips of
territory on both sides of the Missouri River, approximately from the
mouth of the Kansas to the Nebraska line. Two hundred years later they
were in virtually the same location. In 1724 de Bourgmont reported two
Kansa villages on the Missouri one a few leagues above the mouth of
the Kansas, the other at the mouth of Independence Creek in Doniphan
County. It is thought that the latter point was the limit of their ascent up
the Missouri, and that they were driven back from there by the Pawnee.
Lewis and Clark, in 1804, found no trace of the lower village and only
the remains of the upper ; the Kansa were at that time established on the
Kansas River, with one village in the vicinity of the present Topeka, the
other at the mouth of the Big Blue (see MANHATTAN). By 1806
the former village had been deserted, and all the Kansa were collected
at the Big Blue.
In 1815 they made their first treaty with the Government, one of peace
and good will and involving no land transaction. But at St. Louis on June 3,
1825, they relinquished claim to all land in Missouri, southeast Nebraska,
and northeast Kansas, accepting instead a reservation beginning twenty
28 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
leagues up the Kansas. By 1830 the settlement on the Big Blue had been
abandoned, and three villages established near Mission Creek in Shawnee
County. These villages were occupied until 1846, when, by a treaty signed
January 14, the reservation was diminished, and the Kansa were removed
to Council Grove. On October 5, 1859, another treaty reduced their lands
to a small tract nine miles wide and fourteen miles long, which was
appraised and sold for the benefit of the tribe, when the Kansa were
moved to a reservation in Oklahoma about 1873.
Never very numerous, they were reduced by smallpox and liquor intro-
duced by traders. In 1835 they were estimated at 1,606 and in 1872 at
hardly more than 200. From a once proud tribe, they had degenerated to
a poverty-stricken handful. Yet from these people, through the Pappan
family at Topeka (see TOPEKA), was descended one of Kansas' most
distinguished citizens Charles Curtis, late Vice President of the United
States.
The Osage, also of the Siouan family, resembled the Kansa in religious
observance, social organization, and tribal customs, as well as in physical
appearance. Both have been described as tall and well formed. George
Catlin, the painter, visited the western tribes about 1835, and reported
that the Osage were the tallest Indians in North America, being from six
to six and one-half feet tall and well proportioned. They called themselves
Wa-zhe-zhe, which became Osage when French traders attempted to ren-
der the name in writing. They were divided into two bands, the Great and
the Little Osage, when first known to the whites, and were collected in
two villages on the Missouri River, each village having its own chief and
local government. Prior to 1796, the trade along the Missouri and all its
tributary branches had been competitive, and Pierre Chouteau enjoyed a
monopoly with the Osage. Superseded by Manuel Lisa, who obtained an
exclusive right to trade in this territory from the Governor of Louisiana,
Chouteau laid plans to regain the profitable Osage business. He induced
the young men from both divisions to bring their families and follow him
south to the Verdigris, and later to the Arkansas River, establishing vil-
lages along the latter stream. This migrating band was known as the
Arkansas and comprised about one-half of the Osage Nation.
Meanwhile the Great and Little Osage had removed from the Missouri
to the Osage River. In 1806 the Pike expedition found them in an upper
and lower village on the Little Osage. Two years later the Government
erected Fort Osage (afterwards Fort Clark), at the site of Sibley, Missouri,
presumably for their protection against neighboring tribes, with whom
they were in constant warfare. Within a month, Chouteau appeared at the
CHEYENNE CHIEFS IN CAPTIVITY, FORT DODGE (1878)
fort with a treaty, prepared without consultation, by which the Osage
were obliged to relinquish virtually all the land they had in Missouri ; and
in 1815 they moved into new villages on the Neosho. In 1820 the Great
Osage had one village on the Osage River and one on the Neosho, while
the Little Osage had three villages on the latter stream. All five villages
totaled about 2,600 inhabitants. From then until the close of the Civil
War the Osage lived mainly in Kansas, hunting about the Neosho, Osage,
and Arkansas rivers.
Partly agrarian, they planted their crops in April, gave them one culti-
vation and left their villages in May for the summer hunt, from which
they did not return until August. Then they harvested the crops usually
from ten to twenty bags of corn and beans, and a quantity of dried pump-
kin for each family and feasted. In September they started on the fall
hunt which lasted until Christmas.
On June 2, 1825, preceding the Kansa by one day, the Osage ceded all
land in the State south of that claimed by the Kansa to the United States,
which thus acquired undisputed title. In return the Osage accepted a
diminished reserve, beginning twenty-five miles west of the Missouri Line
30 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
and extending west fifty miles. This reservation was again reduced by a
treaty, signed at the Canville Trading Post in Neosho County on Septem-
ber 29, 1865, which provided that the Osage lands should be sold for
their benefit if they agreed to move to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma.
They so decided and settled on land bought from the Cherokee in 1870.
The Caddoan family, represented in Kansas by the Pawnee and the
Wichita, is believed to have migrated from the southwest at a period so
remote that only confused accounts of the migration exist in the family
traditions. Unlike the Siouan, the Caddoan family did not come as a whole
but in tribal divisions extending over a long period ; the general direction
of the movement was north and east. Caddoan tribes were distributed in
a diagonal belt reaching from Louisiana to North Dakota, where the
northernmost division, the Ankara, settled along the banks of the Missouri.
Members of this division called themselves Chahiksichahiks, "men of
men." But to the whites they were known as the Pawnee (from the Cad-
doan word, "pa-rik-i," meaning "horn"), because of their scalp-locks,
which were so plastered with grease and paint that they stood erect like
horns.
They were a powerful tribe, originally estimated at 25,000, divided into
four subtribes: the Grand Pawnee on the Platte River in Nebraska; the
Loup on the Loup branch of the Platte ; the Republican on the Republican
River ; and the Tapage, or Noisy Pawnee, on the Smoky Hill River. Each
village was ruled by a hereditary chief, whose power was more or less
absolute, depending on the personality of the individual ; and the villages
were held together in a confederacy composed of the reigning chiefs, with
a superior chief over all.
Their first contact with white men was in 1541, when the "Turk" led
Coronado into Kansas, although not all historians agree that Coronado
reached "Harahey," as he called the Pawnee country. It is said that he sent
for the Pawnee chief, Tatarrax, and that the chief came to Quivira with
200 warriors, "all naked, with bows, and some sort of things on their
heads." They were well-known in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
ries to the French traders.
Their numbers were steadily decreased in battle, as they were in con-
stant conflict with surrounding tribes, especially the Kansa and Osage,
whom they considered their hereditary enemies. However, as with all other
tribes, their most formidable enemies were drink and disease. An epidemic
of smallpox carried off nearly one-half the nation in 1831. Writing of
that calamity, their agent reported them "dying so fast . . . they had ceased
to bury their dead, and bodies were to be seen in every direction, lying in
INDIANS 31
the river, lodged on the sand bars, in the weeds around their villages, and
in their old corn caches."
In September 1825 they acknowledged the supremacy of the United
States and agreed to submit all grievances to the Government for adjust-
ment. This agreement they faithfully kept, even when the offenses were
committed by white men. Their cessions of land were insignificant, as
much that was rightfully theirs by prior claim and occupancy was ceded
by the Kansa and Osage. In 1876 the Pawnee their numbers reduced to
2,500 relinquished what was left to them in Kansas by a final treaty and
moved to Oklahoma.
Of all the Indians of Kansas, the Pawnee have yielded the greatest bulk
of songs and folk tales to ethnologists. The beautiful ceremonial dance,
The Hako, formerly observed by the Algonquian, Caddoan, and Siouan
families, was faithfully preserved by the Pawnee and has been recorded by
Alice C. Fletcher in the Twenty-second Annual Report (1900-01) of the
Bureau of American Ethnology. This ceremony, observed in the spring at
the mating season, was a prayer for children that the tribe might increase
and be strong; and the people might have long life, enjoy plenty, and be
happy and at peace. It was distinguished by its dignity, rhythmic variety,
and symbolic concept.
Although the Wichita spoke a Caddoan language related to Pawnee,
little is known about them. Catlin could find no resemblance between the
two groups in language, physical feature, or custom. The Wichita he
described as dark-skinned, clumsy and ordinary, although excellent horse-
men like the Comanche. Their dress, too, was similar to that of the
Comanche; and like them they wore their hair long, while the Pawnee
shaved and painted their heads.
The Wichita, it is surmised, originally accompanied the Pawnee to the
Platte and Republican Rivers, and later, because of some dissatisfaction,
retraced their steps to the Arkansas River where they lived for centuries.
Coronado found them there in 1541 and called their land Quivira; and
succeeding Spanish explorers visited them in the late sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries. When they left Quivira is not known. Probably
they were forced out by the southern advance of the Siouan family, and
settled along the Cimarron River and on south into Texas. They returned,
however, to the old Quivira region during the Civil War and established
a village on the site of the city of Wichita. Before the period of land
cession they again retreated south, leaving their land to more aggressive
tribes.
The Arapahoe and Cheyenne were of the Algonquian family, which
THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
ATTUTOCTMI
INDIANS
33
[ ^^^^^S"2iiv ,/.,
OLD TRAILS MAP OF KANSAS
34 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
originally occupied territory about the Red River in northern Minnesota.
At some time in their history they had formed an alliance, which has
continued to the present time. They were forced west by the northern
Siouan movements the Arapahoe going first into Wyoming; the Chey-
enne moving at a later date into the Black Hills of South Dakota, and
settling about the Cheyenne River, where they were found in 1804 by the
Lewis and Clark expedition.
Divisions of each tribe drifted south and west, forming the Northern
and Southern Arapahoe, and the Northern and Southern Cheyenne. But
these divisions were only geographical, for they combined forces to carry
on warfare against all the neighboring tribes. In 1840 they made peace
with the Comanche, Kiowa, and Sioux, but continued hostilities against
the Pawnee, Ute, and Shoshoni until all were confined on reservations.
According to their traditions, they were once a sedentary people, living
in fixed villages, cultivating the soil, and practicing the arts of pottery
and weaving. On the Plains they developed into nomadic hunters, living
in portable skin tents (tipis) and ranging from the Black Hills to the
Arkansas River and into the Rocky Mountains. They were fierce and dar-
ing horsemen and the most dreaded foes of the early Mexican traders and
California gold-seekers. Although they had many similarities to the Kansa,
Osage, and Pawnee, they fit the popular conception of the Plains Indians
more exactly.
By a treaty at Fort Laramie, in 1851, the boundaries of the southern
divisions were fixed, giving them a large tract in western Kansas and
eastern Colorado, which the Government promised to protect. However,
the discovery of gold in Colorado in 1858 brought such hordes of white
men into the territory that the Indians were forced out of the mountains
onto the plains about the Arkansas and Red Rivers. Angered by this breach
of faith, and aided by the Sioux in the north and the Kiowa in the south,
they began a series of uprisings that lasted until 1878. They figured in
the Chivington massacre in Colorado and that of Custer in Wyoming. On
February 18, 1861, they ceded all their lands in Kansas, except a small
tract lying between the Arkansas and Purgatory Rivers, but continued
depredations over all their former territory. The treaty of October 28,
1867, gave them a reservation in Oklahoma, but they refused to accept it
until forced to do so by the final treaties of 1874-1875. In 1876 the
northern divisions were settled in Wyoming and Montana.
The Arapahoe and Cheyenne participated in the Sun Dance, the annual
rite of worship performed by nearly all the Plains tribes and especially by
the Siouan, who accompanied it with sacrifices. The Arapahoe were leaders
INDIANS 35
in the Ghost Dance movement, originated about 1888 by Wovoka, a
member of the Paviotso tribe in western Nevada. This dance was the
ceremonial expression of the "Messiah" religion in which the Indians,
realizing the futility of further resistance and resigning themselves to the
fate of the conquered, took refuge. It was a mixture of Christianity and
Indian mythology, based on the belief that God had sent white people to
punish the Indians for their sins. When these sins were fully expiated, it
was believed, God would return to destroy the whites and reunite in
heaven all Indians, living and dead. To hasten His return, the elaborate
ceremony of the Dance, lasting four to five nights, was observed once in
every six weeks.
Contrary to popular belief, the Ghost Dance religion did not advocate
war on the whites, although it did give indirect impetus to the Sioux out-
break in the spring of 1891. The fundamental teachings of the "Messiah"
were "not to tell lies, to harm no one, to do right always, and not to cry
when their friends died." It was the most pacific religion ever adopted by
an Indian people.
Hopefully the elated converts looked forward to the dates set for the
return of their God and the destruction of the whites; when these dates
passed without fulfillment of the prophecy, the Indians lost faith and the
Ghost Dance faded out.
The Kiowa have the distinction of being the sole representative of their
linguistic family. The word, Kiowa, comes from their "Kiowagan," mean-
ing "prominent people." They were a true Plains tribe, having come
originally from the upper Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. Forced out by
the Sioux, they drifted south along the base of the Rockies to settle along
the Arkansas and Canadian Rivers.
Shortly thereafter they formed an alliance with the Crow, and in 1840
they made a similar agreement with the Arapahoe and Cheyenne, with
whom they were associated in border uprisings. They were war-like and
predatory and are credited with having killed more white men in propor-
tion to their numbers than any other tribe. They made their first treaty
with the United States in 1837 and removed to their present reservation
in 1868, although, together with their confederates, they continued depre-
dations until the last outbreak in 1878.
The Comanche, of the Shoshonean family, also ranged across sections
of western Kansas. They fought intermittently with the Spanish for 200
years and for nearly half a century with the Texans, who, they felt, had
taken their best hunting grounds. They were close confederates of the
Kiowa and joined them in all border warfare.
36 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
On October 18, 1865, together with the Kiowa, they ceded all land to
the Government, that in Kansas being west of the Osage and south of the
Arkansas River. By the 1867 treaty at Medicine Lodge they were given a
reservation in Oklahoma; but, like the Kiowa, they refused to accept it
until general peace was effected. Although covering a great deal of terri-
tory, the Comanche were never as numerous as they seemed. In 1904,
wasted by war and disease, they numbered only 1,400.
The movement of emigrant tribes into Kansas began with the Shawnee
in 1825 and ended with the Wyandot in 1842. At the insistence of the
Government these tribes, twenty-eight in number, gave up their ancient
lands east of the Mississippi, or land they had acquired by settlement west
of the Mississippi, and were given in return small reservations in eastern
Kansas, mainly in that portion ceded by the Kansa and Osage. The major-
ity of the emigrant tribes had lived in long association with missionaries
and white settlements. They had intermarried with the whites and their
leaders were often white men adopted into the tribe, or descendants of
mixed blood. Under these combined influences, they had adopted many
of the ways of the whites and, to some degree, arrived at their way of
thinking.
This was particularly true of the Delaware, Shawnee, and Wyandot.
The first printing press in Kansas was brought to the Shawnee ; and on it
was printed the second newspaper ever published in an Indian language.
The code of laws adopted by the Delaware would have compared favor-
ably with that of any group of white people in similar circumstances. The
Wyandot more than three-fourths white, generally educated and in some
instances highly cultured established the first free school in Kansas and
played a significant part in the State's territorial history.
But these tribes, brought into the lusty crudeness of a border country
and repeatedly deceived by meaningless promises of the Government,
deserted the teachings of missionaries and adopted the worst habits of
their conquerors. Drink, supplied by the ubiquitous trader, became a gen-
eral habit. The Delaware, enticed to the Plains by the buffalo, became
embroiled with the Pawnee and burned the Pawnee village on the Repub-
lican River in 1832. The Potawatomi also fought with the Pawnee until
the latter were defeated.
Eventually these emigrant groups shared the fate of the native families.
In 1854, when Kansas was opened to white settlers, a period of land
cession was inaugurated and continued until about 1880. At its close virtu-
ally all Indian titles had been extinguished. Of the thirty-six tribes, rem-
nants of only six, distributed on small reservations, are now to be found
POTTAWATOMIE AND KICKAPOO HOLY MEN, RESERVATION NEAR HORTON
in Kansas. These are the Chippewa and Munsee in Franklin County ; Iowa
in Doniphan ; Potawatomi in Jackson ; and the Sauk and Fox and Kickapoo
in Brown County. In 1930 their combined numbers totaled 2,454.
Indian farmers in Kansas today live in much the same manner as their
white neighbors. Though there are a few impressive buildings, their
houses are usually small; many have telephones and other modern con-
veniences. It might appear that these people have completely lost their
racial heritage, but this is not so. During the summer months, especially,
they return to their tribal costumes, not only for festivities but for every-
day wear; and few Indians fail to attend the religious dances and games
held on Kansas reservations at customary intervals during the year.
In this way they manage to preserve much of their native culture. The
Prairie Potawatomi, more than any of the other Kansan Indians, still
adhere to their tribal customs and conduct traditional ceremonies on their
reservation. The Religious Dance is the most important of these. It repre-
sents the fusion of Indian and Christian religious concepts and is held at
38 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
least five times a year, out-of-doors in spring and summer, and indoors
during the winter months. It is conducted by an organization of men and
women which functions like a priesthood. Vigorous singing and drum-
ming are sustained for most of the day and night for a period varying
from one to eight days, depending on the amount of food available. The
entire tribe attends, but only the men dance. Peyote meetings, so named
from the stimulant drug, are also held each year for several successive
nights and days, for the formal purpose of worship and general thanks-
giving. Men and women attend; all eat or drink some peyote and con-
tribute food. Other rituals include the Dance Ceremony for the deceased,
the Adoption Ceremony, and the Clan (or Gens) Ceremony.
Games are also played lacrosse, for men only; woman's ball game, or
squaw hockey, for women only; and moccasin game for both men and
women. Indian dice, archery and blow-gun games are sometimes played
with a neighboring tribe, like the Kickapoo. The promotion of friend-
ship, rather than rivalry, is the objective in these games, for the Indian
believes that "All games are gifts from the Good Spirit for the enjoyment
of life."
History
|RIOR to the coming of the Spanish in 1541, the Kansas country was
known only to the Indians nomadic bands of hunters and warriors,
and the indigenous tribes. Of the latter, Coronado mentions three, the
Wichita, Kansa, and Pawnee, and vaguely infers that there may have been
more.
For a decade, the "seven cities of Cibola" had been in the minds of
Spanish conquistadores ; to find and plunder these supposed centers of
wealth had been the cherished hope of many adventurers. But only Fran-
cisco Vasquez de Coronado, Governor of New Galicia in New Spain,
Mexico, comes into the Quivira quest, which grew out of the disappointing
Cibola experience and is the colorful prelude to Kansas history.
In 1539 Friar Marcos de Nica, whom Coronado had sent on a prelimi-
nary search for the Cibola cities, returned with the good news that he had
espied one of these wonderful places of "high houses," though only from
a safe distance. An expedition was organized, and 300 Spanish "men of
quality" gathered at the rendezvous, Compostela (on the Pacific coast be-
low lower California), by Shrovetide of 1540. With Coronado as captain-
general, the army started northward, crossed the mountains, and spent the
whole of that year in futile marches through what are now Arizona and
New Mexico. Winter overtook them at Tiguex (near Bernalillo, New
Mexico). By this time they had found that the cities of Cibola were
merely poor pueblo structures ; but one of Coronado's captains, Hernando
de Alvarado, while on a minor search, had been told by "an Indian slave"
whom he called "The Turk," that far beyond "toward Florida" lay the
slave's own land, Quivira, which was rich in gold and silver. He could
guide the white strangers to it.
In the spring of 1541 (April 23) Coronado and his army left Tiguex,
hoping to find in Quivira the precious metals Cibola could not supply.
The Turk led them through "the cow country" into western Texas so far
southeastward that at a village on the Colorado River the captain-general
called a halt. Their supplies had fallen dangerously low. For 37 days they
had followed the Turk and, to conserve their grain supplies, had lived
39
40 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
mainly on buffalo meat. Tiguex was "250 leagues" away, and the unknown
country beyond might prove barren. Coronado divided his force. Taking
with him only "thirty horsemen and six footmen," he headed north to
pursue the quest, sending the remainder of his men back to Tiguex to
await his return.
With Coronado went the Turk and another guide. Across the panhan-
dles of Texas and Oklahoma Coronado proceeded "until he reached Qui-
vira." His report, October 20, 1541, to his king, reads: "I traveled for
forty-two days after I left the force, living all the while solely on the flesh
of the bulls and cows which we killed . . . and going many days without
water and cooking the food with cow dung, because there is no other kind
of wood in all these plains, away from the gullies and rivers, which are
few." The chronicler Suceso placed Quivira as "in the fortieth degree,"
but another authority, mapping the "Province of Quivira," puts it in the
thirty- ninth, between the Arkansas River at Great Bend and the conflu-
ence of the Republican and Kansas Rivers, at Junction City.
It was near this place that the Turk was strangled for his treachery, after
Coronado had heard that he had tried to incite the Quivira people (Wich-
ita tribe) to kill them. The Turk might have been killed anyway, for by
this time one fact was obvious to the angry captain-general: Quivira con-
tained no gold or silver. "These provinces . . ." Coronado wrote, "are a
very small affair . . . there is not any gold, nor any metal at all in that
country." But he found some satisfaction "on seeing the good appearance
of the earth. . . . The province of Quivira ... 950 leagues from Mexico,"
he conceded, "is the best I have seen for producing all the products of
Spain, for besides the land itself being very fat and black, and being well
watered by the rivulets and springs and rivers, I found prunes like those
of Spain, and nuts and very sweet grapes and mulberries."
After a stay of 25 days in Quivira, Coronado and his men returned to
Tiguex, but by a shorter southwestward route, approximating what later
became the Santa Fe Trail. In the summer of 1542, "with less than a
hundred men," he reached Mexico City, where he was shorn of his rank
and soon died. But the seemingly fruitless journey introduced the horse
to the Plains and, by right of discovery, established Spanish claim in the
entire western region.
A Franciscan monk, Juan de Padilla, who had been with Coronado in
Quivira, returned to that country in 1542, but was killed by the Indians.
For a half century Spanish interest in the far north remained inactive.
Then, in 1594, Francisco Levya de Bonilla and Antonio Gutierrez de
Humana ventured beyond the Arkansas, traveling northward for twelve
HISTORY 41
days and reaching another river. On their way back they were overtaken
and murdered. Don Juan de Onate, in 1601, was the next Spaniard to
traverse Quivira. It is probable that more than a century passed before
another Spanish party came so far north.
In the late decades of the seventeenth century, however, the French
from Canada began to show active interest in the land west of the Mis-
sissippi. In 1673 Louis Jolliet, a trader, accompanied by Father Jacques
Marquette, descended the Mississippi River from the mouth of the Wis-
consin River to below the mouth of the Arkansas ; on the return trip they
left the Mississippi at the Illinois. So it hardly seems likely that, as some
suppose, Jolliet and Marquette ever reached the Kansas region. Neither
did La Salle who, in 1682, descended the Mississippi from the Illinois to
its mouth, returning along the same rivers. But there is a Marquette map
upon which some Kansas authorities seem to recognize certain topographi-
cal features descriptive of Kansas. It was probably drawn from informa-
tion gained by interrogating Indians with whom the priest came in
contact. Marquette in this way learned much about native peoples he never
visited. On his map of the Missouri and Kansas region, he marked the
names Ouemessourit (Missouri), Kanza (Kaw), Ouchage (Osage),
Paneassa (Pawnee), and some others.
In 1694 "Canadian traders were among the Osage and Missouri tribes,"
and during the next few years the Spanish authorities in New Mexico had
several indications that the French traders were on good terms with the
Pawnee. By 1706, when Juan de Ulibarri headed a Spanish expedition out
of Santa Fe, it was apparent that the French, operating from the north,
were becoming rivals of the Spanish of New Mexico for the trade of the
interior.
Between 1706 and 1719 the French penetration was steady. In 1708
Canadians explored "three hundred to four hundred leagues" of the Mis-
souri River; and during the next decade the French from the Louisiana
capital reached out along other tributaries of the Mississippi. In 1719
Charles Claude du Tisne, sent up the Missouri River by the Governor of
Louisiana, visited the Osage villages, near the mouth of the Osage River,
and crossed the northeast corner of Kansas to the Pawnee region on the
Republican River. The Spanish heard that "he planted the French flag in
native villages and even traded in Spanish horses." Don Pedro de Villa-
2ur, assigned "to drive the French out of the land," left Santa Fe in 1720
with a Spanish force of 42 soldiers, 3 settlers, 60 Indians, and a priest.
The route was "always to the northeast from Santa Fe." Possibly the
caravan passed through part of Kansas, but the account mentions only
42 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
three rivers, the Napestle (Arkansas), the Jesus Maria (south fork of the
Platte), and the San Lorenzo (north fork of the Platte). Villazur and
most of the Spaniards were killed in a battle, thought to have been fought
near the town of North Platte, Nebraska. This defeat ended Spanish
operations and left the French in undisputed possession.
The French established themselves more securely in the region in 1722,
when Etienne Venyard, Sieur de Bourgmont, erected Fort Orleans near
the mouth of the Osage River. Two years later Bourgmont worked among
Kansas Indians and penetrated even to the Rocky Mountains. He seemed
to have established trading relations with many tribes, but Kansa war-
riors destroyed Fort Orleans in 1725.
In 1763 French authority, in all America, came to an end. England,
victorious in the long French and Indian War, received the Canadian
provinces and all French rights to land east of the Mississippi. New
Orleans and Louisiana, west of the Mississippi, had already (1762) been
ceded by France to Spain.
Spain showed little interest in the Quivira country thus regained, yet
the development of Kansas began under its ownership. Pierre Laclede
Luguest, with Auguste and Pierre Chouteau of the French fur trading
family, established headquarters at St. Louis in 1764, and sent agents from
there to the Indians of Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, and Kansas. These
agents, although few in number, cleared the paths by which Kansas was
to emerge from a little-known region into a definite territory.
In 1801, by the Treaty of Madrid, which confirmed the 1800 Treaty
of San Ildefonso, Louisiana west of the Mississippi was retroceded to
France, which by then had renewed its ambitions for a colonial empire
and thereby alarmed the recently formed United States. France, under
Napoleon, was at the height of its power too dominant a neighbor to
be viewed placidly. Recognition of this and other considerations led
President Thomas Jefferson to propose the purchase by the United States
of west Florida and New Orleans. Napoleon's counter proposal, offering
the whole of Louisiana, was accepted. On April 30, 1803, Louisiana,
including the Kansas region, became the property of the United States.
Explorations sponsored by the United States began immediately. In
January 1803, before the Louisiana Purchase was consummated, President
Jefferson called the attention of Congress to the land west of the Missis-
sippi, pointing out the possibilities of trade and suggesting an appropria-
tion of $2,500 for the purpose of exploring the country and furthering
commerce. The appropriation was made, and an exploring party organized
HISTORY 43
under command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William
Clark.
In March 1804 the Territory was divided into two parts. Land south of
the thirty-third parallel was named the Territory of Orleans; that north
of the parallel, including Kansas, became the District of Louisiana,
attached for legal purposes to the Territory of Indiana.
On June 26, 1804, Lewis and Clark landed at the mouth of the Kansas
River on the first lap of their expedition. By July 4 they had reached a
stream in the present Doniphan County, which they named "Independence
Creek" in honor of the day, firing an evening gun and rationing out an
additional gill of whiskey by way of celebration. Two years later, August
5, 1806, they returned to the mouth of the Kansas with the first reliable
information on the climate, topography, and general features of the
western country.
Before the conclusion of the first expedition, a second was organized by
the military commandant of Louisiana, General James Wilkinson, and set
out from St. Louis June 24, 1806, under command of Captain Zebulon
M. Pike. He visited the Osage in Missouri and the Pawnee on the Repub-
lican, arriving among the latter on September 25. Here he found a Spanish
flag floating over their council tent. The purchase from Napoleon had no
fixed western boundary; the United States claimed territory extending to
the Rocky Mountains while Spain fixed the line much farther east. Pike
demanded that the Spanish flag be hauled down and the American stand-
ard be raised in its place, thus putting an end to all Spanish claim east
of the Rockies. He turned south to the Arkansas River and followed it to
the present site of Pueblo, Colorado, discovering the mountain now known
as Pike's Peak. As this was encroaching on Spanish territory, he was cap-
tured and taken to Mexico. During his captivity of some months, Pike
gathered considerable information as to the possibilities of trade with the
Mexican provinces. The accounts of his travels, published in 1810 on his
return to the States, directed an avid interest to these provinces.
Of parts of Kansas he wrote enthusiastically but he saw no possibilities
for white settlement in the arid portions of the Louisiana district. "These
vast plains of the western hemisphere," his account reads, "may become in
time as celebrated as the sandy deserts of Africa; for I saw in my route,
in various places, tracts of many leagues where the wind had thrown up
the sand in all the fanciful forms of the ocean's rolling wave, on which
not a speck of vegetable matter existed."
Maps, presumably based on Pike's report and showing the desert reach-
ing from the west line of Missouri and Arkansas to the Rocky Mountains,
44 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
from the Platte to the Red River, were incorporated into the school
geographies of that period. This misconception gave rise to the legend of
a "great American Desert" that included the whole of Kansas.
Meanwhile, March 3, 1805, the District of Louisiana was erected into
the Territory of Louisiana, independent of the Territory of Indiana and
with its own powers of legislation.
Twelve years elapsed before another expedition was attempted, and
during that time a series of events occurred that influenced the future of
Kansas. In 1807 Manuel Lisa, a Spanish fur trader, established a number
of trading stations about the headwaters of the Missouri River. The Mis-
souri Fur Company was organized the following year by Lisa, together
with Auguste and Pierre Chouteau, and a chain of trading posts was
established throughout the western country. This company was dissolved
in 1812 and was succeeded by the American Fur Company of the Chou-
teaus, who were beginning to concentrate their activities in Kansas.
On June 4, 1812, the Territory of Missouri, with its western boundary
approximating that of the present State of Missouri, was created from the
Territory of Louisiana, leaving the remainder without law or official
identification for a quarter of a century.
The expedition of Major Stephen H. Long a scientific exploration
sent out by the Government ascended the Missouri to the present town
of Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1819. Long camped there for the winter, then
moved south to the Platte and Red Rivers, entered Colorado, where
members of his party made the first ascent of Pike's Peak, and returned to
the Mississippi via the Red River. His expedition, following in the path
of Pike, accumulated scientific data, and introduced the first steamboat to
Kansas waters. The Western Engineer entered thr mouth of the Kansas
on August 10, 1819, and transported his party up the course for one
mile. Here the mud left by flood-waters made it necessary to turn back
and continue up the Missouri.
A period of still deeper significance for the future of Kansas followed.
In 1818 the Missouri Territory asked admission to the Union as a slave
State; simultaneously, Alabama, also a slave State, asked admission.
Alabama was admitted in 1819, balancing the power of the opposing fac-
tions, ii free and n slave States. The debates over Missouri resulted in
the Missouri Compromise, passed February 17, 1820, providing that
Missouri should be admitted as a slave State, but that all future States
west of the Mississippi and north of 36 and 30' should be free. On
August 10, 1821, Missouri was admitted under the terms of the compro-
mise and the question of slavery shifted to the territory west of the
HISTORY 45
Mississippi, where it was to flare anew in Kansas. Two years later the
boundary between Missouri and Kansas was definitely fixed.
Thomas Hart Benton, Senator from Missouri, began in Congress his
championship of western development in 1824, only to meet with opposi-
tion such as the following from Daniel Webster: "What do we want with
this vast and worthless area, of this region of savages and wild beasts, of
deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds, of dust, of cactus and prairie
dogs; to what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or those
endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with
eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a
coast of 3,000 miles, rockbound, cheerless, uninviting and not a harbor
in it ? Mr. President, I will never vote one cent from the public treasury to
place the Pacific Coast one inch nearer Boston than it is now."
The Reverend Isaac McCoy, a missionary to the Indians east of the
Mississippi, journeyed to Washington to propose the removal of his
charges to western reservations beyond the influence of white settlements.
His proposal was favorably received and, in the main, Kansas was selected
to provide the reservations, for it was still thought of as desert country
and of no value.
In 1825 the Government arranged treaties with the Osage and Kansa,
whereby they gave up their lands in eastern Kansas to make way for the
emigrant tribes. The first allotment was granted to the Shawnees ; then in
rapid succession came the Delaware in 1829; the Kickapoo, Potawatomi,
Kaskaskia, Peoria, Wea, and Piankeshaw in 1832; the Sauk and Fox and
the Iowa in 1836; the Miami in 1840; and the Wyandot in 1843. All
were crowded onto small reservations in the eastern part of the State.
With them came the missionaries, who had already taught them the
rudiments of civilization. Two Presbyterian missions had been established
in 1820 for the Osage, the Union on the Neosho River and the Harmony
on the Marais des Cygnes. In the spring of 1827 Daniel Morgan Boone,
son of Daniel Boone, was sent by the Government to teach farming to the
Kansas Indians occupying the southern part of Jefferson County. There he
established his family, the first white family in the Territory; his son,
Napoleon, born August 22, 1828, was the first white child to be born
within the State. In 1829 the Reverend Thomas Johnson introduced Meth-
odism to the Shawnee, establishing a mission near the present town of
Turner in Wyandotte County. Four years later the Reverend Jotham
Meeker brought the first printing press to the Shawnee Baptist Mission,
and on February 24, 1835, he published the first issue of the Shawnee
Sun, the first newspaper in Kansas.
46 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
By 1830 trading posts were scattered throughout eastern and central
Kansas, reaching from the Platte to the Red River. Within a few years,
ferries were strung across the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, roads were cut
along the ridges, patches of farm land were cleared and planted, and cabin
homes fringed the highways. All this was the work of the Indians, under
direction of missionaries and Government agents.
Captain William Becknell had made the first successful trade journey
to Santa Fe in 1821, establishing the route of the Santa Fe Trail. Twelve
months later he led the first wagon train along the trail, beginning the
valuable commerce of frontier days. As a midway course between Benton's
proposals for western development and the opposing view, Congress
authorized the survey and marking of the Santa Fe Trail in 1825. Fort
Leavenworth was established as "Cantonment Leavenworth" in May, 1827.
Westport (now Kansas City, Missouri) became a depot on the Santa Fe
Trail in 1833, and ten years later the city of Wyandot (Kansas City,
Kansas) was begun by the Wyandot Indians.
At this time the Government decided to send out another exploration
under Lieutenant John C. Fremont. He entered Kansas in 1842, complet-
ing his outfit at the trading post of Cyprian Chouteau in Wyandotte
County on June 10. With Kit Carson as a guide, Fremont proceeded to
explore the Kansas and Platte Rivers, and to survey the South Pass of the
Oregon Trail, thereby winning the title of "Pathfinder." He followed this
exploration with three more, in 1843, 1845, and 1848. Accounts of these
expeditions were published immediately by the Government to direct
attention to the West, and in this they were highly successful.
The war between the United States and Mexico ended with the Treaty
of Guadelupe-Hidalgo, ratified May 30, 1848. By its terms, the Rio
Grande became the boundary between Texas and Mexico, and the interna-
tional boundary westward, from El Paso to the Pacific, was established
almost as it is now. Northward, the ceded territory reached from a league
below San Diego, California, to the Oregon country at 42 north lati-
tude; eastward it reached to the Rocky Mountains. This vast region
embraced what was then known as New Mexico and Upper California,
and what now corresponds to a strip of Texas ; the greater parts of New
Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona ; all of California, Nevada and Utah ; and
a little of Wyoming. In addition, the treaty of 1846 with Great Britain
had established the right of the United States to the Oregon country. Thus
in two years the United States cleared from its continental path to the
Pacific all conflicting sovereignties as far north as the forty-ninth parallel.
This resulted in a tremendous increase in migration over Kansas trails.
HISTORY 47
The volume had been swelling since 1843, when the "Great Emigration"
to the Oregon country began. Then 900 people in in wagons, and 2,000
horses and cattle, had set out from Elm Grove, Kansas. In 1844 four
parties, one of 800 and another of 500 to 700 people, had started west-
ward; and 5,000 had left the Missouri border in 1845. The Mormon trek
from Nauvoo, Illinois, "to the western wilderness" started in 1846, and
by 1848 most of them had safely reached their new homes in the Salt Lake
region. These migrations, however, seem small when compared with that
of 1849, when the California gold rush brought 90,000 people through
Kansas. Although all these emigrants merely swept through the Kansas
country with their eyes fixed on the west, they indirectly affected the
region. Civilization was now both west and east of Kansas. In 1850 came
the overland stagecoach to Utah and the Pacific coast. The myth of the
"Great American Desert" was finally dispelled, and Kansas emerged from
obscurity.
The first move to organize Kansas into a Territory, made in 1844, was
of small consequence, as were all subsequent movements until 1852. In
the spring of that year a half-dozen Missourians met at Uniontown,
Kansas, framed a set of resolutions, which they presented to the Thirty-
second Congress, petitioning that the Platte country, comprising the pres-
ent States of Kansas and Nebraska, be erected into a territory and styled
the Nebraska Territory. The bill was not passed.
The next step was taken by the Wyandot Indians. On July 28, 1853,
they met in the council house in Wyandot, organized Kansas-Nebraska
into a Provisional Territory and elected a delegate to the Thirty-third
Congress. This act was not recognized, nor was the delegate admitted to
Congress, but their action precipitated the long debate that resulted in the
passage of the Douglas Bill, signed by President Franklin Pierce on May
30, 1854. By this bill the Missouri Compromise was repealed and the
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska were organized with the right to
determine the question of slavery for themselves.
In creating the two Territories it was tacitly hoped that Kansas would
resolve itself into a slave State and that Nebraska would remain free, thus
preserving the balance of power between the free and slave factions. This
hope was immediately threatened by a movement in the New England
States, begun by Eli Thayer of Massachusetts with the organization of the
New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1854. The movement proposed
to send 20,000 Free Soilers into Kansas each year, but failed to attract
emigrants in any such numbers. Still its existence aroused the pro-slavery
advocates, who retaliated with counter organizations known as the "Blue
48 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
Lodge," "Sons of the South," and others. Both movements proposed a
"Squatter Sovereignty."
The Kansas Territory at that time had no more than 1,500 white per-
sons, approximately 700 of whom were in military service and therefore
ineligible for the ballot; the others lived in small groups clustered about
the trading posts and Indian missions, and along the Oregon and Santa
Fe Trails. But across the State line in the western counties of Missouri,
were 80,000 citizens who owned approximately 12,000 slaves. It was to
their interest to control the policies of the future State, and their resent-
ment of anti-slavery activities was particularly intense. Many immediately
crossed the Kansas line to "spot" claims, pending further action by the
Government.
In May 1854 treaties were made with the Delaware and Shawnee in
eastern Kansas, by which more than two million acres of their reserva-
tions were made available to the whites by public auction and preemption.
The race for Kansas was on. Settlers poured into the new Territory from
Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and especially
from Missouri. They came in caravans of prairie schooners or Conestoga
wagons, by steamboats, on horseback, on foot in companies and alone.
The majority brought their families, their cattle and farm implements,
their spinning wheels and looms.
The Territory was then without law. To provide for order until a gov-
ernment could be set up, an association was formed and resolutions were
drawn up outlining the rights of the settlers and preparing for the peace-
ful building of a State.
Towns were established. Leavenworth, adjacent to Fort Leavenworth,
was laid out in June 1854. A month later Lawrence was founded by
Charles H. Branscomb and Dr. Charles Robinson, agents of the New
England Emigrant Aid Company, as a Free State headquarters ; and Atchi-
son was established as a rival pro-slavery town. Topeka was platted on
December 5 by Cyrus K. Holliday, who designed it for the capital which
it later became. Before the year was out Palmyra, Louisiana, and Brooklyn
were begun along the Santa Fe Trail, with Prairie City, Baldwin City, and
Hickory Point in its close vicinity; on the Oregon Trail (locally known
as the California Road) Franklin and Wakarusa appeared.
The first Territorial newspaper, the Kansas Weekly Herald, which
began publication in Leavenworth, September 15, 1854, supported slav-
ery; and the Kansas Tribune, a Free State paper, issued its first number
on January 3, 1855, at Lawrence.
The people who ventured into Kansas in the hope of finding peace and
HISTORY 49
well-ordered living were fated to deep and persisting disappointment. It
was hardly surprising that the Territory attracted a full complement of
desperadoes. But few settlers could have predicted the "bleeding Kansas"
of the i85o's and i86o's, with border warfare and violent antagonism
among its citizens, most of whom were aggressively committed to one side
or the other of the slavery issue.
Andrew H. Reeder of Pennsylvania was named the first Territorial
Governor on June 29, 1854, and was inaugurated at Fort Leavenworth on
October 7. Under his administration the pro- slavery party, aided by sym-
pathizers from Missouri, gained the ascendancy. At the election of a
delegate to Congress on November 29, 1854, Missouri voters dominated
the polls; and, at the election of the Territorial legislature on March 30,
1855, abuses were even more flagrant. Four to five thousand armed men
from Missouri, inflamed by the speeches of the Southern agitators, Senator
David R. Atchison and General B. F. Stringfellow, appeared at the voting
places, where they browbeat judges, stuffed ballot boxes, and otherwise
transformed the election into a grim farce. Many of the members elected
were residents of Missouri, yet Governor Reeder, under threat of his life,
was obliged to issue election certificates. Because of the illegality of the
election, the body was dubbed the "bogus legislature," by which term it
has since been known.
Shortly before the election, Reeder, finding accommodations at Fort
Leavenworth inadequate, removed the temporary seat of government to
the Shawnee Mission in Johnson County. But partly to further his own
land speculations, he convoked the first legislature at Pawnee on July 2,
1855. There the body proceeded to take matters into its own hands. It
ousted its few Free State members, and voted, over the Governor's veto, to
adjourn to the Shawnee Mission, which it did on July 16. There Reeder
refused to recognize its acts, contending that the mission was not the
authorized seat of government. The body answered with an appeal to
President Pierce, who responded by removing Reeder from office on
July 29.
With Daniel Woodson as Acting Governor, the legislature proceeded
to adopt the Missouri statutes virtually in toto, merely instructing the clerk
to strike out "Missouri" and insert the name of the Territory. Only on
the subject of slavery did it show originality. Its enactments on this issue,
known as the "Black Laws," provided a death penalty for anyone who, by
word or deed, should aid in freeing a slave, and a penitentiary sentence
for holding an opinion adverse to slavery. Reaction to these measures was
widespread, with newspapers of the North and even some of the South
50 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
protesting. The pro-slavery party prepared to enforce them through the
Law and Order Society, which was organized on October 3, 1855, at a
meeting in Leavenworth.
Meanwhile Free State advocates countered with a government of their
own. In an assembly at Big Springs on September 5, 1855, the acts of the
"bogus legislature" were repudiated, the Free State party was formally
organized under the leadership of James H. Lane, and delegates were
appointed to a constitutional convention which assembled at Topeka on
October 23. Here a constitution was drafted and State officers were nomi-
nated; at a general election, held December 15, the constitution was rati-
fied, Dr. Charles Robinson was elected Governor, and Lane and Reeder
were sent to the United States Senate. They were not seated, the United
States Senate refusing to recognize the election.
Nor was this the only move of the Free State party. In April 1855
Dr. Robinson, as agent of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, sent
an order to Eli Thayer for 100 Sharp's rifles, which were promptly dis-
patched and became known as "Beecher's Bibles." These were followed in
July by a second shipment which included a small brass cannon. The rifles
had a somewhat quieting effect, but it was the quiet before the storm.
Through the summer and fall of 1855 animosity smoldered, awaiting only
an excuse for an open break. On November 21 Charles W. Dow, a Free
State man, was shot and killed by Franklin M. Coleman, a pro-slavery
man, in a quarrel over claim boundaries. Coleman surrendered to the
sheriff of Douglas County and was released on bond ; Dow's friends organ-
ized a posse to bring the murderer to justice. A member of this posse was
arrested by the sheriff on a trumped-up charge and was promptly rescued
by his friends. These events culminated in the threatened invasion of
Lawrence, known as the "Wakarusa War." Border ruffians from Missouri
gathered on Wakarusa Creek for the purpose of sacking the town and
were deterred only by the intervention of Governor Wilson Shannon and
United States troops from Fort Leavenworth. But before order was estab-
lished a second Free State man, Thomas Barber, had been murdered.
Displeased with Governor Shannon's interference and bent on the
destruction of Lawrence, the pro-slavery party bided its time until the
following May, when a second invasion resulted in a partial destruction
of the town. Three days later, May 24, John Brown retaliated with the
execution of five pro-slavery men in the Potawatomi Massacre. Brown's
action, the first retaliatory move on the part of the Free Staters, unleashed
the extremists of both sides. Captain Henry C. Pate, Deputy United States
Marshal, under pretext of arresting Brown, instigated fighting on the
PORTRAIT OF JOHN BROWN
52 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
south side of the Kansas River, resulting in the battles of Black Jack,
Franklin, and Fort Titus, the raiding of Palmyra and Prairie City, and the
sacking of Osawatomie. On the north side of the river, at the towns of
Atchison, Doniphan, and Leavenworth, Free State families were ejected
from their homes and driven out of the Territory. A blockade was estab-
lished on the Missouri River to prevent further Free State emigration.
Lane raised his "Army of the North," and James Montgomery organized
reckless young Free Staters into a guerrilla band known as the "Jay-
hawkers."
For two years a state of open warfare existed. Armed bands of border
ruffians from Missouri made forays into Kansas and were answered by
retaliatory companies of Jayhawkers. Men were called out into the night
and shot down for no other reason than that they supported or were sus-
pected of supporting the opposite cause. Women and children, regardless
of age or condition, were driven from their homes with only the clothing
on their backs. Fields were laid waste and towns were sacked, all in the
name of the cause, but more often to gratify personal revenge or avarice.
On May 19, 1858, a band of pro-slavery men, led by Charles A. Hamel-
ton, gathered eleven Free State men of Linn County whom Hamelton
wished out of the way, herded them into a ravine near the Marais des
Cygnes River in the vicinity of Trading Post, and shot them down.
Under such conditions the gubernatorial office was a hazardous posi-
tion. In seven years six governors and five acting governors came and
went, the Territorial capital was moved about like a chessman, and three
State constitutions were written and rejected. Martial law prevailed inter-
mittently, and Free State leaders were indicted and imprisoned for high
treason.
Eventually the pro-slavery party was shorn of its power. Although
openly approved by the Federal Government under Pierce and again under
Buchanan, it was always in the minority and had assumed control only by
the high-handed policies of its allies from Missouri. In time the Free State
party became too powerful to be bullied. The census of 1860 showed a
population of 107,206, of which more than seventy per cent was anti-
slavery.
An election was held March 28, 1859, to decide whether another con-
stitutional convention should be called; an affirmative vote was polled.
Delegates convened at Wyandotte on July 5 to frame a fourth constitu-
tion, which declared that, "All men are possessed of equal and inalienable
natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness." It was ratified by vote of the Territory on October 4, and the bill
HISTORY 53
for admission to the Union was immediately submitted to Congress. The
bill was passed by the Senate on January 21, 1861, by the House on
January 28, and signed by the President on January 29, making Kansas
the thirty-fourth State.
During this period, Kansas entertained some noted visitors. Horace
Greeley came to the Territory in May 1859, and on December i Abraham
Lincoln arrived to make campaign speeches in Elwood, Troy, Doniphan,
Atchison, and Leavenworth. Four years later, December 22, 1863, John
Wilkes Booth appeared at Leavenworth in Richard III.
In June 1859 a drought set in and continued until November 1860.
Crops had been neglected because of guerrilla warfare, and no surplus had
been accumulated ; the result was famine. Many quit their claims in despair
and left the Territory. Those who remained were obliged to look to the
East for relief. The New York legislature voted $50,000 for that purpose,
and other States were equally generous.
But despite tumult and calamity the eastern part of Kansas had made
some progress. Forty counties had been set up with a generous sprinkling
of frontier towns. A weekly mail schedule linked the Territory with the
Pacific Coast by means of stagecoach and pony express, while steamboats
on the Missouri and Kansas Rivers connected it with the East. There were
more than twenty newspapers, a State Historical Society had been formed,
churches were numerous, and a State school system had been organized.
Tentative provisions had been made for the University of Lawrence, for a
penitentiary, and for other State institutions. Tracks for the first railroad,
the Elwood and Marysville (now the Union Pacific), had been laid, and
industry and agriculture were developing.
Dr. Charles Robinson was the first Governor of the new State. He at
once assembled the legislature and proceeded to inaugurate a State gov-
ernment: establishing courts, organizing additional counties and school
systems, and providing for a program of general progress. Before any-
thing could be accomplished, Kansas was called upon to participate in the
great national conflict, the Civil War.
On April 15, 1861, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volun-
teers. Kansas, only three months a State and still suffering from drought
and the ravages of internal warfare, responded with 650 men. At the
second call, two companies were organized with no promise of pay, since
the new State had no money for military service. The total required of
Kansas during the four years of war was 16,654 men. This was over-
subscribed by more than 3,000, making a total of 20,097 constituting
eighteen regiments, three of which were Indian and two Negro. The first
54 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
regiment was mustered into service June 3, 1861; the last on July 28,
1864. The most important battle in which Kansas troops took part was
that of August 10, 1861, at Wilson's Creek, south of Springfield, Mis-
souri, where approximately 10,000 Confederates were engaged by 5,000
Union men under General Nathaniel Lyon. Lyon was killed, and the
Unionists retreated with honor. The Eighth Kansas Volunteer Infantry,
led by Colonel John A. Martin of Atchison (who later became the State's
tenth Governor), after a year of border patrol service, joined the Army of
the Cumberland and fought at Chickamaugua, in the Chattanooga cam-
paign, and marched with Sherman to the sea. It was the only Kansas
regiment attached to one of the major armies.
The Confederate force of General Sterling Price was the only one of
the major armies to cross the Kansas border. In September 1864 General
Price conducted the expedition known as "Price's Raid" through Arkansas
and Missouri. He entered Kansas through Linn County in an apparent
effort to reach Fort Scott, met the Unionists at Mine Creek and again at
the crossing of the Osage. Here he was turned back into Missouri, after
having caused damage to the extent of one-half million dollars, later to be
paid by the Government.
Though it was not in the zone of battle, the young State had its hands
full with guerrilla warfare on its eastern border and Indian uprisings in
the western part. Bands of bushwhackers led by William Clarke Quan-
trill, Bill Anderson, and others and the "Red Legs," so called from the
red morocco leggings they wore, were continually active in burning,
pillaging, and murdering. On August 21, 1863, Quantrill raided and
sacked the town of Lawrence, slaying about 150 of its citizens. In the west
the depredations of the Indians made organized resistance imperative.
National peace closed the conflict in eastern Kansas. Virtually all
Indian titles had been extinguished there, and that part of the State was
now free to plow its fields, plant orchards and vineyards, develop mines
and manufacturing, and extend railroads. By 1870 the agricultural college
at Manhattan, the State Teachers' College at Emporia, and the University
at Lawrence had been established, as well as various denominational insti-
tutions. The first unit of the capital building at Topeka had been com-
pleted and was occupied. Coal was being mined in two counties, and gas
lights were in use. Meat packing had been established at Wyandotte, and
the first beef shipped to New York in refrigerator cars. A cotton gin was
in operation at Burlington and woolen mills at Lawrence and Fort Scott.
Bridges were spanning the Kansas River at Wyandotte and Topeka, tele-
graph lines crossed the prairies, and railroad tracks reached a total of
HISTORY
55
WILD BILL HICKOK, CITY MARSHAL OF ABILENE
1,283 miles. The population had increased to 362,000, and the improved
acreage totaled 1,020,610.
Up to the close of the Civil War few settlers had ventured on the Plains
in western Kansas, for there was no timber for building, and the Indians
were hostile. This section of the State was left to another type of pioneer
the cowboy. When the Union Pacific Railroad reached Abilene in 1867,
Joseph G. McCoy conceived the idea of driving long-horned native cattle
56 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
from Texas to fatten on the convenient buffalo grass before shipping to
market. His idea proved profitable and in the next two decades the Plains
developed into an immense cow country. Riotous cow towns grew up of
which Abilene and Dodge City were typical with saloons, dance halls,
gambling dens, and loose women; and made colorful by the cowboy in
broad-brimmed hat, chaps, and kerchief, accoutered with spurs, lariat, and
revolver.
Infesting the prairies was another group, the border criminals cattle
thieves, bandits, and desperadoes who, in turn, called forth such fearless
and straight-shooting characters as Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson, and
Buffalo Bill Cody. In 1871 "Wild Bill" was installed as marshal at
Abilene, where he served so effectively that other towns wanted him to act
in the same capacity. About the same time "Buffalo Bill" was employed to
provide buffalo meat for the Union Pacific workmen. It is said that in 18
months he killed 4,280 buffaloes for that purpose.
The cattle period was as short as it was lusty. On May 20, 1862, Con-
gress passed the Homestead Law, making it possible to acquire 320 acres
of Plains land by homestead and preemption, with special inducements to
ex-Union soldiers. On March 3, 1863, it further provided that all Indians
should be removed from Kansas, an objective that was gradually accom-
plished. But the most important factor in populating the range was the
railroad.
To encourage road building, large grants of land were made to the
railroad companies. As the tracks were extended, these lands were offered
for sale and the companies engaged in extensive advertising to speed up
purchase. Pamphlets and circulars were broadcast in the East and in
Europe, enticing colonists from England, Germany, Russia, Bohemia, and
the Scandinavian Peninsula as well as additional emigrants from the
eastern States. Distinguished Europeans were invited to come as visitors.
One of these was Grand Duke Alexis of Russia who, with his entourage,
was entertained at Topeka by Governor James M. Harvey and the State
legislature. Twenty years after the passage of the Homestead Law, lines of
barbed-wire fence enclosed the range.
Life for the early Plains settlers was filled with hardships. Buffalo chips
were the only fuel, and they had to be gathered from wide areas. Money
was scarce and crop failures were frequent. Even the possession of dug-
outs and sod houses often had to be disputed with rattlesnakes and
gophers. In lean times the settlers turned, as had the Indians before them,
to the buffalo. Thousands were shot for their hides and other thousands
for sport from train windows, leaving carcasses to wolves and bones to the
HISTORY 57
weather. This proved fortunate, for the bones could be sold for fertilizer
at from six to ten dollars per ton; when crops failed, gathering buffalo
bones became a regular occupation. Another source of revenue was pro-
vided by the wild horses. Large herds, descended from horses left by the
Spanish, roamed the grasslands and needed only to be caught and tamed.
This was an arduous task, but the "bronco-busting" settler was undaunted.
In 1874 a partial drought was experienced and following it came the
visitation known to Kansans simply as "the grasshoppers." In 1866 and
1867 these insects had appeared in sections of the State, but in 1874 they
came in hordes, filling the air and devouring every particle of vegetation.
In the eastern counties sufficient headway had been made to weather the
devastation; but in the west, where settlements were new and no surplus
had been accumulated, aid again had to come from the East.
In the same year a colony of Mennonite immigrants from Russia ar-
rived, with enough money to buy land and withstand the grasshoppers.
Of far greater importance was the bushel or so of hand-picked hard
"Turkey Red" wheat carefully stowed away in the baggage of each family.
Up to that time attempts to grow wheat on the Plains had not been suc-
cessful, but the Russian grain was perfectly adapted to these conditions.
From this beginning developed the vast wheat fields, which now give
Kansas ranking place among the wheat-growing States. Ten years later it
was able to reciprocate the aid given in 1874 by shipping carloads of corn
to flood victims in Ohio. At the same time, a trainload of grain went to
Virginia to help in raising a fund for a home for ex-Confederate soldiers.
The State legislature voted $30,000 in 1876 for the exhibit of native
products at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia; this created so
favorable an impression that it directed new interest to Kansas and
resulted in further increase in emigration.
By 1878 the population in the two sections of the State was fairly well-
defined. The eastern half was occupied largely by the pro- and anti-slavery
emigrants of the ante-bellum period ; the western half by latecomers from
the East, ex-Union soldiers and Europeans. But it was yet to receive the
sudden flow of emancipated Negroes, known as the "exodusters." From
the close of the Civil War, freed slaves from the South had trickled into
Kansas in small numbers; in 1878 lured by the false promise of "forty
acres and a mule," southern Negroes came in such numbers that 20,000
are said to have entered the State in four years. The Negro population in
1870 was 17,108; ten years later it had increased to 43,107. Benjamin
(Pap) Singleton, a Negro who styled himself the father of the exodus,
induced more than 7,000 Negroes to migrate from Tennessee alone. Most
58 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
of those who came in 1876-78 settled in one of his three colonies
Dunlap in the Neosho Valley, Singleton in Cherokee County, and Nicode-
mus (the only surviving "Exoduster" community) in Graham County. The
few who had teams and farm implements procured land or found work on
farms; the remainder swelled the growing towns and cities. Subsequent
growth of Negro population was relatively slow, the increase in the next
fifty years being only 23,000.
In 1878 Indian troubles were terminated with the last Cheyenne raid in
western Kansas. The State, finally at peace, had time to consider a long-
vexing problem prohibition. The control of liquor had always been a
live issue. In 1855 the "bogus legislature" provided for local option with
the Dram Shop Law, copied from the Missouri statutes. This law was
never satisfactory in Kansas and, to improve upon it, such towns as Em-
poria, Baldwin, and Topeka adopted measures revoking titles to land on
which liquor was sold. The subject of State prohibition was considered at
each constitutional convention. Organizations such as the Good Templars
were created, embodying the temperance pledge in their constitutions. In
1860 the sale of liquor to Indians was prohibited. The State Temperance
Society held its first meeting the following year. The Wi Hard-Murphy
Temperance movement swept the State in 1870; in 1873 the Women's
Crusade was begun, with groups meeting in saloons to smash containers,
spill liquor, and pray with drunken habitues. Through these agencies local
prohibition was effected in various counties and towns, but it was not until
1 88 1, under the administration of the eighth Governor, John P. St. John,
that the State prohibition law was passed.
The decade following "the grasshoppers" was exceptionally prosperous
and the whole State entered into a boom of speculation. Eastern money,,
made readily available, was diverted into public and private improvements;
with reckless abandon. Land values were boosted, "false front" buildings,
erected, "paper" towns were laid out. Then came the drought of 1887,
and the boom collapsed. Demands made for loans could not be met, banks
and business houses failed, and, especially in the western counties, thou-
sands of settlers who faced foreclosure left the State.
In 1889 approximately 50,000 Kansas settlers moved to the newly
opened land in Oklahoma, leaving the Plains virtually abandoned. Four
years later the general panic of 1893, together with another partial crop
failure, brought a second period of "hard times." But the State was then
too well established to be more than temporarily affected. Eastern emigra-
tion soon refilled the western counties, and another succession of good
HISTORY 59
crops restored confidence. Greeley, the last of the State's 105 counties, was
organized July 9, 1888, and pioneering days were over.
The year 1889 was distinguished by the largest corn crop in Kansas his-
tory and by the first manufacture of beet sugar. To encourage the latter, a
bounty was immediately offered by the State, and beet sugar making is
now a staple industry in the southwestern counties. In the same year salt
making was begun in the central part of the State, and oil and natural gas
were added to the list of industries in 1892. Surplus fuel in the gas-
producing region brought other manufacturing, such as brickmaking, zinc
smelting, glass, and cement. The value of livestock and farm products in-
creased; in seven years, from 1887 to 1894, it aggregated more than
$4,000,000,000, making possible the payment of public and private debts
to the amount of $100,000,000. From the first experimental orchard
planted at the Shawnee Mission (Johnson County) in 1837, patient care
and selection had developed fruit raising throughout the eastern part of
the State. In 1876 Kansas apples were awarded the gold medal at the ex-
position in Philadelphia, giving that product a prestige it still maintains.
The State's politics kept pace with its social and industrial development.
In 1872 Kansas farmers organized a local grange of the Society of Patrons
of Husbandry, which had been formed in Washington, D. C, in 1867, to
improve farm life. In 1884 the Women's State Suffrage Association was
formed; and three years later the movement secured the admittance of
women to school, bond, and municipal elections. In the late i88o's a num-
ber of farm and labor parties became active. The Farmers' Alliance was
most promising, and within two years it had become a power in the State.
In 1890 at a State convention called by Benjamin H. Clover, a Cowley
County farmer, it joined with the Grangers, Single Tax Club, Industrial
Union, Knights of Labor, and others to form the People's or Populist
Party. The party first concentrated its efforts to bring about the defeat of
Senator John J. Ingalls and mustered enough votes in the State legislature
of 1891 to elect William A. Peffer to the office Ingalls had held for 18
years. Populist orators, led by Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Lease, stumped the
State, telling the farmers that the "money power" was conspiring to ruin
them. Mrs. Lease is remembered for her advice to Kansas farmers "to raise
less corn and more hell." By 1892 Populist strength was sufficient to elect
the twelfth Governor, Lorenzo D. Lewelling.
The legislature assembled under Governor Lewelling echoed the turbu-
lence of Territorial days. Both Republicans and Populists claimed the
right to organize the house, each holding to its claim with a tenacity that
60 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
required the presence of the State militia. Speakers from each party occu-
pied the stand, wielding their gavels simultaneously. It is said that, for
one night at least, they shared a common blanket back of the rostrum,
since neither was willing to yield prerogative to the other. The difference
was finally settled by an appeal to the State supreme court, which decided
that the Republicans should occupy Representative Hall, the Populists
agreeing to meet elsewhere.
Five Populist Congressmen were elected to office during the days of the
party's ascendancy, including the brilliant Jerry Simpson of Medicine
Lodge, known in Kansas annals as "Sockless Jerry." Simpson, a cattleman
who had been ruined by the disastrous blizzard of 1886, was nominated to
represent the Seventh Congressional District in 1890; his ability was rec-
ognized when he eloquently opposed the platform adopted by the conven-
tion, and the platform was revised to conform with his views. He was
twice reelected and ably supported all legislation sponsored by his party
during his tenure of office.
The Populists repeated their victory with the election of Governor John
W. Leedy in 1896 then their power waned. Returning prosperity quieted
the political upheaval, and the Populists were eventually reabsorbed by the
two main parties, the Democratic and Republican. The latter party, off-
spring of the Territorial Free Soilers, has, in general, been dominant. Of
the 27 Governors to date (1938), only five including Walter A. Hux-
man (193739) have been Democrats.
Kansas contributed four regiments to the Spanish- American War. One
of them, the 20th under Colonel Frederick Funston, made a remarkable
record in the Philippines; the 23rd, composed of Negroes, was sent to
Cuba, arriving in time to see the Spanish depart ; while the other two, the
2ist and 22nd, were trained and held in readiness, but did not leave the
.States.
In the 1890*5 another militant leader appeared on the Kansas horizon
:a round-faced little woman with a hatchet Carry Nation. Although "dry"
in theory, Kansas was still "wet" in fact. Mrs. Nation, driven by her expe-
riences with a drunken husband, set out to remedy the evil. She smashed
saloons with zeal and won for herself a permanent place in history, al-
though her actual accomplishments were little more than a ripple on the
pool of the State's "wetness." The problem of liquor is still vexing. In
1937 the State legislature legalized the manufacture and sale of beer of
3.2 per cent alcoholic content. Sterner liquors, although legally banned,
.are frankly in evidence in many communities.
In other matters the State government has proved competent. In 1883
HISTORY 6l
when the railroads, grown exceedingly wealthy, threatened to become auto-
cratic, the State executive council elected a board of railroad commission-
ers to curb their power by fixing freight and passenger rates and regulat-
ing working conditions. A special session of the legislature was called in
1884 to deal with the foot-and-mouth disease that was scourging Kansas
cattle. In 1889 the eight-hour labor law was enacted and the first Monday
of September set aside for the observance of "Labor Day." In 1894 a
board of irrigation was appointed and an appropriation of $30,000 was
made for irrigation experiments.
Other socially progressive action was taken as the need arose. A text
book commission and a traveling library commission were established.
Laws were passed on compulsory education and child labor, and a juvenile
court was created. Pensions were provided for indigent mothers. An ap-
propriation of $100,000 was made for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
Legislation was enacted to regulate the oil industry, and was later made
applicable to meat packing, flour milling, and other manufacturing. A
blue-sky law, regulating and supervising investment companies, was passed.
The public utilities commission was established, weights and measures
were standardized. A State highway commission was created and a better
roads program was launched. The State printing plant was set up, and the
State budget system was started.
In 1913, under the administration of Governor George H. Hodges and
preceded only by six other States Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming,
Washington, and California Kansas extended complete suffrage to women
and increased their number in administrative offices from one to twenty-
three. The next administration, under Governor Arthur Capper, waged
war on the unfair practices of the natural gas companies and eventually
put an end to a litigation that involved thousands of dollars in fees to
political lawyers and constituted one of the worst of judicial scandals in
the State.
Kansas furnished more than its quota for the World War. Altogether,
80,261 Kansans saw service. The Kansas National Guard became part of
the 35th Division. Under the Selective Service Act, Kansans were in the
89th, the 35th and the 42nd (Rainbow) Divisions, and were in action at
Saint Mihiel and in the Argonne. But the State perhaps made its greatest
contribution through its farmlands and its training camps Camp Funston
and the School of the Line at Fort Leavenworth.
A unique political campaign was conducted in Kansas during the War.
Henry J. Allen, although personally engaged in Red Cross Service in
France, was nominated and elected Governor by the largest majority ever
62 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
polled in the State. He resigned from the Red Cross and came home to
assume the gubernatorial office on January 13, 1919.
The following autumn Alexander Howat, president of the Kansas dis-
trict union of the United Mine Workers of America, called a strike of the
Kansas coal miners. Reacting to the War, the entire country was then in a
state of unrest, and strikes were frequent in many lines of industry. In the
preceding three years, 364 strikes had been called in the mines of Kansas,
and in the fall of 1919 the coal supply was exhausted. Kansas faced a fuel
famine. The Governor obtained a State's receivership for the mines and
mined coal with volunteer labor made up of college students, members of
the American Legion and others, protected by the Kansas National Guard.
With the crisis over, the Governor sought to prevent recurrence of trou-
ble. In 1920 an extra session of the legislature was called and the Court
of Industrial Relations was organized. In this court was vested the power
to control strikes and to fix a minimum wage for the miners. Its establish-
ment the first attempt at compulsory arbitration in the United States
drew the attention of the Nation to Kansas (see INDUSTRY, COM-
MERCE AND LABOR). The court was abolished by the State legislature
in 1925.
Under the administration of Governor Jonathan M. Davis, a bonus of
$25,000,000 was distributed to ex-service men in 1923. The following
year the Ku Klux Klan, nation-wide in its scope, threatened the political,
racial, and religious freedom of the State and brought William Allen
White into the race for Governor on an anti-Klan platform, a gesture de-
scribed by the Kansas City Star as "one of those successful failures through
which civilization edges forward."
In 1930, Dr. John R. Brinkley entered the gubernatorial race and, un-
der stress of depression conditions, was almost elected. His candidacy
came from a desire for vindication. On September 17, 1930, his license
was revoked by the Kansas State Medical Board on charges of quackery
and malpractice in his hospital at Milford; five days later he announced
his candidacy for Governor. During his campaign, he promised free text
books, free medical clinics, hundreds of miles of paved roads, and a free
lake in every county, with no increase in taxes.
During Governor Alfred M. Landon's administration a cash basis law
was passed in 1933, putting the State on a "pay-as-you-go" policy. Gover-
nor Landon's successful administration under this law, and his reelection
in 1934 as the only Republican State executive elected west of the Hudson
River, led to his nomination as the Republican candidate for the Presi-
dency in 1936. Kansas, however, returned a plurality of more than 60,000
HISTORY 63
for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and elected its fifth Democratic Gov-
ernor, Walter A. Huxman, of Hutchinson.
Kansas has weathered many calamities and earned its motto, "To the
Stars through Difficulty." Internal strife at once tragic and fantastic
ravaged the State in its early decades. Blizzards, droughts, floods, and
grasshopper plagues brought death and destruction. But progress has been
steady. Where once roamed the Indian and the buffalo, there are now or-
chards and vineyards, dairy farms, and endless fields of wheat, corn, and
alfalfa. The vest pocket village, with its lone towering grain elevator and
general store, is the meeting place for farmers who live miles apart. The
radio and the automobile has rescued him from isolation. Broad ribbons
of concrete crisscross the prairies, and the trains of 17 great railway sys-
tems steam through the State. Packing plants, flour mills, and mines give
employment to thousands of workers. Oil derricks point skyward, and
huge power houses churn out electricity. Remedial measures, carried out
cooperatively by Federal, State, and local agencies, are solving the three-
fold problem of flood, drought, and soil depletion.
WHEAT
Agriculture
A LTHOUGH the first American explorers who passed through the
jtTL Territory reported that the region was totally unfit for human habi-
tation, history records that the Indians who lived on the Kansas plains be-
fore the coming of the white men practiced agriculture after a crude fash-
ion. Thus the first Kansas farmers were Indian squaws who raised small
crops of corn and beans to supplement the diet of game. They planted
seeds in holes punched in the ground with sharpened sticks, and cultivated
the crop with implements fashioned from buffalo bones.
The first white farmers were Frenchmen who settled in the Wolf River
country, now Doniphan County, during the latter part of the eighteenth
century, and planted fields of corn in the rich glacial soil of this north-
eastern corner of the State.
In 1827 the Government decided to conduct agricultural experiments in
the Territory acquired through the Louisiana Purchase and sent Daniel
Morgan Boone to teach farming to the Kansas Indians. This son of the
famous Kentucky frontiersman took a farm of one hundred acres on
Stonehouse Creek in the present-day Jefferson County, less than fifty miles
from the land broken by the Wolf River Frenchmen of the previous cen-
tury. The early missionaries also engaged in agriculture to some extent;
but it did not become the major occupation of the Kansas Plains until the
Territory was opened to settlement in 1854.
Many of the early settlers, who turned to agriculture as the only means
of livelihood a precarious means at best had no natural aptitude or
training for it. They were brought into the Territory by the New England
Emigrant Aid Company and other organizations solely for the purpose of
setting up communities of anti-slavery voters, and were hastily selected
with little thought of their fitness as practical farmers. Consequently, it is
not strange that Kansas agriculture, hampered from the outset by climatic
conditions that were frequently adverse, inexperience on the part of set-
tlers, and bitter political strife, did not prosper.
The pioneer farmers of the 1850'$ broke the sod with ox teams hitched
to crude plows. Many of them planted corn by slitting the sod with an
65
66 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
axe, dropping the kernels into the slits, and closing them by stamping.
This was in violation of the belief then common that "you can't grow
corn on sod." Strangely enough one of the unorthodox corn planters
raised a crop that averaged nearly one hundred bushels to the acre. The
story of "Sodcorn" Jones was widely circulated, but few of the settlers
gave it credence, persisting in the theory that newly broken sod would not
grow anything but pumpkins and melons. Corn was cultivated with the
hoe ; wheat was sown by hand, harvested with a cradle, and threshed with
a flail. The first Mennonite wheat farmers separated the grain from the
straw by rolling or dragging cogged cylindrical stones over the bundles
(see NEWTON).
At the close of the Civil War the Government offered homesteads in
Kansas to Union Army veterans and more than 100,000 took advantage
of the opportunity. These sturdy young veterans were Kansas' first real
pioneer farmers. The majority had been reared on farms in the older semi-
prairie States of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, and understood the difficul-
ties confronting the farmer who breaks virgin soil in prairie country.
Others came from Kentucky, the mountains of Tennessee, and Missouri.
Farming was a year-round occupation in the Kansas of that time. Sod-
turning was a tedious process with oxen and a plow not adapted to the
task. A team of oxen with one man to drive and one to hold the plow
could not break more than an acre in a day, and since this work had to be
done between the thawing of the ground in March and corn-planting time
in April, a farmer could break only a small amount of land each year.
Hand-planting and cultivating consumed all the farmer's time until mid-
summer; then he cut prairie hay and stacked it; and after that the corn
had to be husked.
Wheat, a minor crop in the early days, and oats were sown broadcast
by hand after the sod had rotted long enough to permit the seed to be
covered. These grains were harvested by primitive methods precisely like
those used by Roman farmers 2,000 years before.
The first radical change in Kansas agriculture occurred in 1874 when a
colony of Mennonites came to the plains of central Kansas from southern
Russia. Originally German, these bearded farmers had migrated to Russia
at the time of Catherine the Great to evade military service, to which they
were opposed on religious grounds. During their sojourn in Russia they
had developed a variety of hard wheat called Turkey Red because of the
color of the grain and because the seed had originally been obtained from
Turkey. This variety thrived on the steppes of Russia a semi-arid plains
A COOPERATIVE ELEVATOR IN SHAWNEE COUNTY
region and the Mennonites rightly believed it was adapted to Kansas'
peculiar conditions of climate and soil.
Turkey Red grew better in Kansas than varieties of the grain brought
by earlier settlers from their eastern farms, as it was more drought-
resistant and hardy. Observing the success of their oddly dressed neigh-
bors, the American-born farmers bought quantities of Turkey Red seed
from them and in turn prospered as wheat growers. Thus began Kansas'
greatest industry.
Prior to 1874 Kansas had never produced as much as 5,000,000 bushels
of wheat in a year and no one expected it to become a great wheat-raising
State. Corn was king in those days and corn bread spread with sorghum
molasses was the staple fare of Kansas farm families. Today, thanks to
the Mennonites and their imitators, Kansas produces thirty times as much
wheat as it did before these immigrants brought their Turkey Red to the
State. An average wheat crop today is 170,000,000 bushels. The record
yield, in 1931, was 240,000,000 bushels.
The second revolution in Kansas agricultural methods, machine farm-
68 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
ing, was hailed at its inception as the dawn of an era of everlasting plenty,
but it has resulted in near disaster. Prairie agriculture had two elements
that encouraged the rapid development of machine farming: the general
levelness of the plains and the abundance of horsepower. There were few
trees to be cut in clearing the land, no stumps to impede the progress of
wheeled implements. There were also thousands of wild horses in Kansas
and horse wranglers prospered in the i88o's by roping and breaking these
animals for use on farms. At the same time horse breeders began to im-
port heavy European work horses and cross them with the wild horses for
the farm market.
Farming in Kansas during the last two decades of the nineteenth cen-
tury and first decades of the twentieth was a matter of horsepower and
wheeled machinery. Corn was still the leading crop; it was in the more
highly mechanized age to come that wheat gained the ascendancy. Horse-
drawn plows broke out fresh acres of sod, horse-drawn corn planters sowed
the grain. During the growing season teams of horses or mules pulled cul-
tivators along the corn rows. Kansas became a great corn State, reaching
its peak of corn production in 1889 with a yield of 273,000,000 bushels.
But in these years of apparent prosperity thousands of Kansas farmers
were faced with poverty and foreclosure. After the first wave of home-
steaders swept across the State following the Civil War, a period of mass
development and speculation began. Many Kansas farmers worked under
the handicap of a heavy mortgage from the beginning. In the early iSyo's
the pioneer farmers paid the interest on their mortgages by killing buf-
falo and selling their hides. After ruthlessly exterminating the buffalo,
they paid taxes and interest by gathering buffalo bones and selling them
to fertilizer manufacturers.
In Missouri and other States eastward to the Alleghenies a new farm
was unmortgagable because no one would lend money on it until it was
well improved and showed a profit. In Kansas, however, speculators ac-
quired large areas of land during the frenzied boom days of the i88o's,
lured prospective farmers to the treeless plains with promises of wealth,
and sold them land on mortgage. The settlers, having acquired the land
under this precarious title, were forced to borrow more money to buy ma-
terial for improvements and for machinery and livestock. Thus mortgaged
before the first plow was put to sod, a large proportion of Kansas farms
never showed a profit.
Hundreds of farmers were facing foreclosure in 1890. The record-
breaking corn crop of 1889 had done little to relieve the situation. Ham-
pered by their heavy mortgages and with the ever-present specter of
AGRICULTURE 69
drought, Kansas farmers needed both a bumper crop and a good price to
break even. But a nation-wide depression had lowered the price of farm
produce so that corn sold as low as ten cents a bushel, and farmers sold
their corn as fast as they husked it to meet interest at the bank. Most of
the buyers were speculators who took advantage of the farmers' plight by
driving a sharp bargain and holding the grain for a better price. One vil-
lage banker boasted of buying thousands of bushels of corn at ten cents a
bushel and selling it the following year for sixty-five cents. Crop failures
in the 1890*5 brought foreclosures and tax sales. Gradually much of the
land reverted to the speculators and farm tenancy began in Kansas, the
land of opportunity.
The Farmers' Alliance, which later became the Populist party, appeared
at this time, advocating "free silver," a reform of the banking laws, and
other measures calculated to enable the farmers to pay off their mortgages.
In 1892 the Populists elected a Governor and succeeded in securing a ma-
jority in the State legislature. Some benefits resulted but on the whole the
speculators and industrialists succeeded in defeating the aims of the Pop-
ulists.
Accompanied by a steady increase in farm tenancy, Kansas agriculture
moved into the twentieth century and the motor age. The use of motorized
farm machinery may be thought of as a third cycle in Kansas farming. In
1910 there were 1,150,000 horses and mules on the farms, and these draft
animals provided a home market for $50,000,000 worth of Kansas' corn
and other feed. But tractors began to replace draft animals in 1915 and
the number of all kinds of tractors and motorized harvesters steadily in-
creased. The greater efficiency of large-scale farming led naturally to the
introduction of the combine; and the World War, through its enormous
consumption of grain, accelerated its use.
This machine, the mechanical answer to the demand for more wheat
produced with less labor, harvests the grain in a single operation, threshes
it, and pours it into motor trucks for shipment to the elevators. Its intro-
duction materially reduced the number of "harvest hands," those pictur-
esque laborers who crossed the State in an army during every harvest sea-
son (see Tour 4). Gone is the Kansas of which Vachel Lindsay wrote:
And we felt free in Kansas
From any sort of fear
And 30,000 tramps like us
There harvest every year.
Horses also continued to increase in number until 1919, when they
reached a peak of 1,300,000 draft animals; thereafter their number began
70 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
to decline sharply. Seventeen years later (1936) motorized farming was
at its height with 63,000 farm tractors and 24,000 combines; in the same
year there were only 545,000 draft animals.
As the overproduction of wheat and loss of foreign markets brought
prices down, the wheat farmers, by improved technique, increased produc-
tion in an effort to compensate for price losses. At this time the "suitcase
farmers" entered the field. They were non-resident owners who had pur-
chased large areas of land and hired farmers in the neighborhood to plow
and seed them to wheat. The term, "suitcase farmer," has also been ap-
plied to the small-town bankers and business men in the western Kansas
wheat country who bought or leased lands and employed farmers to plant
and harvest their crops for them. This practice, defended because it fur-
nished employment for the farmers, was also widely condemned as mere
speculation, not farming. It was not unusual for a single suitcase farmer
to finance the planting of from 3,000 to 5,000 acres of wheat. With a crop
once in five years he could make money, providing he received a good
price for his grain.
In 1914 under horse and mule power, Kansas farmers planted 9,000,-
ooo acres and harvested 181,000,000 bushels of wheat which they sold for
$151,500,000. In 1931, at the height of the motorized farming period,
they planted 12,000,000 acres and raised 240,000,000 bushels which they
sold for $81,500,000. Motorized farming surpassed the older type by a
margin of 60,000,000 bushels of wheat in a year; but smaller crops
brought greater financial returns. With machines the farmers raised more
wheat, by 60,000,000 bushels, and received less money, by $70,000,000.
The price per bushel was ninety cents in 1914 and thirty cents in 1931.
Wheat is in some ways a substitute for corn, and the thirty-cent wheat
pushed corn down to ten cents a bushel. Feeding this cheap grain to hogs
and cattle in an effort to market it in the form of high-priced meat, the
unfortunate farmers depressed the market for hogs to two-and-one-half
cents a pound. It took a 2oo-pound porker to bring in a five dollar bill,
just as in 1889 the farmers had to load fifty bushels of corn on a single
wagon to get five dollars for one trip to market.
It was not until 1914 that wheat acreage exceeded that of corn; there
were 9,116,138 acres of wheat and only 5,279,552 acres of corn, the de-
posed king. This shift represented a sharp increase in wheat acreage rather
than a heavy decrease in corn. Wheat reached a peak in 1931 with an
acreage of 12,345,596; it dropped in 1933 to 5,755,328 acres, owing
partly to the depression price of this grain, which caused many farmers to
sow their land to other crops or let them lie fallow, and partly to the
THRESHING
U. S. Agricultural Adjustment Administration program. In that year corn,
with an acreage of 7,725,043, briefly regained its former supremacy.
Hot winds and inadequate rainfall during the growing season resulted
in a series of corn crop failures in eastern Kansas that brought hundreds
of formerly prosperous farmers to the verge of bankruptcy. Desperately
in need of a cash crop to meet taxes and interest in the fall of 1936, many
of these corn growers tore down their corn field and pasture fences, sawed
the hedge fence posts into stove wood lengths, and sowed the fields to
wheat. The venture was successful. With a good yield and prices ranging
from $i to $1.10 a bushel, profits were large.
Consequently new wheat fields were planted in 1937 and the State's
total wheat acreage leaped to the all-time record of 13,549,000. The pur-
chase of tractors and combines absorbed much of the profits from the 1937
crop, however, and a short crop in 1938 with a much lower price gave the
novice wheat growers a severe setback. Agricultural advisers had counseled
against turning the fertile river valleys and glacial uplands into a one-
72 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
crop country; their reasons for advocating diversification and a partial re-
turn to the old corn-hog economy were strengthened by weather condi-
tions favorable for production of the traditional crop. Farmers who had
stubbornly "stuck to corn" were able to fill their bins for the first time in
five years, while their get-rich-quick neighbors were marketing a scanty
wheat crop at less than sixty cents a bushel. Grain sorghums and other
forage crops were cultivated with success and the replenished supply of
grain for livestock feed brought beef and pork "on the hoof" back to de-
serted pastures and hog lots.
In 1936 there were 174,580 farms in cultivation in the State, averaging
275 acres in area. Of these 96,896 were wholly or partially owned by
their occupants, while 76,771 were occupied by tenants. Farms vary in
size from lo-acre truck patches in the eastern river valleys to 5o,ooo-acre
ranches in some of the western counties. In sections of eastern Kansas,
where rainfall is adequate and soil sufficiently fertile to permit intensive
farming and wide diversification, 80 to 160 acres is normally a subsistence
homestead. On the western plains where wheat is often the only crop, few
farmers attempt to make a living on less than 240 acres and many wheat
farmers plant several sections.
The northeastern section of the State is regarded as part of the Corn
Belt, especially Doniphan, Atchison, Brown, Nemaha, Jackson, Jefferson,
Leavenworth, and Shawnee counties, which have large areas of rich gla-
cial drift, and to a lesser degree the remaining counties in the northern
tier as far west as Jewell County. Before the drought cycle of 193137,
more than half of the average homestead of 160 acres was devoted to
corn. The remaining portions of the typical Kansas corn-hog farms were
pasture, and small fields of wheat, oats, or grain sorghum. The farmer de-
veloped the self-sustaining corn-hog economy by feeding his corn to the
hogs to fatten them for market and selling the surplus grain.
The river valleys of northeastern Kansas and the major portion of
southeastern Kansas are devoted to general farming with diversified culti-
vation. The Flint Hills region, which is carpeted with bluestem grass, is
one of the finest grazing sections of the United States. West of an imag-
inary line extending north and south through Salina and Wichita to the
Oklahoma Line is the winter wheat country, where until recent years,
nearly one-half of the hard wheat in the United States was produced.
Efforts at fruit growing, especially in eastern Kansas, met with phe-
nomenal success during the early seventies. The Kansas horticultural ex-
hibit at the Centennial Exposition of 1876 gave the State a widespread
reputation. But, as the virgin soil was drained of its productivity, many
AGRICULTURE 73
orchards died and were never successfully replanted. The upland glacial
drift in Doniphan County, however, still supports large apple orchards
and the cultivation of this fruit is a leading industry in the areas along
the great bend of the Missouri River. Strawberries are also grown in the
three river counties.
Broom corn is grown extensively in the southwestern corner of the
State, in Seward, Stanton, Stevens, and Morton counties. Prior to the dust
storms that accompanied the recent drought cycle, the towns of Elkhart
and Liberal were among the largest shipping centers of this product in
the world. Sugar beets are grown in the Arkansas River Valley near Gar-
den City and Larned where large areas are irrigated. The cultivation of
flax, which was an important crop before the introduction of winter wheat,
has been revived to a considerable extent in recent years, especially in
southeastern Kansas. Experts from the State College are urging farmers to
grow flax on a larger scale.
In the fertile valleys of eastern Kansas, particularly the Kaw Valley,
potatoes and melons are major crops. In a good season the State produces
2,500,000 bushels of Irish potatoes. Alfalfa, a deep-rooted drought-resist-
ant hay, is important among the lesser crops. Introduced by Charles J.
Grosse, of Marion, who planted 90 bushels of seed imported from Cali-
fornia in 1869, its first recorded acreage was in 1891, when 34,384 acres
were planted. A peak acreage of 1,277,875 was reached in 1918 and the ten-
year average since 1927 has been approximately 750,000 acres.
Kansas has never suffered from a lack of transportation from produc-
tion center to market, owing to the fact that the State, after the first decade
of immigration, was settled as part of a great railroad expansion scheme.
But farmers during the past fifty years have had to fight ceaselessly against
two enemies: land speculation and drought. Through the various agencies
of the Federal Government the farmer of the "dust bowl" and semi-arid
areas has managed to survive a long period of subnormal rainfall. Eco-
nomically, central Kansas has weathered adverse climatic conditions better
than the eastern and extreme western sections, as crop failures have been
less frequent in the central part of the State.
In general, the years of drought have considerably reduced the returns
from Kansas agriculture; yet in one of the worst drought years, 1934, the
wheat crop was valued at $67,205,989, and the corn crop at $9,183,968.
The 1937 wheat crop was valued at $170,000,000. In 1933 Kansas live-
stock was valued at more than $100,000,000. Prior to the emergency
drought programs of 1934 more cattle were raised on Kansas farms than
in the days when the western part of the State was an open range. It is
CATTLE FEEDING IN SHELTER OF COTTONWOOD WINDBREAK
estimated (1937) that Kansas has nearly 3,000,000 cattle; 2,500,000 beef
cattle, and 500,000 dairy animals. Approximately 2,000,000 hogs and
300,000 sheep are raised for market annually.
In contrast to the reverses from drought and wholesale speculation are
the benefits of scientific research carried out by trained workers at Kansas
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science. After years of experi-
mentation great improvement in production has been made by selection
of the varieties of crops planted. The idea that "rain follows the plow,"
which grew up during the boom period of the i88o's, has finally been dis-
proved. Farmers are now adjusting their methods to climatic conditions
rather than to the futile hope that turning the sod of the arid High Plains
will increase the annual rainfall.
Drought-resistant strains of corn and wheat have been developed, and
farmers have learned through experience to diversify their crops. In re-
cent years the acreage of grain sorghums, of which many varieties have
been produced, has increased, especially in western areas where the rain-
fall is not adequate for growing corn and the soil has been pulverized to
the danger point by a series of unsuccessful attempts to grow wheat.
Nearly every Kansas county is receiving the benefits of the extension
4-H FARMERS ARE VISITED BY THE COUNTY AGENT
service conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture and
Kansas State College. The three phases of this service include work with
the farmers in agricultural methods, work with farm women in home eco-
nomics, and work with boys and girls in the 4-H Clubs.
"Through the development of the head, heart, hand, and health," writes
M. H. Coe, State club leader, "comes the term '4-H,' which signifies the
four- fold educational development or training which 4-H Club boys and
girls must receive to insure success in any undertaking." Each club mem-
ber selects a project designed to show some better practice on the farm or
in the home. In 1933 there were 19,353 members in 100 counties with
26,239 completed projects. In the same year 4-H Club members made
4,321 entries at the Topeka and Hutchinson State Fairs and won $4,325
in prize money." The total value of products raised by 4-H Club members
was $387,726.
~j6 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
The long succession of abnormally dry seasons turned a considerable
area in western Kansas into a near desert. Wheat planting had destroyed
the natural coverage of buffalo grass and left the soil exposed to the rav-
ages of drought and wind. By 1934 soil blowing had become a major
problem, and by the following year the area affected had increased to
8,871,227 acres. Preventive measures adopted by the Federal Government
and the State department of agriculture have largely checked the inroads
of wind erosion. Submarginal land has been withdrawn from cultivation
and in some areas efforts are being made to revive the buffalo grass pas-
tures. By 1938 the Kansas dust bowl had almost disappeared, and soil
drifting was confined to three or four counties in the extreme southwest-
ern corner of the State.
On the recommendation of the U. S. Farm Security Administration, the
State department of agriculture, the State planning board, the agricultural
extension service, and other conservation agencies, soil-building crops,
such as the legumes, are now being planted and a far-reaching program
of water conservation and flood control has been adopted.
lEFORE the coming of white men, the Indians in Kansas had no beast
of burden other than the dog and no means of conveyance save the
dugout canoe and the travois, a simple contrivance of two poles between
which a dog was hitched, with the packs secured to the dragging ends.
Coronado and the other Spanish explorers who followed him intro-
duced the horse, which the Indians readily adopted for riding and pack-
carrying and to replace the dog at the travois. But they attempted no
further improvement in transportation.
After the Spanish came the French trappers and fur traders, who ex-
plored the country and developed river transportation. They used succes-
sively the dugout canoe; the pirogue, two canoes lashed together and
floored over to form a raft; the bullboat made by stretching buffalo hides
over a circular willow frame ; and the bateau or Mackinaw, a clumsy, flat-
bottomed boat of from 10 to 20 tons. But there they halted, and no fur-
ther development took place until after the official explorations of the
early nineteenth century.
The expedition of Lewis and Clark to the northwest in 1804 stimulated
the fur trade. The great fur companies introduced the keelboat a large
craft of from 20 to 70 tons, so named from the heavy timber that formed
its central rib. In 1819 the steamboat, the Western Engineer, transported
the scientific expedition of Major Stephen H. Long a short distance up the
Kansas River and subsequently up the Missouri. Steamboats, however,
were not employed commercially in Kansas until 1829, when a steam
packet was placed in operation on the Missouri River from St. Louis to
Cantonment Leavenworth (now Fort Leavenworth).
Meanwhile, Captain Zebulon M. Pike's second expedition (1806-07)
directed interest to the Southwest, particularly to the Spanish town of
Santa Fe, which was rich in trading possibilities. In the next few years
traders from Missouri attempted to participate in this trade, only to be
thrown into Spanish jails for their intrusion. But after Mexican independ-
ence had been declared (September 1821), Captain William Becknell
opened the trade with a pack train taken from Franklin, Missouri, on the
77
78 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
Missouri River near Booneville, across Kansas to the Arkansas River near
Great Bend, up that stream to the Rocky Mountains, then south to Santa
Fe, where he disposed of cotton goods at "$3 per yard" and other items
in proportion. The next year he returned with three wagons, this time
crossing the Arkansas a little west of the present Dodge City, going south
over the Cimarron desert, thence west to Santa Fe. Thus Becknell became
the "Father of the Santa Fe Trail," establishing its separate courses and
introducing wheeled vehicles, the first to cross the Kansas plains.
Other traders were immediately attracted, and the trade flourished. In
1825 Congress authorized the surveying and marking of the trail. Wagons
soon outnumbered pack animals; and the light carriers used by Becknell
were replaced by heavy Conestogas huge, ponderous vehicles with a con-
cave bed built high at each end. With their white canvas covers and sway-
backed appearance, they became universally known as "prairie schooners."
Loaded with cotton and woolen goods, silks, velvets, and hardware to the
extent of from 3,000 to 5,000 pounds, and drawn by eight or more oxen
or mules, they wended their slow way out of Independence, the eastern
terminus, in early spring through incredible herds of northern-bound
buffalo, and returned in the fall with horses and mules, blankets, furs,
robes, and heavy bags of Spanish gold and silver. By 1843 the annual
monetary value of the trade was about $450,000.
Meanwhile the Oregon Trail was being established. In 1830 William
Sublette took the first wagons over the Oregon Trail to the head of the
Popo Algie River, southwest of Lander, Wyoming. Captain Benjamin
L. E. Bonneville succeeded in crossing the Rocky Mountains via the South
Pass in 1832, with a train of 20 wagons, paving the way for a few hardy
missionaries who settled in the Willamette Valley. Government interest
followed, and in 1842 Lieutenant John C. Fremont was sent to locate the
South Pass and survey a road into the Territory of Oregon. Before he had
completed the task, however, a party of settlers was on the road; and in
1843 the "Great Migration" began.
On May 22 of that year a caravan of 875 persons, including women
and children, in wagons, and about 2,000 horses and cattle moved out of
Independence on the long journey. From Independence they followed the
Santa Fe Trail to Gardner, Kansas, where later a crude sign gave the
simple direction "Road to Oregon." Here they turned to the northwest,
crossing the Kansas River in the vicinity of Topeka, followed the Big
Blue to the Platte Valley, and proceeded through the South Pass to their
destination.
TRANSPORTATION 79
This was, in effect, the route of the Oregon Trail in Kansas, although,
as steamboat traffic increased on the Missouri and created new supply
depots, various starting points were selected and eventually numerous
roads converged into the main trail. The Santa Fe Trail, too, had starting
points all along the western border of Missouri and north Arkansas, with
tributary roads branching into it for a considerable distance. One of the
better known branches was the Cherokee Trail, which started at Fort
Smith, Arkansas, and finally struck the Oregon, California, and Salt Lake
trails at Fort Bridger.
Western travel now developed swiftly. In 1844 four parties, independ-
ently organized, went to Oregon. One consisted of 800 persons and
started from near Bellevue; another started from Independence with 500
to 700 persons. In 1845 the number of travelers increased to between
3,000 and 5,000. At the same time trade, which had been suspended by
Mexico in 1843 because of boundary disputes, was resumed with Santa Fe
on a much greater scale. In 1846 the United States declared war on
Mexico, and the Mormons began their trek to Utah. In 1848 gold was dis-
covered in California.
Ninety thousand persons chiefly excited gold-seekers and Mormons
are said to have passed over the two trails in 1849-50, employing every
manner of vehicle. The more affluent rode in carriages. There was even a
wind-wagon, a four-wheeled cart equipped with sails, although it did not
pass beyond the experimental stage. But always the bulk of human and
inanimate freight was conveyed in the stately, lumbering prairie schooners,
arrayed in two to four columns, often miles in length.
Each trail was a natural highway, extending without bridge or grading.
Half of the Santa Fe's 800 miles lay across Kansas; the Oregon, 2,000
miles long, had only from 50 to 200 miles in Kansas, depending on the
starting point. The Santa Fe Trail was the highway of commerce, and
travel was comparatively rapid, six weeks being considered sufficient for
the full journey. The Oregon Trail, called by the Indians the "Great
Medicine Road of the Whites," was the homesteaders' highway, and all
the events of domestic life courtships, marriages, births, social and
religious functions occurred in the two to five months required for the
journey.
One trail was as hazardous as the other. Travel on each was attended by
hardship, hunger, disease, and danger. Over both hung the threat of incle-
ment weather, especially on the Oregon Trail, where a late start in the
spring meant winter in snowbound mountain passes. The Cimarron cut-
80 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
off of the Santa Fe Trail shortened the distance, but along that route were
50 miles of desert where men were sometimes forced to drink the blood
of their animals.
When the Santa Fe Trail was established, a treaty made with the Osage
Indians gave permission to cross their lands. But no treaty was made with
the Arapahoe, Comanche, Kiowa, and other Plains tribes, who fiercely re-
sented the invasion of their last hunting grounds. In 1828 two white men
were killed on the banks of McNees Creek, a tributary of the Canadian
River, and retaliation and counter-retaliations without number followed.
Caravans on each trail moved by day in semi-military formation under the
leadership of a train captain, and rested at night in guarded stockades
formed by their interlocking wagons. Each trail was marked with the
scars of raids and massacres, by human graves, bones of mules and oxen,
household goods and implements, burned and broken wagons.
Still the tide flowed on. In 1858 gold was discovered in Colorado,
bringing a new surge of covered wagons, then emblazoned with "Pike's
Peak or Bust!" Many of the prospectors did "bust" and returned disheart-
ened, but for each who returned another always started out.
Meanwhile a new type of travel had appeared on the trails the organ-
ized traffic of the overland freight and mail systems, carrying supplies and
news to the settlements in California, Oregon, and Utah. It developed a
surprising efficiency. Russell, Majors & Waddell, chief of the Plains
freighting companies, accumulated a vast amount of equipment. The firm
had a Government contract to transport supplies to the Army in Utah, and
during 1858-59 it carried more than 16,000,000 pounds of freight, using
3,500 large wagons, and approximately 40,000 oxen, 1,000 mules, and
4,000 men. The wagons were made up into "bull-trains," which pro-
ceeded on the trails at regular intervals, from 10 to 12 miles apart, and
were manned by crews of "bullwhackers," who urged the oxen on with
picturesque profanity and the pistol-like cracking of long, heavy whips,
called bullwhacks.
The first contract mail service across Kansas started on July i, 1850;
two lines originating at Independence connected with Santa Fe and Salt
Lake City respectively. Mule-drawn wagons operated on a monthly sched-
ule, but the time was no faster than that of the freighting system. The de-
mand was for news while it was still news, and for more and more speed.
Relay stations, stocked with supplies and fresh animals, were erected along
the trails at intervals of from 10 to 15 miles; and that most dashing of
vehicles, the stagecoach, was introduced. The mail service was increased
from monthly to semi-monthly, and then weekly. Running time was cut
TRANSPORTATION 8l
down Denver was only six days from St. Joseph, Salt Lake City ten days,
and the first through stage from Placerville, California, made the trip in
1 8 days.
But even this was too slow. Impatient settlers clamored for a daily mail ;
and in 1860, Russell, Majors & Waddell instituted the Pony Express. A
herd of wiry mustang ponies was purchased, and a group of hardy, expert,
light-weight riders, was employed. On April 3, mounted riders galloped
simultaneously out of Sacramento and St. Joseph on a giant relay arranged
in individual stints of from 75 to 100 miles each, with a change of
mounts every ten or fifteen miles to assure maximum speed. The pony ex-
press from East to West followed the route of the covered wagons from
St. Joseph, Missouri, to the present site of Horton, Kansas. Here it struck
the military road from Fort Leavenworth and Atchison, and continued by
way of Granada and Seneca to Marysville, where it joined the main Ore-
gon Trail. The mail went through in ten days, later shortened to nine in
summer, and fifteen days in winter. In March 1861 a daily mail stage was
established on the central route, but the Pony Express continued until the
completion of the overland telegraph in October of that year made it
unnecessary.
By this time the western frontier, long halted at the Missouri River,
had advanced to the middle of Kansas. Indian lands, opened to white
settlers in 1854, had been taken over; towns, roads, and ferries had been
established. The Missouri River, forming the northeastern border of
Kansas, was a regular trade route in the 1850*5 and i86o's, but was com-
paratively unimportant to Kansas as a transportation route, since it touched
only a small portion of its territory.
It did, however, permit the extension of steamboat service up the Kansas
River. In April 1854 the Excel, a sturdy stern- wheeler of 79 tons, carried
a cargo of 1,100 barrels of flour to the newly established Fort Riley; and
this was followed by other boats that maintained a more or less regular
schedule.
On April 27, 1855 an emigrant company of 75 left Cincinnati on the
steamboat Hartford. They traveled down the Ohio River, up the Missis-
sippi and west on the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, and grounded near the
mouth of the Blue River on June i, 1855. The company had brought with
them ten houses, ready to put up. Three members of the party hired a
wagon and drove to the present site of Junction City; the rest joined with
some other pioneers to found what is now Manhattan.
The next phase in transportation was the coming of the railroads. In
1845 Asa Whitney, the "Father of Pacific Railroads," memorialized Con-
COAL BARGE ON THE MISSOURI (c. 1888)
gress for a charter and land grant to build a line from Chicago to the
Pacific Coast. The feasibility of such a road was then being debated in the
East, but many such petitions were to be presented before Congress took
action. Rival cities each claimed superiority as an eastern terminus; sec-
tional jealousy between the North and South made it impossible for either
to agree to a route that would give advantage to the other. Meanwhile,
Kansas impatiently undertook to build its own railroad to connect with
the Hannibal & St. Joseph line advancing to St. Joseph.
In January 1857 the Elwood & Marysville Railroad was organized and
five miles of track were constructed from Elwood, across the river from
St. Joseph, to Wathena. On April 28, 1860, its first locomotive, the
Albany, was ferried across the Missouri and placed on the tracks. This was
a great occasion. River packets, streaming with bunting, brought hundreds
of visitors; and as the ferry reached the west shore of the river, men and
boys grasped the ropes and pulled the Albany up the steep bank. The
track of this road is now a part of the St. Joseph & Western Division of
the Union Pacific Railroad.
Spurred by the same enthusiasm, other lines quickly materialized. In
1857 the Leavenworth, Pawnee & Western was organized and the road
It!
1-f
FREIGHT YARDS, KANSAS CITY
84 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
graded to Pawnee, but no rails were laid; the Atchison & Topeka (now
the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe) was chartered; the Chicago, Kansas &
Nebraska (now the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific) was incorporated; and
the Union Pacific Railroad, Eastern Division (which later became the
Kansas Pacific and a part of the Union Pacific) was organized.
The outbreak of the Civil War stopped further independent railway
development, but it speeded up Federal aid as a war measure. On July i,
1862, President Lincoln signed an act "to aid in the construction of a
Railway and Telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific
Ocean," granting alternate odd-numbered sections of land to the amount
of five sections a mile within the limits of ten miles, and a loan of
$16,000 per mile to the builders. Three companies were formed the
Central Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the Kansas Pacific, each to construct
certain portions of the line. But financial difficulties delayed construction;
and Congress passed another act, increasing the land granted to the roads
to odd-numbered sections within ten miles of either side of the track. As
the war was then at its height, the act was designed to bring outlying
military posts into closer connection, as well as to promote development of
the West.
By 1865 the road was well under way, with the Central Pacific working
east over the Sierras, the Union Pacific proceeding west through Nebraska,
and the Kansas Pacific completing the connection from the mouth of the
Kansas, through Manhattan, Junction City, Salina, and Denver, with the
main line at Cheyenne. It took seven years to build the railroad. All mate-
rials used by the Union Pacific had to be brought by steamboat and wagon
from the East ; those for the Central Pacific by water to San Francisco and
over the tracks already laid. Virtually every foot of the way was disputed
by Indians, fighting to retain their hunting grounds. But at length, on
May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, north of Salt Lake City, a golden
spike was driven, and the telegraph signalled to a waiting world, "Done!"
While the line from the Missouri to the Pacific was being built, the
Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad (growing out of the earlier Atchi-
son and Topeka) was chartered and in 1868 began work at Topeka on a
route roughly corresponding with the old Santa Fe Trail. By 1872 it had
run its tracks to the western border of Kansas and east from Topeka to
complete the connection at Atchison.
By 1882 Kansas had 3,855 miles of railroad track, and 23 years later
(in 1905) it had 8,905 miles. The present mileage is approximately 9,000.
Today, eight main lines (the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe, Union Pacific,
Missouri Pacific, Chicago Rock Island & Pacific, St. Louis & San Fran-
AIRPORT, WICHITA
cisco, Chicago Great Western, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, and Kansas City
Southern) converge at its eastern terminals. For 40 years these roads were
the autocrats of Kansas transportation.
But the automobile introduced a new element. Considered as a curiosity
at its first appearance about 1900, it soon became a commercial and do-
mestic necessity; and with it came the demand for better roads. In 1937
Kansas had 133,063 miles of roads, of which nearly 9,000 were improved
highways. The State maintained more than 9,000 miles. In the same year
586,685 motor vehicles of all types were registered in the State.
From motor vehicles the next step was air transport. Kansas now has 43
airports 35 private and municipal fields, six U. S. Department of Com-
merce fields, and two Army airports. Wichita is a 4 station on the Kansas
City-Dallas route and the Kansas stop for transcontinental service between
Los Angeles and New York. Coffeyville and Chanute are on the route of
the Kansas City-Tulsa line, which is devoted only to mail transportation.
Within the State are 242 privately-owned, non-commercial planes, 165 of
which are licensed.
86 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
In recent years there has been a revival of river transportation. In July
1930, Congress authorized a survey to determine the feasibility of barge
navigation on the Missouri and Kansas Rivers. As a result, barges are now
in operation on the Missouri along the northeastern edge of the State. It
was determined that the Kansas was navigable for barges of as much as
i,ooo-ton capacity for a distance of nine miles from its mouth. In 1937 a
river-rail terminal elevator was completed at Kaw Point above the mouth
of the Kansas. Here much of the grain carried by rail to the terminal is
transferred to barges and shipped to New Orleans for export. These de-
velopments indicate that the rivers, which played so great a part in Indian
and pioneer transportation, may regain their importance in the State's
transportation system.
Industry, Commerce
1TNDUSTRY was the complement of agriculture during the first fifty
years of settlement in Kansas. This relationship was first evident in
1827 when Daniel Morgan Boone, accompanied by his brother-in-law,
Gabe Phillebert, settled at Stonehouse Creek and tried to introduce the
white man's farming methods to the Indians. Phillebert, a blacksmith, set
up his forge and supplied the crude implements needed by Boone and his
pupils. When not mending or making ring hoes and plowshares, Phille-
bert hammered out pots and kettles with which the Indians replaced their
primitive utensils.
Flour milling had its Kansas beginning in 1852 when Matthias Split-
log, a Wyandot Indian, established a horsepower mill near the site of
Kansas City. The first waterpower mill was built five years later beside
Mill Creek in what is now Wabaunsee County. The milling industry de-
veloped rapidly thereafter, and by 1860, according to census figures, there
were 62 waterpower mills and a larger number of horsepower mills in the
Territory of Kansas.
In point of income flour milling is today the second largest Kansas in-
dustry. In the decade 1927-37 Kansas led all other States five times in the
annual production of flour. The yearly output during that period varied
between 12 and 17 million barrels. According to the 1937 report of the
Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce, the wheat storage
capacity of Kansas mills (43,000,000 bushels) exceeds that of any other
State. The main milling centers are at Salina, Topeka, Wichita, Atchison,
Hutchinson, and Kansas City.
In the early years of Statehood the minerals of Kansas were not ex-
ploited, although the settlers knew of rich deposits of oil and coal. As
early as 1806 explorers had noted that Kansas Indians wore ornaments of
lead. Seventy years later lead and zinc were discovered near the site of
Galena, and 10,000 miners immigrated to the region. Throughout the
87
88 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
i88o's the Galena field was known as a "poor man's diggings" because of
the many one-acre claims which were worked with windlasses and hand
jigs. Large-scale operations were begun in 1899. The ore production of
Kansas increased steadily in succeeding years, mounting to 28,463 tons
of lead and 126,307 tons of zinc in 1926. A slump set in during the next
decade; the ore output for 1936 totalled 11,409 tons of lead and 79,017
tons of zinc.
A similar decline, caused largely by the increasing use of gas and oil for
fuel, has been noted in the coal industry. Following the opening of the
first mine in 1866, the annual output increased with the population,
reaching a peak of 7,561,947 tons in 1917. During 1936 the 77 mines in
Kansas produced only 3,147,225 tons; in the following year 61 mines
produced about 2,000,000 tons. But the dwindling part played by coal,
lead, and zinc in the State's economy has been more than counterbalanced
by the development of oil resources. A. D. Searl, a surveyor, found oil
oozing from the earth near the site of Paola in 1855. On returning to his
home in Conneautville, Pennsylvania, Searl informed Dr. G. W. Brown
of his discovery. Dr. Brown came to Kansas in 1859, verified Searl's find,
and organized a company which leased thirty thousand acres in Miami
County. In 1860 the company drilled three wells. The first two were "dry
holes," the last struck oil and salt water at 270 feet.
Throughout the first quarter century of its development, Kansas oil had
a small intra-state sale as a lubricant. The wells were shallow and in some
instances the oil was obtained by merely skimming it from the surface of
streams. By 1889 the annual production of petroleum averaged five hun-
dred barrels. In that year the Kansas legislature recognized the presence of
the new industry by enacting a law that required the inspection of petro-
leum sold as an illuminating agent.
Kansas oil was vigorously exploited during the first decade of the pres-
ent century. Wells that pumped one thousand barrels a day were "shot"
in Montgomery County in 1903. The annual production of the State soon
reached 3,000,000 barrels, at which point it hovered for more than a
decade. Stimulated by the opening of the Butler County field, the Kansas
output for 1916 climbed to 8,000,000 barrels and rose to 36,500,000
barrels the following year.
During 1937 the 18,000 wells in Kansas produced 69,000,000 barrels
of oil. The oil fields extend south from Kansas City crescent-wise to the
Oklahoma line, and thence northward through the central part of the
State. The wells in the eastern part are shallow "strippers" which yield
OIL WELLS NEAR WICHITA
between 10 and 12 barrels daily. Those in central Kansas pump as much
as 2,250 barrels per day. Petroleum refining has become the third most
important Kansas industry.
Nelson Acres, an oil prospector, struck a pocket of gas near lola in
1873. His discovery was first utilized in 1889 by the city of Paola, and
seven other communities installed gas systems in the following year. By
1925 approximately 27,000,000 cubic feet of gas were consumed an-
nually. This quantity was more than doubled in the next decade, amount-
ing to 57,125,000 cubic feet during 1935.
About two hundred gas wells were drilled in Kansas between 193235.
Gasoline extraction from natural gas amounted to 36,900,000 gallons dur-
ing 1936. The largest pocket of natural gas is the Hugoton field at the
southwestern corner of Kansas, and smaller pockets exist throughout the
oil producing area. One of the three helium plants in the country is at
Dexter. When first discovered in 1907, Dexter residents, unaware of the
incombustible nature of helium, piped it to their homes and, by reason of
90 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
the natural gas it contained, managed to ignite it for cooking and illu-
mination.
The total mineral production of Kansas during 1937 was valued at
$156,000,000. It included gas, oil, coal, lead, zinc, sand, gravel, stone,
chat, pumice, cement, and salt. The latter mineral was discovered near
Hutchinson in 1887 by Ben Blanchard, an oil prospector. Exploitation
began in 1888 at the rate of 500 barrels per day. At present (1938)
Kansas is third among the States in the production of salt. The largest
mines are at Hutchinson; others are at Lyons, Anthony, Kanopolis, and
Little River.
Several decades before the first oil well was drilled in Kansas, petro-
leum scooped from the tops of pools was customarily used to grease the
wheels of freighters traveling the Santa Fe Trail. Pack trains began to
follow this route in the 1820*5, and by 1860 about 3,500 men were em-
ployed in its commerce.
Following the completion of the Santa Fe Railway in the 1 870*5, the
Santa Fe Trail fell into disuse and its Kansas length was subsequently
overgrown with wheat. But the trail left its mark on the economic pattern
of the State. According to business analysts, the commerce of Kansas still
flows in a southwest direction, and the trade area of a Kansas city gen-
erally extends west and south, seldom north and east.
Of later origin than the Santa Fe Trail, but of greater economic im-
portance, was the Chisholm Trail, named for the halfbreed Cherokee who
in 1865 marked off its route with the wheels of his trade wagon (see
WICHITA). The Chisholm Trail was the main outlet for Texas cattle in
the 1870'$. During the two decades in which the trail was used, about
5,000,000 longhorns were herded over it to shipping points in Kansas.
Meat packing plants were consequently established at Salina, Kansas City,
and other communities. The first meat ever transported in refrigerator cars
was shipped from Salina in 1872. In point of income meat packing is
now the largest Kansas industry. The average output of the packing plants
at Wichita and Kansas City is valued annually at more than $125,000,000.
In 1937 Kansas had 36 insurance companies, 104 national farm loan
agencies, 140 building and loan associations, and 515 state and private
banks. Public utility corporations included 4 in water, 23 in electricity,
and 36 in gas. There were 338 Kansas telephone companies.
According to the 1935 U. S. Census of Manufactures, Kansas had
1,508 manufacturing plants whose total output that year was valued at
$468,690,290. Excluding the three major products already named meat
packing, flour milling, and petroleum refining the largest items were, in
KANSAS BEEF
the order listed, butter, printing and publishing, railroad repair shops,
wholesale poultry dressing and packing, stock and fowl feeds, machinery,
cement, salt, ice, and structural and ornamental metal work. The same
census enumerated 4,621 wholesale establishments, 9,290 service establish-
ments, and 27,433 retail stores.
Contemporary industries include the manufacture of trailers at Augusta,
airplanes at Wichita and Kansas City, strawboard at Hutchinson, garden
tractors at Galesburg, snow plows at Wamego, and agrol a gasoline that
contains alcohol extracted from grains at Atchison. Pipe organs are man-
ufactured at Lawrence, beet sugar at Garden City, paving material at
Moline, locomotive parts at Atchison, linseed oil and linseed stock feed
at Fredonia, bean-picking machines at Cawker City, carbon black at
Hickok, stoves at Leavenworth and Wichita, furniture at Garnett and
Leavenworth, soap at Kansas City, steel fixtures at Ottawa and Topeka,
ceramic products at Havana, and oil field machinery at Wichita and Inde-
pendence. Of its raw foodstuffs, Kansas ships wheat in the greatest quan-
tity, one-third of the average annual crop of 170,000,000 bushels going
to outer-state markets.
92 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
During 1937 about 228,000 part and fulltime industrial workers were
employed in Kansas. Of this number an average of 44,000 were employed
in trade, 42,000 in manufacturing, 38,000 in transportation, 19,000 in
mining and quarrying, 12,000 in service industries, and 11,000 in com-
munication and utilities. The average annual wage in the foregoing in-
dustries amounted to $1,233.05.
Kansas industry was, until the second decade of the present century,
operated largely on the open shop plan. In the period after the Civil War
most of the trade unions in the State reflected the general conditions of
the country as a whole, and were mainly local organizations. The forma-
tion of national unions was slow.
When the depression of 1873 swept over the country, prices and profits
plunged downward. Employers began a tremendous drive to lower wages,
which in turn brought about a stiffer resistance on the part of the workers.
Labor fought back with the only weapon it had, the strike. This period,
therefore, was one of many bitter strikes, among which those of the rail-
road workers in 1877 were the most outstanding.
The first strike in Kansas occurred in 1877 when employees of the
Santa Fe Railway joined a Nation-wide walkout to obtain higher wages.
The railroad shops at Topeka, Emporia, and Lawrence were peacefully
picketed, but Governor George T. Anthony immediately dispatched militia
companies to those cities. The citizens of Emporia termed the use of
troops an insult to their persons and their city. The militia was thoroughly
discredited when one of their members accidentally shot and killed the
Reverend O. J. Shannon, an Emporia minister. Governor Anthony sub-
sequently withdrew the troops and the strike was settled without further
disorder.
The first legislation designed to benefit Kansas industrial workers was
enacted during the term of Governor John A. Martin (1885-89). The
Governor was a member of a typographical union and in sympathy with
the general policy of the Knights of Labor, which occupied an outstand-
ing position in the labor movement of that period. In the first year of his
governorship the legislature created a bureau of labor and industrial
statistics, the establishment of which had been advocated in 1884 by the
General Assembly of the Knights of Labor. The same legislature also
passed a bill requiring the wage of industrial workers to be paid monthly
in "lawful money of the United States." Near the close of the session,
however, this bill was all but abrogated by an amendment sponsored by
groups that feared to place any restraint on the industrial development of
the State.
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 93
Two months after Governor Martin had been inaugurated, railroad
shopworkers at Parsons and Atchison walked out in response to a strike
called in Missouri, Kansas, and Texas to resist wage reductions and in-
creased hours proposed by the Missouri Pacific Railway. The railroad offi-
cials immediately telegraphed for troops to guard company property.
After a survey of the strikers' picketing methods Governor Martin refused
to send the militia, noting, incidentally, that the legal right of a railroad
official to request the use of troops had not been established by any Kansas
statute.
Governor Martin twice proposed that the strike be arbitrated by a dis-
interested committee; officials of the railroad company twice declined. On
March 13, 1885, however, H. M. Hoxie, vice-president of the Missouri
Pacific Railway, asked Governor Martin to confer at St. Louis, Missouri,
with the board of railroad commissioners, the Governor of Missouri, and
a representative of the railroad company. The Governor promptly as-
sented. The company granted the demands of the workers and the strike
ended.
The snags encountered in mediating the railroad strike impelled Gov-
ernor Martin to propose the creation of legal machinery to expedite the
settlement of future industrial disputes. At a special session in January
1886 he asked the legislature to establish a tribunal of voluntary arbitra-
tion. A bill was accordingly passed on February 18, empowering the dis-
trict county courts, upon the petition of employer or employee, to set up a
court of voluntary arbitration over which an umpire appointed by the dis-
trict judge would preside.
Kansas, in common with the Nation, resounded with industrial war-
fare throughout 1886. Strikes occurred among the coal miners, the rail-
roadmen, and the smelting and refinery workers. Most serious of these was
the railroad strike, which began on March i in Marshal, Texas, upon the
discharge of a foreman of the woodworkers in the Texas and Pacific car
shops. It affected Parsons on March 6, Kansas City on March 8, and
Atchison on March 10. All traffic on the Missouri Pacific Railway came to
a dead halt. Shop machinery was destroyed, several trains were damaged,
and one was derailed, resulting in the death of the fireman and a brake-
man.
Attempts to have the strike settled in Governor Martin's court of vol-
untary arbitration failed. The situation took an ugly turn at Parsons, fol-
lowing the issuance of an injunction which enjoined the strikers from
interfering with the traffic of the Missouri Pacific Railway. The injunction
was generally ignored and Governor Martin was besieged with requests
94 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
for the militia. Reluctantly, and only after all hope of arbitration had
been abandoned, the Governor detailed the First Regiment to Parsons on
April i. A "Law and Order League" was also organized in the city. No
further efforts to stop railroad traffic were made, and the strike was lost.
In his campaign for re-election in 1887, Governor Martin was censured
by industry for his delay in sending the militia, and by industrial workers
for having sent the militia. The court of voluntary arbitration, basically a
just and democratic principle, was discredited because of its failure to
solve the strikes of 1886. The Governor, nevertheless, was re-elected by a
considerable majority. At the legislative session of 1887 laws were passed
to further the organization of co-operatives, and to insure the wage-payment
of miners in "lawful money."
In 1893 the extensive industrial depression throughout the Nation also
affected Kansas labor. As in the past, the employers began a general offen-
sive against wages, and the workers fought back with strikes.
The mining area in southeastern Kansas, known as the "little Balkans,"
was the source of prolonged labor unrest throughout the period. The
miners had very real cause for complaint. They mined the so-called "long
ton" for a bare subsistence wage that was, until the enforcement of the
legislative act of 1887, often paid in company scrip. On July 21, 1893,
following the rejection of their demands by the mine operators, the re-
cently formed unit of the United Mine Workers called a strike. The
sheriff of Cherokee County telegraphed for the militia. Governor Lewel-
ling, first of Kansas' two Populist governors, assembled ten militia com-
panies on the advice of the attorney general, and held them ready to
patrol the strike area. The miners and operators, however, adjusted their
difficulties by July 25, and the troops were disbanded.
The larger railroad companies stubbornly resisted the unionization of
Kansas railroadmen during the 1890*5. Since the open shop preference of
the railroad officials was supported by public opinion and the general
press, the railroad companies were the more powerful in their disputes
with employees. After the 1894 Pullman strike, led by the American Rail-
way Union, one railroad company announced that jobs would not be re-
stored to those who had struck. A number of men thus blacklisted ap-
pealed to the United States District Court, the judge of which appointed
an investigating committee. The committee subsequently reported that "it
is difficult to understand what greater offence an employee could commit
than to refuse to work and still insist that no one could take his place."
The court thereupon ruled against the blacklisted men, but the effect of
the decision was nullified in 1897 when the Populist-Democratic legisla-
COAL MINER
ture passed a law prohibiting discrimination and the publication of black-
lists.
The trade union movement was at a low ebb at the beginning of the
twentieth century. The American Federation of Labor became active in
Kansas in 1907 but, since it operated largely on a craft basis, the masses
of unskilled workers were left unorganized. Kansas labor, through the
Western Federation of Miners, was also represented in the Industrial
Workers of the World, which was organized in 1905 as a protest against
the slow progress of the conservative trade unions.
96 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
The post-War unrest of industrial workers affected all of Kansas in the
autumn of 1919 when the United Mine Workers in the "little Balkans"
joined the Nation-wide strike for increased wages and a six-hour day. As
the strike lengthened, the weather became very cold and a shortage of
fuel seemed imminent. Governor Henry J. Allen threw the mines into a
temporary State receivership. About a thousand workers, many of them
college students, were hired to mine the Crawford County "strippers"
under the protection of National guardsmen.
Governor Allen called a special legislative session at which a criminal
syndicalism and sabotage act was passed, and the Court of Industrial Re-
lations was established. The court consisted of three judges, appointed by
the Governor, who were empowered to investigate, try, and decide dis-
putes involving "essential industries." The court regulations were pre-
sumably intended to safeguard public welfare through the compulsory re-
moval of all obstructions to production. Labor was to be permanently
appeased by its right to appeal against low wages, long hours, and dis-
criminatory practices of employers. Industry was to be benefited by Sec-
tion 15, which forbade picketing and boycotting, and by Section 17, which
deprived labor of the right to strike. Violators of Section 17 were to be
penalized by a jail sentence of from one to two years and/or fines that
ranged from one to five thousand dollars.
Organized labor saw in the Kansas Court of Industrial Relations a.
crystallization of undemocratic forces. Samuel Gompers, president of the
American Federation of Labor, sounded the tocsin with "Kansas cannot
legislate men into serfdom. Kansas cannot put upon her statute books a
law that will compel men to submit to involuntary servitude." Governor
Allen defended the court on all fronts. More than 40,000 persons were
turned away, when he and Samuel Gompers debated the issue in Carnegie
Hall, New York City, on May 28, 1920.
Since the Court of Industrial Relations was the first and only attempt to
enforce compulsory arbitration of labor disputes, its operations were
closely followed by the Nation's economists, union leaders, and indus-
trialists. What was publicized as the first case of its kind in America
occurred in November 1920 when seven Topeka mill operators were cited
to appear before the court and "show cause why men are being laid off
. . . and production curtailed without permission of the court." In the
previous year the Topeka mill workers had struck for higher pay and lost,
their jobs being assumed by non-union men. The case against the mill
operators aroused great interest, since many believed that a precedent for
industrial stabilization might be established.
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 97
The mill operators were not placed under oath, and the "trial" was in
the nature of a formal debate. The testimony amounted to the fact that
seasonal adjustments of production and employment were required to
make flour milling a profitable pursuit. It was further asserted that flour
milling was strongly influenced by out-of -State factors. To this the court
agreed, dismissing the case as beyond its jurisdiction.
About 6,500 Kansas members of the Federated Shop Crafts walked out
in July 1922 in protest against wage cuts proposed by the U. S. Railroad
Labor Board. Militia companies were detailed to the strike centers. Strike-
breakers were employed in several instances, and the strike was ultimately
lost. A large part of the Kansas public, meanwhile, sided with the strikers.
Many merchants placed cards in their windows which read: "We are for
a living wage and fair working conditions. We are for the striking work-
men 100 percent." Attorney General Richard J. Hopkins, in accordance
with Section 15 of the regulations of the Court of Industrial Relations,
declared that such cards were a form of picketing and therefore punish-
able by law.
William Allen White, Emporia editor and longtime friend of Governor
Allen, placed a sign in the window of his printing shop that read: "We
are for the striking workmen 49 percent." White was thereupon signaled
out for "picketing" and held for trial, but the case was dismissed on
December 8, 1922. "If I was within the law in contending for the right
of free utterance for the public wholly outside the controversy," White
said, "I should not have been subjected to a shanghied arrest. ... I was
ku kluxed by a court that did not have the guts to pull out their shirt
tails and give a ku klux parade."
Employees of the Wolf Packing Company, threatened by a wage cut,
appeared before the Court of Industrial Relations, presented their case,
and received an order granting an increase in pay. The officials of the
packing company appealed to the State supreme court which upheld the
decision. They then appealed to the United States Supreme Court which,
in a decision written by Chief Justice Taft in 1923, held that the statute
creating the Court of Industrial Relations was unconstitutional because it
empowered the court to fix a minimum wage, pending the solution of a
labor dispute. Two years later it was abolished by the legislature.
Kansas experienced 34 shortlived local strikes throughout the decade
ending in 1935. In that year, however, the members of the Mine, Mill and
Smelter Workers' International Union ceased work in the lead and zinc
fields at the southeast corner of the State. The strikers were replaced by
non-union workers who were subsequently organized in a company union
98 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
known as the Tri-State Metal Mine and Smelter Workers' Union, or, more
commonly, the Blue Card Union.
The feud between the striking workers and the Blue Card unionists
smoldered for about two years, and then burst into flame when the Com-
mittee for Industrial Organization undertook to aid the Mine, Mill and
Smelter Workers' International Union. On April 10, 1937, several men
distributing leaflets for the CIO at a smelter in Joplin, Missouri, were
seized by Blue Card unionists and severely beaten. On the following day
about 5,000 members of the Blue Card Union met at Picher, Oklahoma,
armed themselves with clubs and pickhandles, dispersed a meeting of
CIO organizers and wrecked the local hall of the Mine, Mill and Smelter
Workers' International Union.
About 500 Blue Card unionists then traveled by automobile to Treece,
Kansas, where they demolished another hall of the CIO union. The cara-
van of cars continued to Galena, Kansas, where forewarned members of
the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers' International Union had barricaded
their meeting hall. The mob formed before the hall, brandishing clubs.
Firing broke out, and nine men were shot, one fatally. In the ensuing
melee the hall was wrecked and the records of the union stolen. Twenty-
five members of the Blue Card Union and ten members of the CIO were
arrested and released on bond. A week after the riot occurred, six thou-
sand members of the Blue Card Union voted to join the American Fed-
eration of Labor, with which organization they were subsequently affiliated.
The Kansas units of the CIO and A. F. of L. have not generally en-
gaged in inter-union competition. As though a mutual agreement existed
between both organizations, they have maintained and respected separate
spheres of activity. The A. F. of L. has grown to 500 locals with a mem-
bership of about 75,000 in the State. The CIO counts approximately
25,000 members among Kansas workers and has concentrated its member-
ship drive among oil, stove, furniture, packing plant, filling station, soap
and glycerine, clay and pottery, paper and box workers. The United Mine
Workers of America, which is now affiliated with the CIO has approx-
imately 100 locals in the State. The one strike called in Kansas by the
CIO a five-day sit-down at the Kansas City plant of Armour & Company
was peacefully settled without arbitration. The Kansas Workers' Alli-
ance, an organization of the unemployed, has an estimated membership
of 4,500.
During the past few years labor has made considerable gains by the
passing of several legislative measures. An industrial hygiene section in
the division of sanitation of the State board of health was established in
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LABOR 99
February 1936. Since its organization this section has been conducting
surveys of industries in order to determine what potential exposure hazards,
if any, exist in the industries, and to study the means of eliminating such
occupational hazards as do exist. Silicosis, an occupational hazard existing
in the Tri-State area (parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri) is not
compensable under Kansas laws, and it is obvious that the organization
of an industrial hygiene section means a great deal to the workers of the
State.
The 1937 legislature passed laws covering all sections of the Federal
social security program; ratified the Federal child-labor amendment, and
adopted an unemployment compensation act. The 1938 session of the
legislature revived the State's former minimum wage law.
Considerable progress is also to be noted in the relationship between
the industrial and agricultural workers. Until comparatively recent years,
the average Kansan was little interested in labor relationships unless they
directly affected him. Except for the Populist movement of the i88o's,
there had been no concerted action on the part of the farmer and indus-
trial worker and Populism in Kansas was largely an agrarian movement.
In the last few years, however, a definite movement for joint action by
farmers and industrial workers has been developing. Several meetings of
the Farmers Union, the United Cannery, Agricultural Packing, and Allied
Workers, and Labor's Non-Partisan League were held recently and pro-
grams for concerted action were drawn up. Representatives from Kansas
participated. Several other such conferences with representatives of or-
ganized labor resulted in a greater understanding of each other's prob-
lems and increasing co-operation between the Farmers Union and organ-
ized labor. A notable example of such farmer-labor co-operation was the
calling off of an impending Colorado beet workers' strike, largely through
the efforts of agricultural labor union representatives and National Farmers
Union officials. It is also of interest to note that the farm program resolu-
tion of the CIO convention, recently held in Pittsburg, cited the agree-
ment recently drawn up and ratified in Colorado, under which the
Farmers Union will organize beet growers, and the CIO cannery and
agricultural workers will organize the beet workers, both to guarantee
mutual recognition and collective bargaining.
<<<<<<<<<< <#> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
FOLK tales and folk songs, compounded of dreams, idle imaginings,
and wish fulfillment, are usually based on the prosaic doings of. men
who "earn their living by the sweat of their brow." In Kansas the first
workers were the farmer and the cowboy. Within the short span of three
decades their not so heroic figures were draped with a spangled mantle of
lore and legend.
The present century has not dealt kindly with the farmer. His legends
are all but obsolete, and his beliefs have been pared away by the profes-
sors at colleges of agriculture. Even the farm-bred bards who twang guitars
before radio microphones prefer "I'm Headin' for the Last Roundup" to
"Turkey in the Straw" or "Father Put the Cows Away." Agronomists have
shown the absurdity of planting crops by the phases of the moon; mete-
orologists have disproved many hitherto infallible weather omens; and
bacteriologists have dispelled the hobgoblins who once merrily soured
cream and addled eggs. Nature, in short, has ceased to be mysterious and
the farmer has become a mere workman.
The cowboy, however, is well on the way to becoming a figure of mag-
nificent proportions. Bowlegged and gaunt, he stands as the apotheosis of
manly perfection. Songs, novels, movies, magazines, and operettas have
made the least inquiring of us well acquainted with his extraordinary
courage, unfailing gallantry, and uncanny skill with gun or lariat. The
farmer, meanwhile, sits stolidly on his tractor, bereft of romance and ad-
venture.
Time was when farming in Kansas was not without perils. The story
goes that Lem Blanchard went forth one afternoon in mid-July to inspect
his cornfield in the Republic Valley. He scaled a young stalk to overlook
the forest-like field and from its top was able to see into the next county.
When he turned to descend he was horrified to find that the stalk was
growing upward faster than he could scramble down. For two days he
made back-breaking efforts to reach the ground. At last, to keep him from
starving to death, kind neighbors who had tracked him to the foot of the
towering stalk shot Lem dead.
100
FOLKLORE IOI
There are those who say that Lem was rescued by a balloonist but that
seems improbable. If Lem had not perished on the cornstalk, surely other
of his adventures among the gigantic squash, pumpkins, and 'taters on his
farm would have been recorded. Lem would have saved himself, if the
corn had been mature. Another farmer caught in a similar predicament
subsisted on raw ears of corn. When the cornstalk ceased growing, en-
abling him to descend, he found that forty bushels of corncobs had accu-
mulated below his perch.
The enormous stalks of corn were of course grown on extremely large
fields. There was one man whose field was so wide that by the time the
mortgage was recorded on the west side, the mortgage on the east side had
come due. The hired man and hired girl, following their wedding, went
out to milk the cows that grazed on the west side. When they returned
they had a child one year old.
The winds that swept across the big farms often reached hurricane ve-
locity. The ducks' feathers were invariably blown onto the chickens, and
the chickens' feathers were invariably blown onto the ducks. Frequently
the wind scooped the cellar from beneath the house but left the house in-
tact, hoisted the well from under the pump but left the pump intact, and
carried the whole farm away but left the mortgage intact. An inexperi-
enced dog dared to bark at an approaching "twister." The ensuing entry of
air turned the animal inside out.
The grasshoppers that ravaged the big farms were as large as mules.
Champing huge mandibles and lashing great antennae, the monster insects
deliberately bullied the hogs, cows, and sheep. Nothing escaped their vora-
cious appetites. Wagons and well platforms were favored tidbits. Armed
with axe handles, buggywhips, and pitchforks, the gargantuan 'hoppers
fought viciously in fence corners for the last ear of corn. After devouring
the crops they would insolently pick their teeth on the barbs of the barbed-
wire fence.
The belief that "rain follows the plow" was held by many a Kansas
farmer in the i88o's and '90*5. When a drought was persistent, profes-
sional rainmakers were frequently enlisted to coax the reluctant clouds. A
popular method of producing rain consisted of killing a snake and "hang-
ing it belly-side up on a fence." In the great drought of the 1890'$ an all
but despairing Bohemian farmer ruefully told a passerby: "I've killed
three snakes and hung them on the fence, and each time we got a sprin-
kle of rain. If I could find enough snakes we'd get plenty rain."
The belief that dead snakes suspended belly-side up on a fence would
bring rain is said to have originated before the invention of barbed-wire
102 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
fences in 1874. When laid on a rail or stone fence, rigor mortis would in-
variably cause the snake to twist over onto its belly and thus prevent the
"charm" from being followed to the letter. Barbed-wire fences enabled
Kansan farmers to penetrate a dorsal segment and so fix the snake in the
prescribed position. Thousands of snakes were properly strung on barbed-
wire fences, their white-scaled bellies glistening in the brassy sun-glare.
But, strange to relate, Nature seldom reacted favorably to the sacrifice of
serpents.
The lore-manufacturers of the cattle trails scorned to imitate the ex-
travagances born of the farmers' hopes and fears about mysterious Nature.
The cowboy was a man in full, a rootin' tootin' son-of-a-gun, tougher than
the leather of his saddle. Had he met a "big wind," he would have gal-
loped dead against it; had he encountered a giant grasshopper, he would
have peppered the insect with his six-shooter. Indeed, the ordinary activi-
ties of the cowboy out-fictioned the farmers' folk fiction. The 'puncher
rode hard, shot fast, drank copiously, and, as verified by subsequent ex-
humations, often died with his boots on. In his midst moved "Bat" Mas-
terson, "Wild Bill" Hickok, "Doc" Holliday, "Big Nose Kate," and other
incredible persons.
On arriving at Newton, Wichita, Abilene, and other Kansas cow towns
the pleasure-starved cowpunchers engaged in mad bouts of drinking, gam-
bling, and dancehall cavorting. Sometimes they "painted the town red" by
galloping through the streets and firing their "shooting irons" into the air.
At Medicine Lodge the cowboys held horse-races down the main street ; at
night they built bonfires and took turns riding forward to see whose horse
would run nearest the flames. The old saying "There is no Sunday west of
Newton and no God west of Pueblo" aptly described the Kansas cow
towns.
The cowboy's speech was crisp and pungent. The farmer was a "nester"
or "drylander," and an inquisitive person an "eyeballer." Courting was
termed "sittin' her," traveling by a circuitous route was known as "anti-
godlin'," and to make your best effort was "to cut a rusty." The phrase
"wild and woolly" is said to have originated in Dodge City, where the
stock answer to a query about one's past was: "I came up the Chisholm
Trail with the buffalo wild and woolly."
Each cow town had its badmen who, if court records are reliable, were
mighty, mighty bad. When badman Jack Coulter was killed at Coronado
in 1887, his trigger finger is said to have jerked desperately for a half
hour after he died. The badmen had a sadistic sense of humor. Sometimes
they made citizens dance by shooting at their feet. Or again, by way of
FOLKLORE 103
mild diversion, a badman tested his aim by shooting through the hat of a
passerby. One such Wiliam Tell in Gray County, whose hand was un-
steady from drink, pierced both the hat and head of his target.
The hardboiled, devil-may-care attitude of the cowboy shielded a shy
brooding nature. His fatalistic philosophy was often a social pose that he
upheld publicly but disavowed in private. That the cowboy was deeply
concerned with an untimely end, whether it found him booted or abed, is
strongly indicated by his songs and ballads. "Sam Bass," "Mustang Gray,"
"The Cowboy's Dream," and "The Dying Cowboy" evidence a preoccu-
pation with death, which is at direct odds with the generally accepted pic-
ture of a swashbuckling 'puncher with two guns on his hip and an "itch-
ing trigger finger." That the cowboy was also concerned about an afterlife
is illustrated in the following:
THE DIM NARROW TRAIL
Last night as I lay on the prairie
Looking up at the stars in the sky
I wondered if ever a cowboy
Would go to that sweet by and by.
The trail to that fair mystic region
Is narrow and dim all the way,
While the road that leads to perdition
Is posted and blazed all the way.
They say there will be a grand round-up,
Where cowboys like cattle must stand,
To be cut by the riders of judgment
Who are posted and know every brand.
Perhaps there will be a stray cowboy
Unbranded by anyone nigh
Who'll be cut by the riders of judgment
And shipped to the sweet by and by.
Cowboy sports and customs are frequently revived in Kansas by "Cow-
boy Rodeo" and "Frontier Day" celebrations. Pioneer times are regularly
recalled at various old settlers' gatherings held annually throughout the
State. Spelling bees, bean suppers, oyster suppers, box socials, amateur
"nigger minstrels," and similar old-fashioned amusements are occasionally
revived as novelties by clubs and church societies.
The Kansas reservoir of superstitions is fed by streams from the general
pool of American taboos and beliefs. A small percentage of the popula-
tion believe that a tipped new moon presages frost, that surface crops
should be planted in the light of the moon and underground crops in the
dark of the moon, that bad luck follows spilt salt or a broken mirror, and
104 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
that misfortune may be warded off by knocking on wood. Beliefs prevalent
among Kansas children include "stamping a white horse," the ubiquitous
"bread and butter" incantation used in passing on opposite sides of a post,
and the performance of "thumbs" when two persons say the same word
simultaneously.
The contemporary Kansas Negro has discarded his heritage of Southern
superstitions and acquired in varying degree those of his white neighbor.
Many still believe that if the church bell gives an after toll, a member of
the congregation will soon die ; that bad luck will come if you're struck by
a broom; and that a sleeping person will tell his dreams if his hand is
placed in cold water. The last is said to be a fundamental and useful
tenet in the credo of wives.
During the last two decades the imaginations of rural Kansans have
been relatively lax in populating empty houses and lonely lanes with
"hants" and creatures of the underworld. Several such manifestations are
reported periodically, however, in the same regions. Greeley County has its
Ghost of White Woman Creek, a white-clad shade who, according to leg-
end, drowned herself in the creek when she found her lover lying dead on
its bank. A "giant panther" is said to inhabit the farming district along a
draw northwest of Norton. Tales of the beast's fiery eyes and hideous
screeching are intermittently revived. Since the 1890*5 residents of Wal-
lace County have reported seeing a strange light bob across the country-
side. Some assert that the light is the ghost of a man murdered in the
1 890*5, but the more literal minded explain the phenomenon as a phos-
phorescent glow arising from decaying bones on the prairie.
THE schools of Kansas have been locally supported and, for the most
part, locally controlled since the earliest days. Until 1937 when the
State legislature established a State Aid Fund for the benefit of elementary
schools in need of additional support, the State government performed
neither of these functions except for the State supported institutions of
higher learning and the educational institutions for defectives. Yet Kan-
sans generally have been united by faith in the power of learning to make
mankind industrious, virtuous, and wise. With this faith the pioneers built
their first humble schoolhouses of logs and sod. And because of this belief
450,000 students attend the universities, colleges, junior colleges, high,
and common schools of Kansas today.
The first schools were religious missions among the Indians. Approxi-
mately twenty-five were established in eastern and central Kansas between
the 1820*5, when the Presbyterian Neosho Mission was opened in what is
now Neosho County, and the late 1850*5. Religion and education went
hand in hand at these frontier outposts of civilization. Members of peace-
ful Indian tribes came from far and near to the mission schools and often
attended classes with the white children. They learned reading, writing,
farming methods, and simple health measures. Ottawa University is a di-
rect outgrowth of the Ottawa Baptist Mission founded by the Reverend
Jotham Meeker in 1837, and Highland College at Highland had its origin
in the Kickapoo mission established by the Presbyterian Church in 1856.
The first free schools in Kansas were held in private homes, in village
stores, or wherever it was expedient. If the settlement boasted no teacher,
a housewife with "learning" was drafted to take charge. School texts were
scarce and the children learned their lessons from whatever books their
parents happened to have. Sometimes this was the family Bible or a worn
volume of Shakespeare, occasionally a copy of an eastern newspaper, and
not infrequently an almanac.
In 1855 members of the first Territorial legislature adopted the Mis-
souri statutes for use in the Kansas Territory. These provided for the es-
105
106 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
tablishment of public schools "free and open to whites." When the first
Free State legislature met at Lawrence in 1858, these laws were revised.
Possessing the deep-rooted Yankee conception of schools as neighbor-
hood affairs, the lawmakers created a system of school districts admin-
istered by county superintendents and a Territorial superintendent of
schools. To the county superintendent they gave the power of creating and
altering the school districts; the individual districts, with their personnel
and tax problems, were put under the control of local school boards. For
the upkeep of the new school districts, the lawmakers levied a tax upon
real and personal property, requiring each district to maintain schools en-
tirely from its tax-derived revenues.
Each succeeding legislature has added to the Kansas school laws until
today the system is a patchwork. The State constitution, drawn up in 1859,
provided for "equal educational advantages for white and colored," and
for "males and females alike." An additional clause provided for a State
university at some "eligible and sensible point," and for months after the
admittance of the State into the Union the problem of location agitated
many ambitious Kansas towns.
The University of Kansas was founded at Lawrence in 1865. Accord-
ing to the original plans, the institution was to have been divided into
male and female branches the latter separate from the college proper and
taught by women. But when classes began in 1866, with fifty men and
five women enrolled, facilities were so limited that segregation was im-
practicable, and the university opened as the first co-educational institution
of higher learning in Kansas.
Education at college and university level, in name at least, was a matter
of great importance to early Kansans. Among the New England pioneers
who came West to emancipate "bleeding Kansas" were many ardent young
college graduates. Education in their minds ranked next in power to the
press and the church, and they envisioned seats of learning comparable to
the famous universities of the Eastern Seaboard and of Europe. Eastern
churches hastened to strengthen their hold upon the new country by
founding colleges, competing with town promoters for choice locations and
subsidies. Eighteen universities and ten colleges were chartered by the
Kansas legislature between 1858 and 1863. Only Highland College, at
Highland, Baker University, at Baldwin, and St. Benedict's College, at
Atchison, survive.
The Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science was es-
tablished at Manhattan as the Kansas State Agricultural College. Under
the terms of the Morrill Act, approved by President Lincoln in 1862, Kan-
THE CAMPUS, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, LAWRENCE
sas was granted 90,000 acres of land for the founding of an institution
"related to agricultural and mechanical arts." The institution opened its
doors as a Federal land-grant college in 1863.
The State school for the blind, at Kansas City, the State school for the
deaf, at Olathe, and the Emporia State Teachers' College, at Emporia, were
established by legislative action in the i86o's. A compulsory education
law, for children between the ages of eight and fourteen, was passed in
1874. As part of the prohibition movement, provision was made in 1885
for courses in hygiene, "to be taught with special reference to the effects
of alcoholic and narcotic stimulants."
Up to this time Kansas had followed the example of eastern States in
school legislation, but in the i88o's the State legislature took an independ-
ent step by providing for a State-wide system of county high schools in
counties of more than 5,000 population. The first was built at Chapman
in 1889. Within a few years legislatures in almost every State in the Union
had enacted similar bills.
In the late 1890'$ Kansas took the initiative by adding manual training
108 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
courses to the Pittsburg public school curriculum. By the end of the cen-
tury, courses in sewing, cooking, and woodworking had been introduced
into the better-equipped schools in towns throughout the State. The Pitts-
burg State Teachers' College, established by a legislative act of 1903, pio-
neered in preparing manual training teachers. In the previous year the
legislature also founded Fort Hays State College, which occupies a portion
of the land once included in the old Fort Hays Military Reservation.
With the turn of the century, enrollment soared and the construction of
school buildings boomed. The new and larger plants contained audito-
riums, gymnasiums, theaters, swimming pools, and libraries. Vocational
agriculture and home economics appeared in their curricula as a result of
the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, providing Federal support for vocational
education. The so-called practical subjects stenography, bookkeeping, and
business correspondence were stressed. The number of school districts
multiplied with the organization of new counties until more than 9,000 of
them were spread over the State.
There has been a gradual trend toward centralization of education and
consolidation of schools. A State school commission was created in 1913,
and in 1916 state educational, charitable, and penal institutions were
brought together under a single board of administration. Nine years later
(1925) all higher education institutions were put under the control of a
board of regents, composed of nine members appointed by the Governor,
and serving without remuneration. Consolidation of rural schools, though
expedient, has not proceeded rapidly. Failure to consolidate, according to
a report of the Kansas State Planning Board (Rural Schools m Kansas:
March 1935) is due to the fact that "the rural school serves not only edu-
cational needs, but acts as a political and social center for the community
and has a strong hold on the sentiments of the people." There are approx-
imately 8,600 school districts, spread over the State with little regard for
wealth or number of pupils, and each still possesses the individual powers
designated by the Third Territorial legislature. More than 3,000 districts
have a taxable value of less than $150,000, and in 1,000 districts, schools
average less than six pupils.
The study referred to above reported on 8,217 schools out of 8,326 or-
ganized and operating in cities of the third class and in rural districts. It
found an enrollment of 207,377 (December 1934), though the normal
capacity of the schools was 331,194. The 1935 legislature passed a law
permitting school districts to share the expenses of maintaining one school
for two or more districts, while otherwise retaining their separate identities.
Financial difficulties resulted in a wide disparity in school taxes, and in-
L
NORTH HIGH SCHOOL, WICHITA
110 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
equalities in equipment, teaching standards, and educational opportunities
in general. Public schools ranged from the magnificent $2,600,000 Wyan-
dotte High School in Kansas City, to one-room buildings, of which there
were 7,000 in 1934.
The only State school aid, up to 1937, was from the proceeds of the dog
tax and the interest on the permanent school fund. In this year, after dec-
ades of discussion in legislative halls, at political meetings, and on cam-
paign platforms about the "evils of the Kansas school system," the State
legislature provided that $2,500,000 be appropriated annually between
1937 and 1939 from a State sales tax for the aid of needy elementary
schools. The fund is distributed by the State superintendent of public
instruction.
High schools in the small towns are often centers of social activities for
young and old alike. Conscientious and hardworking teachers prepare
schedules of debates, dramatic and musical productions, and athletic events,
which draw large crowds and generally provide for the purchase of school
equipment. In the early 1930*5 high school bands developed, glorious in
their bright uniforms, and plumed hats. These groups of boys and girls
parade resplendently behind a high-stepping student bandmaster, and en-
liven county and State fairs, inaugurals, and holiday celebrations. Trips
with the band to surrounding towns and the State capital are cherished
ambitions of high school music students.
Comparatively new in the Kansas educational system is the municipal
junior college. Thirteen are maintained, with an approximate attendance of
4,000, and eight similar institutions are under parochial control.
In addition to the five State colleges financed by biennial legislative ap-
propriations, there are eighteen private institutions of higher learning;
but the enrollment of the latter group is equal to only one-third of the
total for colleges. Four are Catholic institutions, three Methodist, while the
Mennonites, Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Dunkards each sponsor
one or more. These institutions are supported from tuition fees, private
contributions, and small endowments.
Wichita Municipal University, formerly Fairmount College, was ac-
quired by the city at a special election in 1926. It is the only municipally
owned institution of higher learning in Kansas. Since 1926 its enrollment
has grown from 400 to approximately 2,000, including 700 Wichita citi-
zens in its extension department.
Adult education, through public night schools and the extension service
offered by the State university and other State-maintained colleges, has de-
veloped rapidly in Kansas since the early 1920*5. Many of the larger cities
EDUCATION III
offer vocational training and academic courses in public night schools,
sponsored by the board of education. The Topeka night school, which
opened in 1926 with an enrollment of 634, reached an attendance peak of
2,248 in 1933. In 1936 a total of 4,443 persons were enrolled in voca-
tional education classes throughout the State.
The State-wide educational program, sponsored by the Works Progress
Administration, has enabled many districts with inadequate funds to offer
adult education. On August i, 1937, there were 18,709 persons enrolled
in eleven types of classes at 567 educational centers. Courses included lit-
eracy and naturalization, workers' education, public affairs, parent educa-
tion, homemaking, vocational education, leisure time activities, correspond-
ence instruction, nursery schools, general adult education, and freshman
college subjects.
-ft >>>>>>
Religion
E first churchman of whom there is any authentic record in the
L region now known as Kansas was a Franciscan friar, Father Juan de
Padilla, who accompanied Coronado's expedition to Quivira in 1541. He
returned to Mexico with the expedition, but journeyed back to spread
Christianity among the Plains Indian tribes. It is said that he was mur-
dered by the Quivirans because of his decision to leave them and preach to
another tribe. According to some accounts, however, the martyred friar
was murdered by his own men.
Almost three centuries elapsed between the death of Father Padilla and
any organized efforts to establish the Christian religion in Kansas. In 1822
the Bishop of New Orleans appointed Father Charles de la Croix as a
missionary to the Osage. He is known to have visited the Osages living
along the Neosho River, and on May 5, 1822, he performed the first re-
corded baptism in Kansas that of Antoine Chouteau, a five-year-old half-
breed child. Three missions were built among the Osage by the Presbyte-
rian Church in the early 1820*5.
In 1830 the Reverend Thomas Johnson, as representative of the Meth-
odist Church, founded Shawnee Mission (see Tour 4), the largest and
most influential religious outpost in the State. Soon afterward the Baptists
and the Friends established missions a few miles west of Shawnee. In
1836 the Roman Catholic Church successfully established a mission among
the Kickapoo, in what is now Leavenworth County.
When the first settlers began to arrive, in the early i85o's, nine mis-
sions had established churches, schools, and dwellings in the prairie wil-
derness. Almost a score of others had come and gone in the quarter-
century preceding settlement.
With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which created the Kan-
sas Territory and left to residents the disposition of slavery within its bor-
ders, a wave of anti-slavery sentiment swept many New Englanders into
Kansas. The church press was scathing in its denunciation of the Kansas-
Nebraska Bill. Ministers throughout New England appealed eloquently
before their congregations to "take up the torch of freedom for bleeding
RELIGION 113
Kansas." Northern ministers and churches co-operated with the promoters
of the New England Emigrant Aid Company in organizing emigration to
the Territory.
Thus the slavery issue was bound up with the development of religious
groups. The first great movement of emigrants began in the spring of
1854. Members of the New England Company founded Lawrence, the first
Free State town in the Territory. The Reverend S. Y. Lum held church
services when the town was nothing more than a cluster of camps on the
river bank, and ten weeks after settlement began he organized in a hay
house (a tentlike structure of poles thatched with wild grass) the first
church for white people in Kansas. This organization survives today as the
Plymouth Congregational Church.
In addition to the New England Emigrant Aid Company, a number of
individual church groups supported abolitionist colonies in the early
1850*5. Most widely known of these was the Beecher Bible and Rifle Col-
ony, sponsored by the Congregational minister, Henry Ward Beecher, and
so named because Beecher presented each man with a Bible and a rifle "to
defend his faith and his ideas of freedom." The colony founded the Free
State town of Wabausnee and the Beecher Bible and Rifle Church (see
Tour 3), still in existence.
Another Congregational group was the "Kansas Band," consisting of
four ardent young abolitionists Richard Cordley, Sylvester Storrs, Gros-
venor Morse, and Rosewell Parker. Graduates of Andover Theological
Seminary, they came to Kansas in 1856 to become leaders in the fight for
freedom. As pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Law-
rence, Cordley became known throughout the Territory as the "abolition
preacher." He escaped death by fleeing across the river when Quantrill
and his men sacked and burned the town of Lawrence in 1863.
The Ottawa Baptist Mission in Franklin County also became a strong-
hold for Free Staters in the late 1850*5, and churches in the Free State
towns of Topeka, Big Springs, Osawatomie, and Manhattan gave freely of
money and supplies to aid the cause.
With the close of the Civil War and the end of the struggle over slav-
ery, the church became the center of community life in Kansas. From hum-
ble beginnings in dugouts, hay houses, or the open prairie, it developed
with the growth of settlement. In communities where there were no min-
isters, residents gathered to read the Bible and sing hymns on Sunday;
and on isolated claims, women often set the Sabbath day apart in thought-
ful observance.
It was during these later decades of the century that Kansas, with its
114 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
broad acres of unclaimed land, became a mecca for European colonists in
search of religious freedom or of homes.
In the early iSyo's, approximately 400 families of Mennonites (about
1,900 persons) migrated to Kansas from southern Russia and settled
in Reno, Harvey, Marion, and McPherson Counties. With prosperous
churches scattered over the region, their sect numbered approximately n,-
ooo members, according to the latest U. S. Census figures (Religious Bod-
ies: 1926). German-Russians who came to Kansas from the lower Volga
region at about the same time, and settled on the rolling plains country of
Rush and Ellis Counties, were chiefly Roman Catholics. They established
their own villages and, with much labor and sacrifice, erected large stone
churches with colored windows and carved interiors, which rise from the
prairie, their spires visible for miles (see Tour 3). The settlers gave their
best to the church, even depriving their families of necessities to do so.
Although not drawn to Kansas by a desire for personal or religious
freedom, as were the immigrants from Russia, colonies of Swedish Luther-
ans settled in McPherson and Saline Counties in the i86o's and iSyo's.
Lindsborg is today the center of Lutheranism in the State.
Negroes, newly emancipated, migrated to Kansas from the South, and
were helped in adjusting themselves to their new home by Presbyterian
and Congregationalist ministers. In addition to the missions and churches
organized by these workers, the Negroes independently established Meth-
odist and Baptist churches.
The temperance issue and the fight for prohibition profoundly affected
the Kansas churches from the close of the Civil War to the present day.
Church organizations, especially those affiliated with the Methodist, Bap-
tist, and Presbyterian faiths, had joined forces with temperance workers,
shortly after the Territory was opened for settlement. At its first meeting,
in 1 86 1, the members of the Christian Temperance Union resolved:
"That we look to the churches of our State for earnest co-operation in
the work of temperance.
"That we invite and expect all ministers of the gospel to actively sup-
port our cause and hope that in every part of the State they will take imme-
diate steps to organize auxiliary societies."
Kansas churches accepted the invitation, and many were active in the
campaign for a prohibition amendment to the State constitution. In 1879,
when the amendment passed both houses of the legislature, a great mass
meeting was held in Topeka at which, according to contemporary accounts,
"pastors of the various churches were present and took active part in the
discussion of the best means of bringing prohibition to the State." The
RELIGION 115
amendment was ratified in the general election of 1880, with great rejoic-
ing in the churches throughout the State.
Temperance was the opening wedge for a general cleaning up of the
boisterous, wide-open "cow towns" of the period. Church members espe-
cially women were the shock troops that drove out gamblers and other
undesirable elements, and intemperance was only one of the evils against
which the crusade was waged.
Since then the churches have been the leaders in prohibition activities.
When the State legislature submitted a repeal amendment to the voters at
the general election of 1934, it was due to church efforts that the dry or-
ganizations succeeded in stemming the tide of anti-prohibition sentiment
in Kansas.
According to the United States Census (Religious Bodies: 1926) there
were 4,530 church organizations in Kansas. Of these, 1,242 were urban
and 3,288 rural. Church membership totaled 747,078, divided almost
equally between urban and rural organizations. The three leading denomi-
nations with their membership were Methodist Episcopal, 177,165 (all
Methodist bodies, 190,894; Roman Catholic, 171,178; Disciples of Christ,
77,409. Membership in Baptist bodies numbered 70,838, in Presbyterian,
56,667 and in Lutheran, 53,751. Membership in Protestant Episcopal
churches numbered 9,623, and in Jewish congregations approximately
5,000. Of the total church membership, 28,292 were Negro communi-
cants, including 15,357 Baptists and 10,069 Methodists, with the remain-
der divided among a score of other denominations. The Negroes supported
328 churches, of which 213 were urban and 115 rural.
The number of church organizations decreased between 1906 and 1926.
This was due, probably, to the abandonment of some rural churches when
roads improved and the automobile came into general use, and also to the
tendency toward consolidation of churches. During the same twenty year
period there was an increase of 272,442 in total church membership.
<<<<<<<<<<-&>>>>>>)>>>
Sports and Recreation
E scarcity of natural water areas and the need* for water conserva-
tion and flood control led indirectly to the development of the State's
chief recreational asset its State parks. A plan to establish a system of
parks, in connection with the construction of artificial lakes, was first pro-
posed in 1923 by a group of sportsmen and conservationists. Through
their efforts the State forestry, fish and game commission was organized in
1925 and necessary legislation was passed to begin a lake-building pro-
gram in Neosho County. Sportsmen in that and adjacent Labette County
donated 215 acres of land to the commission and a dam was built in 1927,
impounding 95 acres of water.
The first lakes were financed entirely by State funds. When the Federal
relief agencies launched a water conservation program in 1932, Kansas
promptly took advantage of that assistance. The Works Progress Admin-
istration and the Civilian Conservation Corps have co-operated in devel-
oping lakes and surrounding park areas. There are now (1938) twenty-
five State parks, the largest of which is in Kingman County (1,562 acres).
Artificial lakes are the nuclei of the majority of these parks and, in addi-
tion, hundreds of smaller lakes of twenty acres or less have been com-
pleted. The Kansas State lake plan has been adopted in neighboring Mis-
souri and Oklahoma.
The State lakes are stocked with fish from the State hatchery at Pratt
(see Tour 5), which propagates bass, drum, crappie, bluegill, bull head,
yellow perch, and channel cat. These fish are also indigenous to many Kan-
sas creeks and rivers. Besides fishing, the State lakes and parks have facili-
ties for boating, swimming, and camping.
Pioneer hunters and trappers found vast quantities of game and other
wild life in Kansas. Gradually many species became extinct or greatly
diminished in number. The program of the forestry, fish and game com-
mission has restored a small fraction of the State's game, and increased the
opportunities for good hunting. The commission has established a public
shooting ground near Jamestown, Republic County, where the water area,
normally 765 acres, lies in salt marshlands. There are 40 blinds, each ac-
116
'
/ *$*& ,C' ; *
rs
JAYHAWKERS IN ACTION, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
commodating two hunters. A nominal fee is charged for the use of blinds
and decoys. The commission also maintains quail farms near Calista and
Pittsburg, and a 3,200 acre tract in Finney County which serves as a buf-
falo range and a prairie chicken preserve.
The supply of quail and prairie chicken has been steadily enlarged, but
these game birds still need the protection of a short season. Found in great
numbers, and consequently hunted during longer open seasons, are 'coon,
squirrels, and mourning doves. Duck hunting in season is popular at the
State lakes and along the larger streams.
The jackrabbit drive is peculiar to western Kansas. Advertised for days
in advance by handbills and local newspapers, the drive usually starts on
Sunday and is attended by great crowds of spectators. A certain area, cov-
ering perhaps thousands of acres, is surrounded by beaters armed with
clubs and sticks; guns are banned. Hundreds of people take part. Slowly
the lines close in on all sides, flushing the rabbits into a large pen or wire
enclosure at a central point, where they are clubbed to death. The daily
"kill," which in many instances exceeds 6,500, is reported by the local
press. Denounced in other sections as a sadistic display, the drive is de-
Il8 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
fended in the western part of the State as an economic necessity, since the
rabbits feed on green wheat.
Similar to the rabbit drive in plan and purpose is the wolf or coyote
drive. A common event in earlier years, these drives were revived in cer-
tain regions of Kansas after 1930, when the suspension of bounties by
economizing county governments resulted in a mounting loss of small live-
stock. A modern touch was recently added when coyote hunters in Frank-
lin County used a low-flying airplane to spot their quarry.
The most popular drives in Kansas, however, are those made with golf
clubs and tennis rackets. Five State-wide golf tournaments are held each
year. A State tennis meet is held annually at Independence, and an inter-
scholastic tournament is held at Emporia. Invitation tennis meets are sched-
uled each season at Wichita, Dodge City, McPherson, and other cities.
Football, an intercollegiate sport of Kansas colleges since the early
1890'$, is now on the athletic program of 400 Kansas high schools. A
so-called "clinical" game, employing rules that marked the beginning of
the transition from the old "push-and-pull" kind of football to the mod-
ern open game, was played at Wichita in 1905. The first forward pass in
American football history was attempted and completed in this trial game.
The Thanksgiving Day Football game between the University of Kansas
and the University of Missouri is a traditional contest that dates from
1891. The game is played at the Missouri field and the Kansas Stadium in
alternate years. The annual game between the Kansas State College and
the University of Kansas, played alternately at Lawrence and Manhattan,
is of State-wide interest.
Basketball is the most popular team sport in Kansas. The game was in-
vented by a Kansan, Dr. James L. Naismith of the Physical Education De-
partment of the University of Kansas, in collaboration with Luther H.
Gulick. Kansas basketball teams have thrice won first place in the national
high school tournament, and the University of Kansas is a perennial leader
in the Big Six conference. The annual national tournament for women's
basketball teams is held in March at Wichita.
Kansas is represented in professional baseball by the Salina Millers and
the Hutchinson Larks of the Western Association. The National Semi-
Professional Baseball Congress is held annually at Wichita. State-wide
amateur leagues include the Ban Johnson League for youths, and the
American Legion Junior League for boys between thirteen and sixteen.
Softball, said to have been invented at Topeka in April 1916 by employees
of the Santa Fe Railway, is very popular in the larger cities.
The University of Kansas Relays, a two-day track and field carnival held
INDIAN BOXING TEAM, HASKELL INSTITUTE, LAWRENCE
in the latter part of April at the university stadium in Lawrence, is an
event of national interest. Established in 1924, soon after the completion
of the stadium, this meet has become a rendezvous for internationally
known athletes. Among those who have competed in the Kansas Relays
are Jim Bausch of Wichita, 1932 Olympic decathlon champion; Glenn
Cunningham of Elkhart, holder of the world's record for the mile and a
member of the Olympic team in 1932 and 1936 ; and Archie San Roman!
of Pittsburg, middle-distance runner and a member of the 1936 Olympic
team.
Professional boxing bouts are infrequent in Kansas, but professional
wrestling matches are held at Topeka, Wichita, Pittsburg, Kansas City and
Hutchinson. Amateur boxing is popular at Kansas State College, Kansas
University, Haskell Institute, and St. Benedict's College. A wrestling tour-
nament is conducted annually by the Kansas High School Association.
Harness racing, a highly developed and popular sport which declined
between 1929 and 1934, has enjoyed a recent revival. Race meetings are
held at various county affairs and at the Topeka and Hutchinson State
Fairs. Spring and autumn coursing meets are held at Abilene. Dog and
horse races are annual features at Dodge City. Lawrin, winner of the Ken-
120 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
tucky Derby in 1938, was foaled and trained at the Woolford Farms of
Herbert Wolf in Johnson County. Polo, almost unknown in the Middle
West until a few years ago, is played at Topeka, Wichita, and other major
cities.
Acutely aware that its chief places of recreation were the corner lot and
the malarial "swimmin' hole," urban Kansas, beginning with the estab-
lishment of a playground system at Topeka in 1912, turned its attention
toward acquiring suitable recreational facilities. Today there is scarcely a
town with a population of more than 1,500 that lacks a golf course, a
swimming pool, tennis courts, and baseball diamonds. A recreational pro-
gram is now being carried on by the WPA in 121 communities.
Journalism and
journalists
/
JOTHAM MEEKER, a Baptist missionary connected with the Shawnee
Indian Mission near the present site of Kansas City, established the
first newspaper published in what is now Kansas. Meeker, a printer as
well as a minister of the Gospel, came to Shawnee Mission early in 1833
and (according to his diary) began setting type on the first issue of the
Shawnee Sun on February 18, 1835. This first issue appeared six days
later. The Sun, a monthly publication, was printed in the native language
of the Shawnee tribe, and was the second newspaper to be published in an
Indian language the first being the Cherokee Phoenix (1828), issued in
the South. No copies of the Sun's early issues are known to be in exist-
ence; but a copy of one of the later issues, dated November 1841, was
found in Kansas City a few years ago.
On September 15, 1854, shortly after the opening of Kansas Territory
to settlement, a second newspaper, the Kansas Weekly Herald, made its
appearance at Leavenworth. Evidently the press proposed to lead rather
than to follow the course of progress, for few signs of civilization were
visible on the town site of Leavenworth at that time. This departure from
usual journalistic practice was criticized by some as preposterous, but most
residents of the Territory saw nothing out of the ordinary in the fact that
the printing press should thus precede other activities.
The clash between opposing forces within the Territory on the issue of
slavery provided the pioneer Kansas editors with abundant copy. Ardent
champions as they were of one side or the other in this conflict, the editors
actually helped to make the news they reported. During the years of bitter
strife that followed the opening of the Territory, printing offices were
wrecked or burned by warring factions and their presses demolished or
thrown into nearby streams. Lawrence newspapers suffered this fate when
the notorious Sheriff Jones and his men sacked the town on May 21, 1856.
Jones's men destroyed the plant of the Herald of Freedom, edited by Dr.
121
THE COUNTRY EDITORWILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISTS 123
George W. Brown, smashing the press and throwing type and other
equipment in the Kaw River.
The Kansas Free State, established January 5, 1855, by Josiah Miller
and R. G. Elliott, suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Lecompton
raiders and was never revived. Miller, a native of South Carolina, had left
that State because of his opposition to slavery. The "border ruffians" con-
sidered him fair game on account of his southern origin and arrested him
for treason against the State of South Carolina. Acquitted of the charge,
he stumped several of the northern States for Fremont during the Presi-
dential campaign of 1856. Returning to Lawrence in the following year,
he was elected probate judge and later State senator from Douglas County.
Thus the tradition of the Kansas newspaper man as a political leader was
early established. A notable example of this tradition was John J. Ingalls
who edited the Atchison Champion during the Civil War period (1863
6). An important figure in Territorial and State politics, Ingalls was
United States Senator from Kansas from 1873 until his defeat by the Popu-
lists in 1890. From that time until his death ten years later he devoted
himself chiefly to literature and journalism.
In spite of raids and wreckings, the pioneer press developed steadily,
and by 1858 there were 22 newspapers in the Territory. This number had
increased at the close of the Civil War to 37 exactly as many as existed
in the country as a whole at the time of the Declaration of Independence,
a coincidence upon which Kansas newspapers like to dwell. Kansas had
been torn and desolated by years of strife, its economic life paralyzed, and
its general development apparently hopelessly arrested. Newspapers played
a major part in the phenomenal development of the next five years by re-
viving hope and confidence, encouraging immigration, and promoting in-
dustry. The State's population grew from 140,179 in 1865 to 362,307 in
1870, and the number of newspapers increased during the same period
from 37 to 80.
Captain Henry King played a prominent part in the post-war period of
Kansas journalism. A native of Illinois, he served in the Union Army
throughout the Civil War and then returned to Illinois to edit the Daily
Whig at Quincy. In 1869 he came to Topeka, where he edited successively
the State Record, the Commonwealth, and the Capital. He was also the
first editor of the Kansas Magazine. In 1883 he went to the St. Louis
Globe-Democrat as contributing editor. Promoted to the managing editor-
ship of the Globe-Democrat in 1897, he held that position until his death
in 1915. Of Kansas journalists in the 1870*5 and early i88o's, Captain
King has written as follows:
124 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
We had our rivalries and antipathies, but for the most part they were transient
and subordinate, and did not cause any serious disturbance of the fundamental con-
cord. It was in our politics, however, that we were most apt to disregard the im-
pulses of brotherly love and patience. The Kansas newspapers had early manifested
a partiality for aggressive and vociferous campaigns. They were fond of putting
candidates under the harrow, as they called it a process which they have not yet
entirely abandoned, I am told. Even a toughened veteran like General Jim Lane had
been lacerated to the point of calling for mercy from the Atchison Champion when
Ingalls was editing it. "About the mildest term it ever applies to me," he said, "is
miscreant."
The Topeka State Record was first published in 1859 by Edmund G.
and W. W. Ross. Edmund Ross, while serving the unexpired term of
Senator James H. Lane in the United States Senate, incurred the wrath of
his constituents by voting in favor of President Andrew Johnson in the
latter's impeachment trial. His political career ruined, Ross returned to his
former profession and published the Lawrence Standard for a number of
years.
Prominent among the earlier journalists of Kansas was Daniel W.
Wilder, better known in later years for his Annals of Kansas. Wilder had
settled in Kansas in Territorial days, becoming editor of the Elwood Free
Press in 1858. In 1861 he became editor of the Leavenworth Daily Con-
servative and purchased Colonel Dan Anthony's interest in that newspaper
when Anthony joined the army. He went to Rochester, New York, in
1865 to edit the Evening Express, but returned to the Conservative three
years later. In 1871 he left Leavenworth for Fort Scott, where he became
editor of the Monitor. In the following year he was elected State auditor,
and won a reputation for reforms instituted in that office.
John A. Martin purchased the Atchison Squatter Sovereign in 1858 and
changed its name to Freedom's Champion. During the war he served as
lieutenant colonel and later as colonel of the Eighth Kansas Regiment.
After his discharge from the service in 1864, he resumed his editorial po-
sition with the Champion and continued at that post until his election as
Governor in 1885. He died in 1889, not long after his retirement from the
governorship.
Noble L. Prentis, like Martin a native of Illinois and a Civil War
veteran, was associated with Captain King on the Topeka Record and
Commonwealth, was later editor of the Junction City Union, and during
Colonel Martin's term as Governor (1885-1889) was proprietor of the
Champion in Atchison. In 1888 he took charge of the Newton Republi-
can, leaving that paper for a position on the staff of the Kansas City Star
which he held until his death in 1900.
Another soldier-editor was Col. Daniel R. Anthony, who founded a
JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISTS 125
Kansas newspaper dynasty. As one of the proprietors of the Leavenworth
Conservative, established in 1861, Anthony "scooped" the State press on
the news of Kansas' admittance to the Union in that year. At the out-
break of the war he became lieutenant colonel of the Second Kansas
Cavalry. After the war Anthony returned to newspaper work, and the
Leavenworth Times, following its consolidation with several contempo-
raries, came under his control in 1872. Upon his death in 1904 his son,
the late D. R. Anthony, Jr., Congressman for several terms from the First
Kansas District, continued publication of the Times. The next of the line,
D. R. Anthony, III, is publisher of the paper today (1938).
Also prominent in the early post-war period were Marshall M. Mur-
dock, founder of the Wichita Eagle in 1872, Preston B. Plumb of the
Emporia Kansas News, and Sol Miller of the Troy Kansas Chief. But
these names are of minor importance in comparison with that of Edgar
W. Howe, author of The Story of a Country Town and of numerous
other books that have won for him a national reputation in addition to
his fame as a journalist. Howe's newspaper career began in 1873, when
at the age of nineteen he became editor and publisher of a newspaper in
Golden, Colorado. Four years later he moved to Atchison and began pub-
lication in that city of the Daily Globe, which under his editorship and
proprietorship was a potent force in Kansas journalism for more than a
third of a century. Retiring from active newspaper work in 1911, Howe
edited and published for several years a magazine called E. W. Howe's
Monthly. He died at Atchison late in 1937.
Another Kansas editor and publisher of national reputation is Arthur
Capper, who like Ed Howe entered newspaper work at the age of nine-
teen. Beginning as a typesetter on the Topeka Daily Capital, he worked
upward on that journal through the successive stages of reporter, city
editor, and Washington correspondent, to become its publisher and pro-
prietor. In 1893 he assumed editorship of the North Topeka Mail, a
weekly newspaper later consolidated with the Kansas Breeze, which was
founded in 1894 by T. A. McNeal and edited jointly by McNeal and
Capper. The latter soon established other publications, including Capper's
Weekly, Capper's Farmer, and the Household Magazine.
As publisher of the Capital, Capper soon became closely identified with
the Republican party in Kansas politics, and as that party's candidate he
was elected Governor in 1914 the first native Kansan to hold this office.
After serving a second term as Governor, he was elected to the United
States Senate in 1918 and subsequently re-elected in 1924, 1930, and
1936.
126 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
Capper has been fortunate in his editorial assistants, such as the late
Harold T. Chase and T. A. McNeal. Chase was editorial writer for the
Capital from 1889 until shortly before his death in 1936, and his schol-
arly and keenly analytical writing received more than State-wide recogni-
tion. The association with T. A. McNeal, from whom Capper purchased
the Kansas Breeze in 1895, has continued since that date. Tom McNeal is
now (1938) the dean of Kansas editors. A native of Ohio, he came to
Kansas in 1879 and was part owner of the Medicine Lodge Cresset for
fifteen years. He served a term as mayor of Medicine Lodge, was later a
member of the State legislature, and for six years held the office of State
printer.
Unlike many of his journalistic contemporaries Frank P. McLennan,
Capper's most prominent rival in the Topeka newspaper field, never as-
pired to public office. He came to Emporia from Ohio in the iSyo's;
published the Emporia Daily News with Jacob Stotler and Alexander Butts
for several years, and then purchased the bankrupt Topeka State Journal
at public auction in 1885. McLennan successfully conducted the Journal
as an independent newspaper for nearly half a century. He also served for
many years as vice president of the board of directors of the Associated
Press, once remarking that he regarded that position as preferable to the
office of United States Senator. He died in Topeka in 1933.
Capper was succeeded as Governor of Kansas in 1918 by Henry J.
Allen, a Wichita publisher whose attempt to regulate labor disputes
through the Kansas Industrial Court attracted national attention. Begin-
ning as editor of the Manhattan Nationalist in 1894, Allen later acquired
and operated several daily papers in smaller cities of Kansas. He pub-
lished the Wichita Daily Beacon from 1907 until 1928, when he sold it to
Max and Louis Levand. Shortly after the death of Frank P. McLennan in
1933, Allen became editor of the Topeka State Journal.
J. A. Wayland, who founded the Appeal to Reason at Girard in 1897,
was a political journalist of a type seldom found in Kansas, where editors
have been prone to promote themselves for public office and to align
themselves with the dominant political group. Wayland was an ardent
Socialist, and his Appeal to Reason, backed by a fortune acquired in Texas
real estate speculation, soon became a national organ of the underprivi-
leged. Wayland later leased the paper to Fred Warren, who continued its
publication until 1912. E. Haldeman- Julius then took it over, changing
its name to Haldeman-Julius Weekly in 1922, and later to the New
Appeal and to its present title, the American Freeman.
For several decades, no name in the annals of Kansas journalism has
JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISTS 127
been better known to the American public than that of William Allen
White, "the sage of Emporia." Born in that city in 1868, White was
reared in Butler County and learned the printer's trade in the office of the
El Dorado Republican. In 1891, soon after graduation from the Univer-
sity of Kansas, he joined the editorial staff of the Kansas City Journal,
and was later employed on the Star in the same city. In 1895 he purchased
the Emporia Gazette, which he has owned and edited ever since.
With the publication in 1896 of his famous Gazette editorial, "What's
the Matter with Kansas?" White achieved national renown almost over-
night. Appearing in the midst of a heated Presidential campaign, it
assailed the Populist movement then sweeping the Middle West and was
given such widespread prominence by the Republican campaign managers
that it played an important part in the election of McKinley.
Like Ed Howe of Atchison, White is no less well known as an author
than as a journalist. A dozen books of fiction, biography, social and
political commentary have appeared from his pen in the past forty years.
He has also played an active part in politics and public affairs as an inde-
pendent "progressive."
Not a few editors and writers who have risen to prominence elsewhere
in the country began their careers in Kansas newspaper offices. Wesley
Winans Stout, who in 1937 succeeded George Horace Lorimer as editor
of the Saturday Evening Post, is a native of Junction City who left col-
lege in his freshman year to work on the Wichita Beacon and was later
on the editorial staff of the Kansas City Star. Walt Mason, characterized
by William Allen White as "the poet laureate of American democracy,"
wrote the first of his now widely syndicated "prose poems" as a staff
worker on the Emporia Gazette, to which he had come after serving an
apprenticeship on the Atchison Globe. Edwin S. Beck, a son of the pio-
neer Holton editor Moses M. Beck, has been managing editor of the
Chicago Tribune since 1910. Will T. Beck, a younger son, has continued
publication of the Holton Recorder, which his father purchased in 1881.
The Kansas City Star, although a Missouri newspaper, has often been
a potent factor in molding public opinion in Kansas. The late William
Rockhill Nelson, founder of the Star, soon learned that Republican Kansas
offered a more fruitful field for his political theories than traditionally
Democratic Missouri. Nelson's successors have continued his editorial poli-
cies, and the Star has been identified with the liberal element in Kansas
Republicanism.
The indomitable spirit of the pioneer editor still prevails in Kansas
journalism. Recent years of unprecedented drought and agricultural de-
!I28 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
pression have not daunted the State's press. And, as has been demonstrated
in recent political campaigns, Kansas editors have lost none of their tradi-
tional trenchancy. More than 700 newspapers and other periodicals, pub-
lished in Kansas in 1937, included 61 dailies, 497 weeklies (five of which
were published by Negroes), 71 monthlies, and 21 quarterlies.
Realizing that the most accurate and complete history of any commu-
nity lies in its newspapers, Kansas editors have co-operated with the State
Historical Society in preserving their issues for students of Kansas history.
The periodical section of the society possesses the most complete files of
the State's newspapers in this country. In many instances the society's
file of a paper is the only one extant. In January 1937 the State Historical
Society had 44,307 bound volumes of Kansas periodicals.
<<<<<<<<<<&>>>>>>>>
Literature
THE first writing inspired by the region comprised in the present
State of Kansas was the journal of Pedro de Castaneda de Najera,
who in 1541 accompanied the Spanish explorer Coronado on the latter's
march through this region in search of the semi-legendary city or prov-
ince of Quivira. In the three centuries between Coronado's futile quest
and the early settlement of Kansas, the region was traversed by other
explorers, some of whom notably, among the later travelers, Etienne
Bourgmont, Lewis and Clark and their aide Patrick Gass, and Zebulon M.
Pike have given us factual records of the region in their published
journals.
When Kansas became a territory in 1854, the issue between Free Soil
and pro-slavery settlers generated a conflict and a debate that raged for
several years with the fierce intensity of a prairie fire. The Free Soil cause
found its most eloquent literary expression in the writings and speeches
of the great New England abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Wen-
dell Phillips, and the poet Whittier. The latter's stirring song of "The
Kansas Emigrants" was a rallying hymn for hundreds of New England
emigrants, both on the westward march and in their new home. Note-
worthy also were Whittier's bitterly satiric "Letter from a missionary of
the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in Kansas, to a distinguished
politician," his verses on the burial of Thomas Barber, shot December 6,
1855, near Lawrence, and the poem "For Righteousness' Sake" inscribed
"to friends under arrest for treason against the slave power." Within the
Territory itself, the only authentic literary note in the struggle was struck
by Richard Realf, a gifted young English poet who emigrated to Kansas
in 1857 an d in the course of about a year's residence there contributed
several ardent anti-slavery poems to various Kansas newspapers.
The first novel to be written with Kansas as a setting was Emerson
Bennett's The Border Rover (1857), a blood-and-thunder narrative of
heroic settlers and ferocious Indians. Ten years later appeared Evender C.
Kennedy's Osseo, the Spectre Chieftain, a poem in eight cantos which has
the distinction of being the first literary work produced by a permanent
129
130 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
resident of Kansas. This was followed five years later by Annie Nelles'
Ravenia, or The Outcast Redeemed. These extravagances reflected little of
the actual Kansas scene and had small literary merit.
Historical and descriptive narratives were prominent in the output of
Kansas writers during the last half of the nineteenth century. One of the
earliest books in this field was Sara T. D. Robinson's Kansas: Its Interior
and Exterior Life (1856). Mary E. Jackson turned to past events with
The Spy of Osawatomie; or, The Mysterious Companions of Old John
Brown (1881) ; and in his Gleanings from Western Prairies (1882), the
Reverend W. E. Youngman recalled the experiences of a year spent on a
frontier ranch in Kansas. Colonel Henry Inman, who had served at various
Kansas army posts in the 1850*5 and i86o's, drew largely upon personal
observation and experience in a long list of books written after he retired
from the Army and settled down at Larned. With a biography of Senator
James Henry Lane (1899), William E. Connelley began an extensive se-
ries of studies in Kansas history, biography, and ethnology, including a
five-volume history of the State and its people.
One of the few Kansas writers preoccupied with the common life of
his own time in the century's later decades was Edgar Watson Howe,
editor and proprietor of the Atchison Globe from 1877 to 1911. His
Story of a Country Town, after rejection by several publishers, was pri-
vately printed in 1883, and has since achieved a permanent place in
American literature. It is a realistic picture of a small prairie town, with
emphasis on the more somber phases of midwestern life in the i86o's and
1870*5. Howe retired from active newspaper work in 1911, devoting
himself thenceforth to authorship, to travel, and (until 1933) to editing
and publishing E. W. Howe's Monthly. From his home on "Potato Hill"
near Atchison he put forth no fewer than twenty-five books, several of
which are collections of travel letters. His frank autobiography, Plain
People, appeared in 1929; and his last book, Final Conclusions, was pub-
lished shortly before his death in 1937.
Despite the common concern with politics, prohibition, and real estate
speculation in Kansas of the i88o's and 1890*5, the muses were not wholly
silent during this period. With his clever verse in both humorous and
serious vein, Eugene F. Ware made the pseudonym of "Ironquill" familiar
to an audience that extended far beyond the borders of his own State.
Collected in book form, the Rhymes of Ironquill appeared in 1885, and
an enlarged edition was published in 1899. Another popular purveyor of
homespun philosophy in verse, Walt Mason, whose "prose poems" have
LITERATURE 131
long been a familiar syndicated feature in hundreds of American news-
papers and have been reprinted in ten or a dozen volumes, began writing
for the Atchison Globe in 1885. For many years after 1907, Mr. Mason
was associated with William Allen White on the Emporia Gazette. In the
last decade of the century, Charles Moreau Harger, then a youthful news-
paper editor in Abilene, frequently turned his pen to poetry ; and Florence
L. Snow of Neosho Falls wrote a collection of sonnets published under
the title, The Lamp of Gold. The first literary appearance of William
Allen White and Albert Bigelow Paine was made with their Rhymes by
Two Friends (1893). But the outstanding poetic achievement of this
period was a single poem by John J. Ingalls, who represented Kansas in
the United States Senate from 1873 to 1891. His "Opportunity," written
in 1891 and since reprinted in many standard anthologies, is considered
by competent critics to be one of the finest sonnets in nineteenth century
American literature.
William Allen White, long editor of the Emporia Gazette and best
known of contemporary Kansas writers, came suddenly into national
prominence in 1896 with the publication of a newspaper editorial entitled
"What's the Matter with Kansas?" In the same year he put forth his first
independent book, The Real Issue and Other Stories. This was followed
by The Court of Boyville (1899), a keen depiction of the adolescent
American male; Stratagems and Spoils (1901); and In Our Town
(1906), which first displayed his unusual ability for portraying typical
small-town life. His most important full-length novels are A Certain Rich
Man (1909) and In the Heart of a Fool (1918). In later years, he turned
definitely to the field of public affairs with such books as Politics: The
Citizen's Business (1924), Woodrow Wilson (1924), Cahin Coolidge
(1925), and Masks in a Pageant (1928), the last a series of character
studies of political leaders whom the author had known more or less
intimately. Mr. White's neglect, during the last two decades, of the no-
table creative talent evidenced in his earlier books has been often deplored.
"Had it not been for his uncontrolled urge to be a man of action,"
remarks W. G. Clugston, a Kansas commentator, "he might have been
not only Kansas' first man of letters but also one of America's outstanding
creative artists."
In the same year that William Allen White attained national fame with
a newspaper editorial, the Reverend Charles M. Sheldon of Topeka sprang
into equal prominence with a religious novel entitled In His Steps, which
deals with the theme of what Jesus might do if confronted with the
132 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
problems of a business man in a small midwestern city. Although this
book had world-wide circulation, a defective copyright deprived Doctor
Sheldon of royalties. He has subsequently written more than thirty novels,
most of which were read serially to his congregation before publication.
Second only to Doctor Sheldon among Kansas novelists with respect to
prolific output is Mrs. Margaret Hill McCarter, who has made generous
use in her books of material from the State's history. Beginning in 1903
with The Cottonwood's Story, the list of her writings comprises more than
a dozen titles, perhaps the best known of which are The Price of the
Prairies (1910), a story of Civil War Kansas, and A Wall of Men
(1912), a romance of the Free Soil struggle. The lights and shadows of
Kansas life in the opening decades of the present century are skilfully
limned by Dell H. Munger in Wind before the Dawn (1914), a realistic
tale of prairie farm life. Of somewhat similar character is Dust (1921),
by Mr. and Mrs. E. Haldeman- Julius, who are also the authors of a later
novel entitled Violence.
Two of the State's most distinguished writers seem to have bequeathed
much of their literary ability to a second generation. Mateel Howe Farn-
ham, daughter of E. W. Howe, was awarded the first prize of $10,000 in
Dodd, Mead & Company's 1927 fiction contest for her novel entitled
Rebellion; and William L. White, son of "the sage of Emporia," has
recently created a sensation in Kansas literary and political circles with his
first novel, What People Said (1938), the plot of which has to do with a
financial scandal that rocked the State in 1933. Mrs. Farnham, by the
way, is not the only Kansas author who has won the Dodd, Mead &
Company prize; in 1933 it went to Mrs. L. M. Alexander of Baldwin for
her novel, Candy.
Sunflowers, privately printed by Willard Wattles in 1914, is the earliest
among several anthologies of Kansas poetry. It made a brave showing for
the prairie muse with such selections as Ingalls' "Opportunity," W. H.
Carruth's "Each in His Own Tongue," Eugene F. Ware's "John Brown"
and "Three States," Ellen P. Allerton's "Walls of Corn," Harry Kemp's
"A Wheat Field Phantasy," Wattles' "Carrie Nation" and "Challenge to
Youth," Sol Miller's "Pawpaws Ripe," and Charles L. Edson's "My Sage-
Brush Girl" with its fine lines:
I know who wielded the flaming sword that drove my tribe before me
Into the dusty desert wide, where all the flowers are dead;
Know why we met in a rainless land when the dream of dreams came
o'er me;
We were the disinherited kin of the lords of meat and bread.
LITERATURE 133
Two later anthologies are Contemporary Kansas Poetry (1927), edited
by Helen Rhoda Hoopes, and Kansas Poets (1935), edited by Henry
Harrison. Many of the selections in these volumes originally appeared in
The Harp, a magazine of verse established at Larned in 1925 by Dr.
Israel Newman. Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Wallace assumed its management in
1926, with May Williams Ward as editor, and it continued under these
auspices until its demise in 1932. Its editor received the Poetry Society of
America award in 1937 for her Dust Bowl sequence.
Esther Clark Hill, who assisted Willard Wattles in preparing the first
anthology of Kansas poetry, had several volumes of verse to her credit at
the time of her death in 1932. In Whitelaw Saunders' What Laughing
God? published by the Poetry Society of Kansas in 1936, and Kenneth
Porter's The High Plains (1938), the collected work of two gifted Kansas
poets has been given permanent form.
Contemporary Kansas literature, according to Nelson Antrim Crawford,
is what might be expected "of a State with the population of Kansas, its
geographical position, and its recent history." And he adds: "I for one
should be glad if Kansas literature would take off its cap and gown and
hood and be frankly drunk with the juice of art." In truth, much of that
literature has emanated from writers of pronounced academic background
and is invested with a pronounced classroom sobriety. But happily Mr.
Crawford's own work is characterized by no spirit of dusty scholarship.
After serving for several years as head of the department of journalism
at Kansas State College, he has since given most of his time to writing
and editing. His "Carrying of the Ghost" won the Kansas poetry award
in 1920, and among his novels are A Man of Learning (1928) and
Unhappy Wind (1930) the former a sharp satire on the American
educator.
Neither can any taint of acute academicism be rightfully attributed to
the work of William Herbert Carruth, for more than thirty years profes-
sor of modern languages and literature at the University of Kansas. In
addition to much professional work as writer and editor, Professor Car-
ruth found time to compile a two-volume anthology of Kansas in Litera-
ture (1900) and to create such books of general interest as Letters to
American Boys (1907), Each in His Own Tongue and Other Poems
(1909), and Verse Writing (1917). With the single exception of Ingalls'
"Opportunity," no poem by a Kansas author has been so widely and
frequently quoted as "Each in His Own Tongue," which begins:
134 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
A Fire-Mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
And a face turned from the clod,
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
Numerous others besides Professor Carruth have helped to make the
university at Lawrence a notable center of activity in scholarly and crea-
tive writing, although only a few can be mentioned here. Frank W.
Blackmar, dean of the Graduate School for many years after 1896, has a
long list of historical and sociological studies to his credit, including The
Story of Human Progress (1896), a History of Higher Education in
Kansas (1900), and Life of Charles Robinson, First Governor of Kansas
(1902) ; he also edited the Cyclopedia of History of Kansas. Frank H.
Hodder, chosen head of the department of history and political science
in 1908, is author of The Civil Government of Kansas (1895) and
Outlines of American History (1911), and editor of Audubon's Western
Journal (1905). While occupying a prominent post in the history depart-
ment from 1902 to 1916, Carl L. Becker published Political Parties in the
Province of New York, 1760-1775 (1908), Kansas (1910), and Begin-
nings of the American People (1915). Selden L. Whitcomb, in the depart-
ment of comparative literature, has published four volumes of original
verse, in addition to The Study of a Novel (1905), Autumn Notes in
Iowa (1914), and other prose works. Margaret Lynn, professor of Eng-
lish literature, has to her credit Stepdaughter of the Prairie (1914) and
Free Soil (1920), the latter a compelling narrative of the struggle between
abolitionist and pro-slavery forces in territorial Kansas. More recently,
Alfred M. Lee, in the department of journalism, has published an account
of The Daily Newspaper in America (1937) ; and John Ise, in the depart-
ment of economics, has produced Sod and Stubble (1937), a story of
pioneer days in Kansas.
Of past and present faculty members at Kansas State College, Nelson
A. Crawford has previously been mentioned in these notes. Charles Elkins
Rogers, head of the department of journalism, is the author of Journalistic
Vocations (1931); and Fred A. Shannon of the history department has
written The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861
1865, which won a Pulitzer prize for the best piece of American historical
research work in 1929, and An Economic History of the People of the
United States (1935).
LITERATURE 135
Among non-academic writers on subjects of specialized interest, one of
the most prominent has been George P. Morehouse, whose published
works include The Kama, or Kaw, Indians and Their History (1908),
An Historic Trail (1909), Padilla, the Priest of the Plains (1915), Pre-
historic Man in Kansas (1917), and Archaeology of Kansas (1918).
William Y. Murphy, for many years editor and proprietor of the Hutch-
inson News, has written a volume on The Near East (1913), in addition
to two books of travel sketches. Gustav N. Malm of Lindsborg, artist as
well as writer, is the author of Charley Johnson: A Study of the Swedish
Immigrant (1909), as well as of a play entitled Harute (1919). Paul
Jones, newspaper publisher of Lyons, in his Quivira (1929) and Coronado
and Quivira (1937), supports the thesis that the ancient city sought by
Coronado in 1541 centered about the present town site of Lyons. Dr. Karl
Menninger, a well-known psychiatrist of Topeka, has reached a wide
popular audience with his books on The Human Mind (1930) and Man
against Himself (1938).
Though work of serious import has taken an increasingly prominent
place in the literature of recent years, entertainment for young and old is
still the primary purpose of many Kansas authors. Especially prolific in
this field have been Thomas C. Hinkle, who specializes in animal stories
for children ; James William Earp, whose tales of railroad life are familiar
to readers of the popular magazines ; and Edna Becker, who has published
several volumes of stories and verse for younger readers. In the realm of
detective fiction, Kirke Mechem's Frame for Murder was a 1935 selection
of the "Crime Club." Entertainment and edification are happily mingled
in Arthur E. Hertzler's The Horse and Buggy Doctor, which describes the
author's experiences as a country doctor in Kansas.
The list of writers who have been residents of Kansas for a time, but
whose literary reputations were gained elsewhere, contains several promi-
nent names. Frank Harris, noted Irish- American journalist and author,
attended the University of Kansas in the early 1870*5, and later worked
on a ranch in the Flint Hills country an experience described in his
book, My Reminiscences as a Cowboy (1930). Kate Stephens, from 1879
to 1885 professor of Greek at the University of Kansas, later wrote
Delphic Kansas (1911), Life at Laurel Town: In Anglo Saxon Kansas
(1920), and In a State University of the Middle West, besides several
books of more general appeal. Dorothy Canfield Fisher, novelist and
essayist, was born at Lawrence, where her father was a member of the
university faculty. Albert Bigelow Paine, friend, biographer, and literary
executor of Mark Twain and the author of many books in various fields,
136 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
lived for a while in Fort Scott and has further association with the State
through his collaboration with William Allen White in Rhymes by Two
Friends (1893). Florence Finch Kelly acquired both bachelor's and mas-
ter's degrees at the University of Kansas in the early i88o's, and her first
book, With Hoops of Steel (1900), is a story of the cattle country. The
poets Harry Kemp and Claude McKay also studied at the university;
Kemp afterward worked as a harvest-hand in the Kansas wheat fields, and
a number of his poems have to do with the Kansas scene. Langston
Hughes, equally prominent with McKay among present-day Negro poets,
spent part of his boyhood in the "Mud Town" quarter of Topeka, and
later lived in Lawrence. Still another Negro writer of verse, Frank Mar-
shall Davis, was a student at Kansas State College. Meridel Le Sueur is
an expatriate Kansan whose short stories have frequently appeared' in
prominent American magazines; her Corn Village, an unflattering sketch
of a small Kansas town, aroused no little discussion upon its appearance
in Scribner's Magazine a few years ago.
A notable landmark in the State's literary history is the Kansas Magazine,
which began publication in January 1872. William H. Carruth wrote in
1900: "It would strain the resources of rhetoric to express the mingled feel-
ings of wonder and pride with which this literary meteor was viewed by
the people of the State." In its brief career of less than two years, under the
successive editorship of Capt. Henry King and James W. Steele, this first
Kansas Magazine did some excellent pioneer work in cultivating a regional
literature. The contributions of Henry King, designated "the first Kansas
story-teller" by William Allen White, depicted the real estate "boomers"
and young Civil War veterans then entering the State. The short stories
that James Steele wrote for the magazine under his own and the pen name
of "Deane Monahan" were later collected in a book called Sons of the
Border (1873). Contributors from outside the State included Walt Whit-
man, John Hay, and James Redpath.
Steele revived the Kansas Magazine in 1886, but again gave it up two
years later; and a periodical appeared under the same name from 1909 to
1912. It was once more revived in 1933, and is now issued annually under
the editorship of Charles E. Rogers and Helen Hostetter of Kansas State
College.
Art
KANSAS art, like Kansas literature, was born amid the strife and
chaos of Territorial days. The first large group of settlers were
concerned primarily with politics and morality and had little time or
aptitude for painting and sculpture. Yet a few were impelled to record,
with motives similar to those of a traveler who photographs a scene he
wishes to preserve, the novel conditions in which they found themselves.
With little or no professional instruction, it is doubtful if they thought of
themselves as artists in the accepted sense. They left, however, valuable
drawings and paintings portraying important events of the Territorial
struggle.
Among such "primitives" in the collection of the State Historical So-
ciety are the illustrations in the 12 -volume diary of Samuel J. Reader, a
Topeka pioneer. Having taken a homestead near North Topeka in 1855,
Reader devoted himself, during the following 54 years, to a written and
pictorial account of his life in the State a narrative illustrated with pen
and ink drawings, and by oils and water colors. Reader was self-taught;
and although his figures are crudely drawn and awkwardly proportioned,
his perspective is sound and his handling of color is original and full of
variety. In his treatment of detail he strives for literal accuracy.
Some of the most eventful days in Kansas history are described in
Reader's diary. He was a soldier in the Free State Guards and fought in
the battle of Hickory Point. During the Civil War he saw action at the
Big Blue with the Second Regiment, Kansas Militia. Five of his illustra-
tions, enlarged, hang in the museum of the State Historical Society. These
include oil paintings of his meeting with John Brown, the Second Regi-
ment in action at the Big Blue, and the battle of Hickory Point. Two inci-
dents of Price's raid are portrayed in water color: a Confederate cavalry
charge, and a group of Union prisoners with Confederate troops after the
battle.
Other sketches of pioneer scenes preserved at the historical museum are
the pen and ink drawings of John F. Ayr, J. E. Rice, and William Brey-
man. Ayr and Rice, who settled in Lawrence soon after its founding, made
MEMORIAL TO PIONEER WOMEN, TOPEKA
1
ART 139
several sketches of the early town. Breyman's drawing of the prison at
Lecompton, where he and a score of other Free Staters were confined,
gives a graphic impression of the place.
The years immediately following the establishment of peace in Kansas
were almost barren in the fine arts. Kansans of the period found the task
of wringing an existence from the stubborn soil or developing their mer-
cantile enterprises too exacting for leisure interests. The spirit of the times
is symbolized in an amusing way by a canvas in the State Historical So-
ciety's collection representing a mammoth watermelon from which a
farmer, having climbed upon it with a ladder, has chopped out a plug as
large as a wheelbarrow.
Also belonging to this period is a collection of scroll-saw woodwork by
the late J. T. Glenn, pioneer resident in Wamego. Glenn used native black
walnut to fashion intricate bookcases, writing desks, and picture frames,
and miniature churches which served as clock cases. Several items in this
unique group, which is on exhibition in the historical society, incorporate
fine filigreed effects, while others are somewhat overweighted with orna-
mental curlicues.
The aboriginal Indians of Kansas produced baskets, bead work, and
pottery, and Indian craftsmen at the Potawatomi and Kickapoo reserva-
tions in northeast Kansas still practice these arts. Many outstanding ex-
amples of Indian artifacts and of arts and crafts have been collected in
Kansas museums, notably at the State university and Fort Hays State
Teachers' College.
Much of the success of the Kansas agricultural exhibit at the Philadel-
phia Centennial Exposition of 1876 was due to Henry Worrall, its de-
signer. Worrall's oil painting of the exhibit hangs in the State historical
museum.
There were a few attempts to stimulate the arts during the i88o's,
notably the organization in 1883 of the State Art Association. The asso-
ciation aimed to establish a permanent art collection in Topeka, hold an-
nual competitive exhibitions for Kansas artists, and maintain an art school.
The first loan exhibit was opened in the Topeka Public Library on March
1 6, 1885, and the first session of the school began the following year.
After a short time the school failed to attract students, membership in the
association dwindled, and the organization lapsed into inactivity. The art
collection, however, supplemented by recent additions, is still on exhibi-
tion in the library at Topeka. Among its paintings, a realistic work by
Alfred Montgomery depicts a barrel, a scoop shovel, a partly-filled sack,
and a dozen ears of corn on a granary floor. Montgomery, whose extreme
140 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE"
literalness in rendering commonplace farm subjects aroused facetious com-
ment among his contemporaries and earned him the title of "farmer-
painter," introduced art instruction into Topeka high schools in 1887.
His painting Down on the Farm, exhibited at the Paris Exposition of
1890, was later sold for $10,000. At the same exposition another Kansan,
John Douglas Patrick, was awarded a medal for his huge 9 by 12 foot
canvas entitled Brutality.
John Noble and George M. Stone were the first native-born artists to
win more than local recognition. Noble was born in Wichita, then a roar-
ing frontier cow town. Many of his early paintings were nudes which
adorned the back bars of local saloons. One of these, Cleopatra at the Bath
was mutilated by Carry Nation in her famous raid on the Carey Hotel bar.
Noble's mature work was done in Paris and New York. Most popular are
his marine studies of the Brittany Coast and his paintings of the "magic
city" New York. He was admitted to membership in the National
Academy of Design, an honor since bestowed on two other Kansans:
Henry Salem Hubbell, who studied in Paris under Whistler, Laurens, and
Constant; and Van Dearing Perrine, self-taught "original" of landscape
painting.
George M. Stone, who died in 1931, was best known as a portrait
painter, although his Kansas landscapes, while somewhat academic, have
a good deal of distinction. The State commissioned him to paint many
prominent Kansans. Stone also executed several murals and did historical
paintings dealing with Kansas' past. Frederic Remington, noted painter,
illustrator, and sculptor of Wild West genre, spent some time on a ranch
in Butler County. Here he is said to have obtained material for the works
that made him famous. Arthur Sinclair Covey lived in El Dorado for a
period ; his mural, The Spirit of the Prairies, painted for the Wichita City
Library, brought him wide recognition.
By the 1890*5 Kansas had grown sufficiently wealthy to replace many
of its frame structures with monumental stone buildings. Among the
artisans who came to the State were stone-carvers, including Joe Robaldo
Frazee, son of John Frazee, noted pioneer among American sculptors.
Frazee was employed by Sargent and Company, stone-cutters. The caps on
the Corinthian columns of the State capitol were carved by Jim Haider-
man, who also decorated the Veale Block, Seventh and Quincy Streets.
Heads and coiled dragons carved by John Deliew and George Ward on
the Shawnee County Courthouse (1896), also in Topeka, indicate a high
degree of artistic sensitivity. The ability of these craftsmen to imbue their
stonework with warmth and plasticity is further demonstrated in the
ART 141
classic male and female figures above the entrance to the Santa Fe Hospital
in the same city.
Kansas woodcarvers plied their craft during the i88o's and 1890*5 at
the Abilene plant of the Parker Amusement Company, one of the few
manufacturers of circus and carnival equipment in the country. Artisans
employed by the company carved prancing steeds for merry-go-rounds and
decorated circus wagons with bold rococco flourishes. The collection of the
company, now established at Leavenworth, includes a lion carved in 1880
and a horse carved in 1890, both of white pine. These animals are done
with great verve, nostrils widespread, manes flying, legs tensed to leap.
The sides of old-time circus wagons, now used to form the walls of sheds
at the Parker plant, are encrusted with involved carvings of white pine.
Experts have pronounced these designs exceedingly virile and free in
execution. Noteworthy among Kansas' artisan-artists are the Lindsborg
woodcarvers, whose portrait figurines are excellent in characterization.
It was in the 1890'$, too, that Birger Sandzen, Swedish artist and
teacher, arrived in Kansas, where he has since painted and lectured at
Bethany College, Lindsborg. It was largely through his efforts that Linds-
borg has become an art center unique in the Middle West. As a painter,
Sandzen is best known for his individual interpretations of the scenery of
the Southwest. His technique derives from impressionism, and is marked
by a broad simplicity and a vivid utilization of pure color. His visits to the
Colorado Rockies and the New Mexico deserts have provided themes for
many of his etchings, lithographs, block prints, and water colors. Sandzen
is represented in leading American and European galleries, and his Linds-
borg studio remains a gathering place for Midwestern artists.
In the present century, Kansas has been the home or birthplace of many
talented artists. Outstanding among these are John Steuart Curry and
Henry Varnum Poor. Curry was born in 1897 on a farm near Dunavant
in Jefferson County. He studied at the Chicago Art Institute for two years,
working his way as a bus boy. After several years as an illustrator, he went
to Paris and returned in 1927 to devote himself to a dramatic representa-
tion of American experiences. With a sensibility steeped in the Midwest
and its people he has painted Baptism in Kansas, Kansas Stockman, Hogs
and Rattlesnakes, The Line Storm, Tornado, The Sun Dogs, Spring
Shower, The Gospel Train, and Return of Private Davis. The last three
are owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A brief tour with Ring-
ling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus provided the artist with material
for Plying Cadonas, acquired by the Whitney Museum, New York, and
other notable drawings and paintings of circus life. In 1933 he painted
John Steuart Curry
JOHN BROWN, DETAIL FROM MURAL IN CAPITOL, TOPEKA
two murals for the new Department of Justice Building, Washington, D. C.
Curry's rural baptisms, whirling tornadoes, and earthy barnyard scenes
have an almost savage quality which was not generally admired by
Kansans. There were a few, however, who felt that the artist's work de-
served public encouragement. When Curry left the State in 1934 to be-
come "artist in residence" at Wisconsin University, William Allen White
ruefully declared: "It takes something more than factories, something
more than crowded cities and towns, something more than per capita
wealth to make a civilization, and Kansas would be able to hold her head
a little higher if she could have taken John Curry under her wing."
White's statement began a newspaper campaign that rapidly created local
interest in Curry's art. In 1937 Curry received a $20,000 commission to
paint murals in the Kansas Capitol. This work, according to Curry, will
depict "the historical struggle of man with nature," and will require three
years for completion.
In contrast with Curry, whose art derives from contemporary life, Henry
Varnum Poor finds his inspiration in more traditional sources. Born in
Chapman in 1888 Poor has been termed "the artisan in the artist."
Though his studies in art did not achieve full scope until he was past
thirty, he is a good craftsman and prolific producer in painting, sculpture,
MUNICIPAL ART MUSEUM, WICHITA
and pottery; and his designed urns, houses, furniture, and tile work. Poor
is the leading American craftsman in ceramics. His pottery, done in the
difficult Persian technique which requires rapid glazing and prompt fir-
ing, has been purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With his
daughter Anne, Poor painted murals in the new Department of Justice
Building. The Byzantine ceiling of the Union Dime Savings Bank in New
York City is one of his notable tile decorations. His Fisher Boy hangs in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and others of his paintings are in the
foremost American galleries. A resident of New York State for many
years, Poor frequently returns to Kansas. He is a close friend of Birger
Sandzen.
Bertram Hartman, Albert T. Reid, Kenneth Adams, Ward Lockwood,
and Aaron Douglass are artists of Kansas origin. Hartman began his
career at Junction City, where he decorated the walls of a local hotel with
scenes from Robin Hood. His paintings are in the collections of the Whit-
ney Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, and he has done murals for the
New York State Tubercular Hospital. Reid, chiefly known as a cartoonist
144 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
and illustrator, was associated with the Reid-Stone School of Art, opened
at Topeka in 1902. His later work includes murals at the Sabetha post
office, depicting the development of mail transportation in Kansas from
the days of the pony express to the present. Adams and Lockwood are
prominent members of the Taos colony, New Mexico. Douglass, a Negro
born in Topeka in 1898, is well known as an easel and mural painter. A
student of Negro types, he has done murals for Bennett College, Fisk
University, the Sherman Hotel in Chicago, and the Hall of Negro Life
at the Texas Centennial Exposition.
Albert Bloch of Kansas University is a painter of considerable imagina-
tion and sensitivity. He is represented in the Chicago Art Institute, the
Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, and the Phillips Memorial Gallery, Wash-
ington, D. C. His colleagues at the university include Karl Mattern, water
colorist, Raymond Eastwood, an authority on the technique of oil painting,
and Bernard Frazier, who has done distinctive sculptures and dioramas.
John Helm Jr., of the department of design at Kansas State College,
Manhattan, does etchings and water colors of the Kansan scene.
Merrell Gage, Bruce Moore, and Reginald Wentworth are the foremost
Kansan sculptors. Gage, a former pupil of Gutzon Borglum, reflects the
influence of his teacher in his Lincoln and Pioneer Women's Memorial on
the State capitol grounds. Also in Topeka are his Flight, in the foyer of
Memorial Hall, and in Mulvane Art Museum his plaster bust of John
Brown, The Flutist, and Mother and Child. Moore's Pelican Fountain,
designed for the city of Pratt, won the Speyer Memorial Prize in 1935, a
National Academy award. Reginald Wentworth's most recent work is the
panel above the entrance to the new high school at Russel, which depicts
an Indian raid of 1869.
Among local art institutions the Kansas Federation of Art, formed in
1932, has sponsored, together with other events, a noteworthy show of
batiks, jewelry, metalwork, and textile designs by Kansas craftsmen. C. A.
Seward (18841939), first director of the federation and its president in
1937, did etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs. He helped organize the
Prairie Printmakers in 1930. He was also active in the Wichita art group,
together with William Dickerson, painter, printmaker, and director of the
Wichita Art Association's art school.
The Topeka Art Group, organized in 1924, is fostered by the depart-
ment of art at Washburn College. Wallace Baldinger, head of the depart-
ment, and his associate, James A. Gilbert, are painters of local distinction.
Carl Bolmar, Topeka artist and critic, works in oils, water colors, and
ART 145
chalk plates. He is employed by the Topeka State Journal, the last large
daily in Kansas to use chalk plate illustrations.
The formation of the Kansas unit of the Federal Art Project in 1936,
revealed a hitherto unsuspected reservoir of talent. Three hundred pic-
tures by project artists have been placed on permanent exhibition; oils,
prints, and water colors have been loaned to fifty institutions; murals
have been painted for the Topeka High School, the State College, Man-
hattan, and the University of Kansas, Lawrence. The Index of American
Design, a division of the Kansas Art Project, has unearthed, classified, and
sketched more than two hundred pieces of Americana.
In sum, Kansas art seems to have entered a period of indigenous
growth. A realistic attitude is in evidence among the younger artists, many
of whom are inclined to the belief that man's art should in a large measure
be concerned with the conditions of his life. In this and in other respects
Kansas art participates in the general trend of Midwestern art. Benton of
Missouri, Wood of Iowa, and Curry of Kansas have outlined a regional
program which is certain to be taken into account by other artists.
Music and the Theater
PIONEERS from New England, traveling westward in the i85o's,
fortified their spirits with the stirring and prophetic cadences of
Whittier's son of "The Kansas Emigrants," written for the first company
of emigrants and "sung when they started, sung as they rode, and sung
in the new home."
Temperamental differences in Northern and Southern character were
reflected in the pioneer Kansan's songs. New England settlers preferred
the old Puritan hymns, and the more popular of their secular ballads, such
as "Baby's Gone," "Empty Is the Cradle," and "Willie Has Gone with
the Angels," were of a definitely lugubrious nature; while such sprightly
sentimental ditties as "The Yellow Rose of Texas Beats the Belle of Ten-
nessee" and "Sweet Violets, Fairer than All the Roses," were introduced
by settlers from the South.
The first decade of Kansas State history paralleled the War between the
States and the period of Reconstruction. Kansas soldiers entered their first "
battle singing a contemporary song that breathed the Kansan spirit of that
day, when Gen. Nathaniel Lyon's volunteers from the newly created
State charged a superior force of Confederates at Wilson's Creek on
August 10, 1 86 1, singing "John Brown's Body." Lyon was killed and his
little command was driven from the field, but "John Brown's Body"
became one of the most potent battle songs of the war.
The thousands of settlers who entered Kansas in the decade following
the Civil War brought with them the popular tunes of the time, and to
accompany these they wrote ballads, some humorous, some plaintive, de-
scribing the tribulations of pioneer life. Especially popular among such
ballads were "Frank Baker," sung to the tune of the "Irish Washer-
woman," and "Kansas Land," sung to the tune of the old hymn "Beulah
Land." A specimen verse with chorus from the latter goes as follows:
We went away awhile last fall
A month or so and that was all ;
We earned enough to last us through,
Up to this time we made it do.
146
MUSIC AND THE THEATEk 147
Chorus :
Oh, Kansas sun, hot Kansas sun,
As to the highest bluff we run
We look away across the plain
And wonder if it ne'er will rain,
And as we look upon our corn
We think but little of our farm.
The first formal musical organization in Kansas was a band of four
pieces formed in 1854 by Forest Savage in the then newly founded town of
Lawrence. But the first serious approach to the art came in 1869 with
the founding of the Topeka Music Union. Mrs. Samuel J. Crawford, wife
of the Civil War Governor, was a leader of the organization, serving as
pianist at its recitals. The Modoc Club, one of the best known male
choruses in the Middle West, was organized at Topeka in 1876, and sub-
sequently toured the country from coast to coast. The club is still active in
the capital city. A faculty member of Washburn College returned to
Topeka in 1878, after a year at Harvard, and organized what is said to be
the first college glee club west of the Mississippi.
"Home on the Range," composed in 1873, was the first widely popular
song of genuine Kansas origin. Dr. Brewster Higley, a homesteader on
Beaver Creek in Smith County, wrote the words, and Dan Kelly, who
lived near Harlan in the same county, composed the music.
Chalkley ("Chalk") M. Beeson, a Dodge City frontiersman and a tal-
ented musician, became proprietor of the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge
City through a mortgage foreclosure in 1876. Determined to make his
establishment a center of culture as well as a rendezvous for thirsty cow-
punchers, he instructed his associate, Roy Drake, to provide the customers
with high class music. Drake hired Harry Adams, an itinerant musician,
and one "Professor" Miller, who had come West to teach music. With
these two and Beeson, Drake formed a creditable four-piece orchestra.
"Chalk" Beeson also helped to organize the Dodge City Cowboy Band,
which met for its first rehearsal on May 27, 1879. Soon after its formation
the band was financed by the local cattlemen's association, and each bands-
man displayed on his broad-brimmed hat the cattle brand insignia of an
individual sponsor. The Cowboy Band achieved national renown in the
following decades, and appeared in most of the larger cities of the United
States. Attired in full cowboy regalia, it provided "Wild West" atmos-
phere and a good quality of instrumental music.
Although music and the flowing bowl are traditionally allied, the pro-
hibition movement added more to the music of Kansas (granted that
scraps of doggerel set to simple tunes may be called music) than did the
COWBOY BAND, DODGE CITY(1884)
fermented grape or the distilled corn. The Kansas Women's Christian
Temperance Union compiled lists of "battle hymns" which, during the
i88o's, were taught to children and included in programs at temperance
rallies. Seldom creative musicians, the dry crusaders were principally con-
cerned with inspirational words, and in most instances borrowed the
melody from a convenient hymnal. Among the songs dear to militant
champions of prohibition were "We'll Turn Our Glasses Down," "Come
and Join Our Army/' and "We Are a Band of Soldiers."
Kansans who served in the World War sang the ubiquitous "Old Gray
Mare" and "There's a Long, Long Trail," but scarcely less popular were
the Rabelaisian strains of "Christopher Columbo" and "Glorious, Glori-
ous," traditional favorites of the fraternity house. "The Dying Hobo,"
"Frankie and Johnny," "I've Been Working on the Railroad," and other
ballads introduced by itinerant harvest hands in the pre-combine days,
were revived by khaki-clad Kansans whose grandsires in uniform had
chanted "John Brown's Body."
The Oratorio Society of Lindsborg, one of the country's famous choral
ensembles, was organized at Bethany College in 1882. The original choir
of forty voices has since grown to a chorus of five hundred. Annual pres-
MUSIC AND THE THEATER 149
entations of The Messiah and other great choral works attract thousands
of music lovers to this village on the remote Kansas prairie.
Encouraged by the response accorded the Oratorio Society of Lindsborg,
other Kansas colleges have developed a variety of music festivals. The
College of Emporia, Southwestern College, Bethel College, Baker Uni-
versity, and the State Teachers' Colleges at Hays, Emporia, and Pittsburg
have all been active in this field. Music has become an established course
in the curriculum of every college in the State.
The departments of music in the high schools of Kansas have been
notably developed during recent years. The first accredited course of music
study in the secondary schools of any city in the United States was given
at Parsons in 1908. Later, Kansas was one of the first States to require
four years of college preparation for high school music instructors. Today
every high school in the State has one or more musical organizations.
Kansas is especially known throughout the Middle West for its music
contests, an Old World custom revived in Kansas through the influence
of the Swedes at Lindsborg and the Welsh at Emporia. Annual contests at
Hays, Emporia, Lawrence, Winfield, Lindsborg, and Pittsburg are at-
tended by thousands of high school students and others. A recent out-
growth of this activity is the county music festival, in which organizations
from county high schools meet in the chief towns or cities for a mass
presentation of musical programs, under the direction of conductors sup-
plied by the colleges.
The knowledge and appreciation of music thus being fostered will
doubtless result in increased original composition. Though Kansas has not
yet gained much attention in this field, outstanding work has already been
accomplished. Dean Thurlow Lieurance, of Wichita, has won wide recog-
nition for his interpretations of Indian music; Dr. Charles Skilton, of the
University of Kansas, is distinguished for his choral and orchestral works,
including several on American Indian themes; and Professor Carl Pryor,
also of the University of Kansas, has written many excellent instrumental
compositions. Of note in the concert and operatic field are Laura Towns-
ley McCoy of Great Bend, Kathleen Kersting of Wichita, Harold B.
Challiss of Atchison, and Marian Talley formerly of Colby.
Karl Krueger, of Atchison, is the best known of Kansan conductors.
Formerly conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Krueger re-
turned to the Middle West in 1934 to form the Philharmonic Orchestra
of Kansas City, Missouri. Under his direction this latter group has devel-
oped into an orchestra of national importance. In the summer of 1937,
150 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
Mr. Krueger served with notable success as guest conductor in Vienna,
Austria.
Since the advent of the "talkies," the dust on Kansas stage boards has
settled heavily. But in the heyday of the "opera house," the State was vis-
ited by most of the leading theatrical troupes. Repertoire companies of the
iSyo's toured from Kansas City on the east to turbulent Dodge City on
the frontier. Prominent among these companies was the Louis Lord
Troupe, which, to judge from contemporary newspaper notices, was all
but worshiped by drama-hungry pioneers.
In Hays, Abilene, Dodge City (the "Cowboy Capital"), and other cat-
tle towns, the entertainers performed in saloons and dance halls. Eddie
Foy made his first successful appearance at the Springer (Comique) Music
Hall in Dodge City on July 15, 1878. Accompanying him on the same
bill were Belle Lament, Jim Thompson, and Nola and Billie Forrest. Of
his engagement in Dodge City, Foy wrote in later years: "I wish I could
present to an audience of today an adequate picture of one of those old
western amusement halls. Writers and artists have tried to do it, the movies
have tried it, but all in vain the sounds are lacking the songs and pat-
ter at one end, where the show began at eight o'clock and continued until
long after midnight; the click and patter of poker chips, cards, dice,
wheels and other devices at the other end. . . . All around the room, up
above, a sort of mezzanine, ran a row of boxes and they were boxes, in-
deed, as plain as a packing case where one might sit and drink and watch
the show."
Topeka, Atchison, Leavenworth, and other major cities in eastern Kan-
sas saw most of the dramatic hits of the i88o's. In the Corinthian Hall at
Atchison Thomas W. Keene appeared in Richard 111, John T. Raymond
as Mark Twain's character of "Colonel Mulberry Sellers," and Mrs. Sam-
uel W. Piercy in Deception. Troupes that visited Topeka and the chief
towns on the Missouri River included Mclntyre and Heath's minstrels,
and the "Anthony and Ellis Mammoth Ideal Uncle Tom's Cabin Com-
pany" with Kate Parkington as Topsy.
Between 1890 and 1925, Topeka, Wichita, and other major cities were
on the regular circuit of road shows starring foremost actors or presenting
the most popular musical comedians. Topeka audiences saw Joseph Jef-
ferson, Robert Mantell, and Frederick Ward in many of their best known
vehicles.
At present, partly because of its proximity to Kansas City, Missouri,
Topeka is visited by but one or two road shows a year. Wichita, farther
MUSIC AND THE THEATER 151
removed from Kansas City, sees a larger number of legitimate stage pro-
ductions. The stock company and the tent show, popular twenty-five years
or more ago, have been recently revived. Several companies play profitable
engagements in the larger cities, and during the summer months make a
tent show tour of the smaller towns.
The decline of the commercial theater in Kansas has been happily par-
alleled by the rise of little theaters in the colleges and larger cities. Little
Theater units are active at Pratt, Liberal, Kinsley, Ulysses, Garden City,
Great Bend, Dodge City, and Hutchinson. A civic theater was organized
at Topeka in 1937. The Peter Pan Players, organized at Wichita in 1931
under the sponsorship of the American Association of University Women,
presents five plays for children each year, with casts restricted to children
in elementary schools.
Dramatic groups are active at Washburn College, Baker University,
Southwestern College, University of Kansas, Kansas State College, St.
Benedict's College, Mount St. Scholastica College, and the State Teachers'
Colleges at Hays, Emporia, and Pittsburg. Outstanding productions have
been presented by the Kansas Players, of the University of Kansas; the
Gilson Players, of Emporia State Teachers' College, directed by Franklin
Gilson; and the Twin College Players, of St. Benedict's College and
Mount St. Scholastica College.
Kansans of note in the contemporary theater include Fred Stone and
Hale Hamilton of Topeka, Howard Thompson of Paola, and Brock Pem-
berton of Emporia. Pemberton, once a reporter on the Emporia Gazette,
has produced among other Broadway successes Enter Madame, Miss Lulu
Bett, Strictly Dishonorable, Ceiling Zero, and Personal Appearance. How-
ard Thompson has written several musical comedies, the best known of
which are Little Jesse James and East Is West. One of the leading char-
acters in Little Jesse James is "a girl from Oskaloosa, Kansas," and a song
in the same production is entitled "My Home Town in Kansas." Hale
Hamilton starred in George M. Cohan's Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford;
and he has appeared as a supporting player with James K. Hackett, E. H.
Sothern, and John Barrymore.
Fred Stone, comedian of stage and screen, spent his boyhood in North
Topeka. Old residents recall that he acted in amateur theatricals sponsored
by the Kansas Avenue Methodist Church. At the age of nine he stretched
a tight wire across his back yard to train for a career under the "big top."
A few years later he electrified North Side residents by walking across
Kansas Avenue on a wire fastened three stories high. Later he joined a
152 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
circus. His first success on the stage was in the role of the scarecrow in
The Wizard of Oz. With the late David Montgomery he formed the fa-
mous team of Montgomery and Stone. In 1935 he appeared with his
daughter Paula in Sinclair Lewis's The Jayhawker, a play based on the
career of a distinguished citizen of Kansas, James H. Lane.
THE pioneers who settled along the northeastern border of Kansas in
the 1850'$ found timber and stone with which to build their homes.
They set up log cabins or simple one-room houses of stone. Less often
they built tent-shaped structures of poles thatched with grass, called "hay
houses." These were little more than "straws in the wind" and were aban-
doned as soon as possible, but they served their purpose as easily and
quickly erected buildings. The first church services in Lawrence were held
in a hay house.
The settlers who pushed westward to the treeless Plains found no stone,
while the only timber was scrubby willow and cottonwood along the shal-
low streams. Thus they were forced to build with the only material avail-
able the earth itself. The dugout, a sod-covered hole, at one time out-
numbered any other kind of dwelling in western Kansas. Sodhouses, or
"soddies," were built with heavy slabs of top soil bound together by roots
of growing buffalo grass. The "soddy" was box-like, squat, and dingy, its
roof pitched at no greater angle than was required to shed rain.
A few sodhouses were in use as late as 1938, but the rare soddy that
stands today is preserved largely because of its historical interest. There
are Kansans, however, who still remember how to build a soddy. In 1933,
when living quarters had to be provided for a Civilian Conservation Camp
stationed near Dodge City, soddy experts were found who built satisfac-
tory barracks of earth.
Even after the first decades of settlement, permanent dwellings were
not designed in the contemporary Greek Revival style of the eastern sec-
tions of the United States. Temple porticos, carved entablatures, and fluted
Doric columns were elaborations whose transplanting was precluded by
the rigors of the Kansas frontier. Practicality was the order of the times.
The four walls were unadorned save by openings to provide light and
entrance ; the roof was designed to shut out the elements ; reasonable com-
fort was the ultimate aim of the builder.
The grim simplicity of early Kansan houses was not due to a lack of
aesthetic sense in their builders, but rather to the fact that there were few
153
A SOD RANCH HOUSE (1898)
skilled masons or carpenters in the territory. Sawmills and brickyards were
scarce, and the construction of the humblest dwelling involved prodigious
labors. Buildings of architectural interest were nevertheless erected. Fore-
most among these scattered few is the old Planter's Hotel in Leavenworth,
built in 1856. It is a three- story brick structure ornamented with two ori-
els, a porte-cochere, and a cornice trimmed with a double band of dentils.
Several frame houses built in the early i86o's in the ghost town of
Albany, in Nemaha County, reveal a definite New England influence. A
two-story structure beside the dusty road that was Main Street in the one-
time village has a hip roof, small window panes, and an inset doorway.
A nearby farmhouse of similar design has a low-roofed addition at the
rear, with a deep porch under the eave. The design of these structures,
however, is not typical of the architecture in the State.
The construction of railroads through Kansas in the iSyo's enabled set-
tlers to receive portable houses f.o.b. They consisted of a framework on
which wide planks were nailed; the cracks were then sealed with strips
and the plank roof was usually covered with tarpaper. Meagerly furnished,
portable houses were sufficiently comfortable for bachelors proving home-
stead claims, and for merchants intent on garnering quick profits in boom
ARCHITECTURE 155
towns. Sometimes when the permanency of a prairie settlement became
assured, entire blocks of portable houses were set afire and destroyed to
make way for substantial buildings.
The German-Russian immigrants who settled in Rush and Ellis counties
in 1875 at first made their homes in board "tents," but these makeshifts
were soon discarded in favor of the somewhat less crude dugout and sod-
house. For a while many German-Russians clung to the European custom
of living in compact villages where they kept their stock, driving to and
from the fields each day. The German-Russians in time became thoroughly
Americanized. Today their villages are like other prairie communities, ex-
cept for the large churches, so favored by these people. Their homes inva-
riably stand in the shadows of lofty spires that rise from the land like
gigantic carpet tacks. Poetically termed "Cathedrals of the Plains," these
edifices are adorned with modified Gothic, Romanesque, and Byzantine
details.
In the i88o's the more prosperous Kansans replaced their plain houses
with ornate structures weighted down with undigested Old World styles.
Mansard roofs bristled with wrought iron, towers sprouted from saw-
tooth gables, and sharp-eaved dormer windows peeped coyly from beneath
gingerbread cornices. Many of these structures, their rampant decorations
antithetic to the current trend for simplicity and functionalism, are still
standing in Topeka, Lawrence, Leavenworth, and Atchison. An architect,
viewing the Victorian mansions of Atchison, once remarked, "It's the re-
sult of a Kansas cyclone and nobody ever did anything about it."
Many courthouses built in the eighties and nineties are Richardsonian-
Romanesque in design. The Riley County Courthouse at Manhattan and
the Harvey County Courthouse at Newton, with almost identical exteriors,
are outstanding examples of this style of architecture. Plans for these and
many other courthouses of this period were bought by county commis-
sioners from salesmen who went through the State with folders containing
a dozen or more courthouse designs, all of which were influenced by
Richardson.
The State Capitol at Topeka is of neoclassic design, with a hexastyle
portico, a balustrade running the length of the roof, and pilastered pedi-
ments along the side walls. E. Townsend Mix prepared the original plan.
John G. Haskell, who also designed the Cottonwood Falls Courthouse,
superintended the construction of the first or east wing, completed in
1866. The remaining three wings, built at intervals between 1866-1903
and joined cross- wise, follow the general plan of the east wing. The center
of the structure is crowned with a lofty copper-covered dome. The capitol,
156 THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE
whose design was inspired by that of the National Capitol, has been pic-
turesquely though not entirely accurately described as "the farthest western
advance of Graeco-Roman culture."
Since 1915 many of the old county courthouses have been replaced by
modern structures. Noteworthy among these is the neoclassic Wyandotte
County Courthouse at Kansas City. It is a five-story temple-like building
with hexastyle portico, elaborate cornice ornamented with rococo flour-
ishes, and an attic story, decorated with swags. The building was designed
by Wight and Wight of Kansas City, Missouri.
Representative of the late 1920*5, when communities vied with each
other in building monumental public schools, is the Topeka Central High
School, designed by T. R. Griest of that city. It is a slender three-story
structure of brick, trimmed with stone, its three wings forming a half
hexagon. A tall Gothic tower rises above the central wing. Less striking
architecturally, but of greater bulk, is the Wyandotte High School in Kan-
sas City, a huge H-shaped building embellished with Lombardic-Roman-
esque detail. Sculptures by Emil Robert Zettler, based on Indian forms,
adorn the facades. The school was designed by Hamilton, Fellows, and
Nedved of Chicago, in association with Joseph W. Radotinsky of Kansas
City, Kansas.
The five-story Reno County Courthouse, erected in 1930, with its set-
backs and angular recesses above the main doorway, is a radical departure
from traditional architecture. It was designed by W. E. Hulse of Hutchin-
son, Kansas. The floor plan is unusual in its high-ceilinged main room,
surrounded by a mezzanine similar to that of banking houses.
A wave of school construction, motivated principally by aid from the
Federal Government, has swept across the State since 1930. The design of
the high school at Russell, completed in 1938, follows the principles of
the "form and functionalists," set forth in the late nineteenth century by
Louis Sullivan and the Chicago School, and is a notable example of the
"prairie" style, with both plan and structural material adapted to the local
environment. It is a three-story rectangular building of local limestone,
with a low-pitched tile roof. Except for the entrance, flanked by fluted
piers and surmounted by a sculptured panel, the structure is bare of adorn-
ment. A. R. Mann of Hutchinson was the architect.
The Wichita High School, North, is another excellent example of the
prairie style of architecture. Glenn Thomas was the architect. It is a buff
brick building with a red tile roof, and lines similar to those of the State
Capitol at Lincoln, Nebraska. A square tower 90 feet high is banded with
ceramic panels depicting buffaloes and Indians in shades of red, blue,
ARCHITECTURE 157
brown, and yellow. The green glazed tower windows are each ornamented
with a red arrow; the main entrance is decorated with polychrome and
terra cotta figures designed by Bruce Moore.
Polychrome sculptures, depicting Indian arts, crafts, and environments,
decorate the buff walls of the Wichita Art Museum, a cast stone structure
of modern design. Clarence S. Stein, of New York City, was the architect ;
the decorations are by Lee Lawrie. The angular mass of the exterior, aug-
mented by juxtaposed rectangular planes, produces a studied play of light
and shadow.
Two of the finest business structures in Kansas the National Bank
Building and the Capitol Building and Loan Association Building face
each other across Kansas Avenue in Topeka. The 1 4-story bank, of mod-
ern set-back design, is the tallest business structure in Topeka. It was de-
signed by Thomas W. Williamson & Company, of Topeka. The loan asso-
ciation building is a six-story structure of tan brick with a sharp-gabled
roof of red tile. The piers and finials of the south and west facades are
decorated with terra cotta sculptures which symbolize in sunflowers,
sheaves of wheat, and heroic figures, the pioneering phase of Kansas his-
tory. The building was designed by George Grant Elmslie ; the decorations
are the work of Emil Robert Zettler.
The development of residential architecture in Kansas is not unlike that
of any other city in the Middle West. The typical Kansas house is a one-
or two-story frame structure with a large front porch that is often screened
or trellised. The Kansas climate, however, has begun to exert a noticeable
influence on housing construction. Sleeping-porch additions in increasing
number give comfort for sultry summer nights. Indeed, one-story towers,
open on all sides, have been added to otherwise conventional residences.
Unlike the ornate, bracketed, and conical towers of the i88o's these struc-
tures are utilitarian in appearance.
Virtually all contemporary house styles are represented in the restricted
residential areas of Kansas cities. Dutch-Colonial bungalows, trim English
cottages, and adaptations of French and Italian Renaissance villas stand
beside wide-porticoed post-Colonial houses. Residences that stress form,
function, and material with equal emphasis are comparatively rare. Note-
worthy in this connection is the Wichita home of Henry J. Allen, de-
signed by Frank Lloyd Wright. An irregular ell of buff brick with leaded
windows and a low tile roof, the structure appears to be a natural out-
growth of the slope on which it stands.
The typical Kansan farmhouse is a one- or two-story frame structure
that resembles the urban dwelling in almost every detail except the porch.
HOME OF HENRY J. ALLEN, WICHITA
In summer the front porch of a city house is suitably furnished for out-
door living, but the front porch of the average farmhouse is seldom used.
It is often sparely constructed and scarcely ever built to the height and
width of the facade as are many porches of city dwellings.
Reflecting the chief industries of the region, the most prominent struc-
tures on the country skyline are the large wood and stone barns of the
cattle-raising sections; flat-sided grain elevators of wood, concrete, or
sheet metal in the wheat-growing lands ; and concrete silos that look like
stubs of gray chalk dotting the dairying areas. The size and shape of these
structures are entirely utilitarian the barns spread wide to receive stores
of hay; the tall grain elevators, commonly known as "prairie skyscrapers,"
supply the gravity required for rapid loading of grain; and the tubular
silos permit the compact storage that a structure with corners would not
allow, thereby lessening the spoilage caused by exposure to air.
The elevators and grain storage bins at Kansas City and other wheat
centers in the State are austere examples of functional design. These
buildings form huge upright "L's" on the plain. The vertical arm consists
of the elevator, its block-like mass pitted by small square windows. The
horizontal arm at the base of the elevator consists of tubular storage bins
whose curved sides resemble the folds in a giant cartridge belt.
PART II
Cities and Towns
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<#>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Arkansas City
Railroad Stations: 5th Ave. and E St. for Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry.; 6th
and Chestnut Sts. for St. Louis & San Francisco R.R. ; 2nd and Monroe Sts. for
Midland Valley R.R.; Summit and Tyler Sts. for Missouri Pacific R.R.
Bus Stations: SW. corner Summit and Chestnut Sts. for Santa Fe Trail, southern
Kansas, and Red Ball Lines.
Taxis: 24-hour service to all parts of city and outlying districts; fare io0 per person
for 1 8 blocks.
Accommodations: Three hotels, two tourist camps.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, City Building, NE. corner ist and
Central Sts.
Motion Picture Houses: Three.
Golf: 9-hole municipal course in Municipal Park, N. end of Summit St.; greens
fee 250.
Swimming: Municipal Park.
Annual Events: Arkalalah Hallowe'en festival, sponsored by business men.
ARKANSAS CITY (1,075 a ^'> I 3'94^ PP-) pronounced Ar-kan'-sas,
three miles north of the Oklahoma border at the confluence of the Walnut
and Arkansas Rivers, is a shipping and refining center for oil fields at the
north, east, and south. Long lines of tank cars emerge from the city on its
four railroads; freight yards are piled high with incoming shipments of
oil machinery and pipeline supplies. The local oil refinery has a daily ca-
pacity of 20,000 barrels.
The rivers, following almost parallel courses to their junction, flank
the city on the east and west. The business district, atop a hill between the
two streams, has modern shops with tile fagades, and older structures of
native limestone. Summit Street, the main thoroughfare, begins in bottom-
lands along the Arkansas, climbs to the business section, descends through
a residential area on the opposite slope, and trails off in farming country
at the north. Summit Street shop windows, in addition to the usual dis-
plays, also feature various colored trinkets to catch the eye of the Indians.
Because the city caters to oil areas in two States, Oklahoma license plates
are almost as numerous along Summit Street as those of Kansas.
The founders of Arkansas City arrived at the site on January i, 1870.
The settlement, platted the same year, was named Walnut City. It was soon
renamed Adelphi, and subsequently Creswell in honor of the Postmaster
General in President Grant's cabinet. The community was incorporated as
a city under its present name on June 10, 1872.
Although surrounded by bands of hostile Indians, the settlement was
unmolested. This immunity was earned largely through the efforts of
Henry Norton, who arrived in 1870. His honesty in dealing with the In-
161
162 CITIES AND TOWNS
dians immediately won their friendship and, eventually, their unreserved
confidence. He went to their villages unaccompanied and was permitted
to see their religious ceremonies. At his invitation, the Indians visited the
settlement frequently, buying supplies, and trading furs and horses. Occa-
sionally they came in their finest regalia and entertained the settlers with
tribal songs and dances. In payment the whites gave them colored beads,
tasseled handbags, plumed hats, and barbecued meat.
By the end of 1870 the settlement boasted a cluster of stores, a score
of houses, two sawmills, and a newspaper, the Arkansas City Traveler.
Founded by M. G. Mains, this sheet was named for the old riddle tune,
"The Arkansas Traveler," and early issues carried a fiddle below the mast-
head. The community in these years was a rendezvous for horse thieves
who stole stock from settlers in Kansas and drove the animals into Okla-
homa. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, then United States Marshal, made the vicinity
his headquarters during the early seventies. At times, however, settlers ad-
ministered the law as indicated in the following item from the Arkansas
Valley Democrat: "S. P. U.'s take notice: There will be a meeting of the
Stock Protection Union this evening at the Bland School House. Every
member is requested to be present as business of great importance is to be
transacted. Don't fail to come out men. We have work to do."
C. M. Scott of the Traveler, soon afterwards hinted poetically at the
nature of the work done by the Stock Protective Union with:
He found a rope and picked it up,
And walked with it away
It chanced that on the other end,
A horse was hitched, they say;
They found a tree and tied a rope
Unto a swinging limb
It happened that the other end
Was somehow hitched to him.
The steamboat Aunt Sally, first to ascend the Arkansas River to Arkan-
sas City, arrived on a Sunday morning in June 1878. Services were in
progress at the village church, but at the firs!' sound of the steamer whistle
the pastor and the congregation rushed out to welcome the boat. Local
merchants, intent on developing an inland shipping point, promptly pur-
chased the Kansas Miller. On its first trip the vessel grounded on a sand-
bar. Subsequent journeys were unsuccessful and the Kansas Miller, re-
named the Walnut Belle, was converted into a pleasure boat.
The growth of Arkansas City was stimulated in the i88o's by the dis-
covery of gold in the region. Assays indicated rich deposits and the com-
munity seethed with activity. Mining operations revealed but little metal
and the boom soon subsided.
When the first of the Cherokee lands in Oklahoma Territory was opened
in 1889, hundreds of settlers made the run from Arkansas City. Four
years later the Cherokee Strip that land between the original southern
border of Kansas and the corrected southern border (see HISTORY)
was opened to settlers. In the late summer of 1893 between 50,000 and
ARKANSAS CITY 163
60,000 people swarmed into Arkansas City, which at that time had ap-
proximately 5,000 inhabitants. On the day of the rush, September 16,
1893, the streets were deserted by 7 a.m. Those who did not participate
gathered at the south end of town to watch the excitement.
Afoot, on horse, in heavy lumber wagons, buggies, covered wagons, and
all manner of horse-drawn vehicles, the settlers lined up to await the gun-
shot which signified that the Strip was open. Impatient settlers inspected
wagon wheels, harness, and saddles in a last-minute checkup. At high
noon came the signal and the boomers dashed across the line. For an in-
stant the row held unbroken and then, as settlers on fast horses outdis-
tanced the others, it splintered into a tangle of wagons, buggies, and
shouting drivers.
By the beginning of the present century Arkansas City had lost its fron-
tier aspect and had become a conventional market town. The discovery of
oil nearby in 1914 and in the post- War years altered the economic course
of the city. Indians, made rich by wells brought in on their lands in
northern Oklahoma, came to Arkansas City to splurge. They came by
train, on horseback, or even on foot, and returned to their homes in
gleaming new automobiles piled high with gaudy wares. Not a few of the
cars were purchased because of a tricky gadget on the dashboard or a
chrome figurine on the radiator cap.
Two decades of wealth, however, have scarcely changed the outward
appearance of the Indians in the region. Apart from an occasional giant
diamond on a rough brown hand, or a massive gold watch-chain dangling
from a bright-colored shirtfront, there are no marks to distinguish the rich
from the poor. The shabbiest Indian may, as residents put it, "own half
of Oklahoma."
Arkansas City has two flour mills, a meat packing plant, foundries,
creameries, a sand and gravel plant, overall factories, and an oil field ma-
chine shop.
POINTS OF INTEREST
The W. E. COLLINS HOUSE (private), 315 S. B St., a one-story
frame structure, is a tribute to W. E. Collins, a fantastic promoter com-
pared by Kansans to the Col. Mulberry Sellers of Mark Twain's Gilded
Age. Collins, by means of an artful tongue and a flair for baby-kissing,
convinced local citizens in the eighties that he had "wide influence" in the
Senate and House of Representatives. When he offered to visit Washing-
ton, D. C, and exert his power on behalf of the backward river village,
the delighted citizens gave him this house, six lots, and paid his traveling
expenses. His subsequent lobbying was unsuccessful, but a glib explana-
tion of his failure enabled him to remain in the good graces of the towns-
people when he returned.
HIGH BLUFF, E. end of Madison Ave., on the E. bank of the Wal-
nut River was the CAMPING PLACE OF BUFFALO BILL CODY and a party
of approximately half a hundred cavalrymen when they patrolled the bor-
der in 1869 and 1870. The bluff and area immediately surrounding was
164 CITIES AND TOWNS
formerly the property of a Cherokee Indian, Two-Boys-Stray-Shadow, or
James Hightower, as he was more commonly known. In this wooded re-
gion two old Indian pole trails met. The two trails, the Rosebud and the
Arrowhead, went out of use shortly after the white men settled in the
region but faint pole tracks remain at the top of the bluff today.
NATURAL BRIDGE, at the base of the bluff, is formed by two huge
rocks that arch over a spring. On a limestone boulder beneath the arch are
the letters "B. B.," Buffalo Bills's initials carved in 1869. A small star
separates the two letters.
The KANOTEX REFINERY (open by permission of superintend-
ent), M and Tyler Sts., employs approximately 250 men and has a capacity
of between 15,000 and 20,000 barrels of oil daily. The plant manufac-
tures automobile lubricants and gasoline.
Railroad Stations: Union Depot, 2nd and Main Sts., for Atchison Topeka & Santa
Fe Ry., Chicago Burlington & Quincy R.R., Missouri Pacific R.R., and Chicago
Rock Island & Pacific Ry.
Bus Station: 120 N. 5th St. for Missouri Pacific Trailways.
Taxis: Fare io0.
Traffic Regulations: Stop signs at principal intersections. Speed limit 25 miles per
hour.
Accommodations: Four hotels; boarding houses, tourist camps.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 4th St. entrance, Y.M.C.A. Bldg.,
N.E. corner 4th and Commercial Sts.
Theaters and Motion Picture Houses: Memorial Hall (Soldiers' and Sailors' Memo-
rial), 819 Commercial St., occasional road shows. Three motion picture houses.
Athletics: Amelia Earhart stadium and athletic field, i4th and Atchison Sts.; Mis-
souri Pacific baseball grounds, i4th and Utah Sts.; St. Benedict's College field for
intercollegiate sports.
Swimming: Lions' pool in summer, i2th and Commercial Sts. Y.M.C.A. indoor
pool, 321 Commercial St., open for men Mon., Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun.; for women
Tues., Thurs.
Tennis: Shelly Park, i6th and Commercial Sts.; Reisner Park, loth and Kearney
Sts.; four courts at 8th and Santa Fe Sts.; one at 5th and R Sts.; one at 8th and
Mound Sts.
Golf: Forest Hills Course, 0.25 m. W. on US 73, 9 holes, greens fee 5O0.
Ice Skating: Jackson Park.
Boxing: (Intercollegiate) St. Benedict's College gymnasium; occasional professional
boxing, Memorial Hall, 819 Commercial St.
Annual Events: Automobile Industrial Show, Memorial Hall, March; High School
band concerts, 8th and Santa Fe Sts., every Wed. night during June and July; St.
Benedict's College and interscholastic football games, Oct.-Nov. ; American Legion
Armistice Day celebration, Memorial Hall ; Music Week, presented by grade school
children during Christmas Week, Memorial Hall.
ATCHISON (795 alt., 13,024 pop.), on the west bank of the Missouri
River in a vast amphitheater gouged out during the glacial epoch, is sur-
rounded by low hills. This staid little industrial city is rich in historic in-
terest and proud of the nationally famous personages who have claimed
it as their birthplace or former home.
Atchison was laid out with strict attention to symmetry, its streets being
straight and evenly platted. In the narrow valley of White Clay Creek, a
tributary of the Missouri River, that forms a natural dividing line be-
tween the north and south residential districts, are the retail, industrial,
and wholesale districts, and the railroad yards. The stream, where it runs
through the city, is confined in a large storm sewer. Old elms and broad,
well-kept lawns add charm to the residential districts.
While the residential architecture of Atchison clings to the traditional
165
l66 CITIES AND TOWNS
styles of another era, public and commercial architecture follows contem-
porary trends. In downtown Atchison few of the historic buildings re-
main. With the exception of two five-story buildings the Hotel Atchison
and a modern office building the majority of business houses are modest
two-story structures, some with modern fronts. Some of the industrial
plants and business establishments date back to the i88o's. A bank, organ-
ized in 1859 nas a slogan "Older than the State of Kansas," and the Blair
Flour Mill was established in 1866.
Negro residents, who form nearly 10 per cent of the population, are not
segregated, although there is a small district of modest frame dwellings
on the edge of a bluff north and east of the business district that is inhab-
ited almost exclusively by Negroes. A considerable number of the more
prosperous live in comfortable modern homes scattered throughout the
residential sections. Negroes are represented in most of the trades and
professions.
From 1875 to 1938 a toll bridge spanning the Missouri River was the
only connecting link with the Missouri side of the stream. It was replaced
by a free bridge constructed as a PWA project and opened to traffic July
2, 1938.
Recorded history goes back to 1724, when the expedition of M. de
Bourgmont, military commander of the French colony of Louisiana,
crossed what is now Atchison County to establish friendly trade relations
with the Indians of the Platte region. Francois Marie Perrin du Lac, an-
other French explorer, passed through in 1802-1803 and his journal tells
of finding stones that he carried away to be analyzed. Although he lost
them, the stones are believed to have been iron ore.
Lewis and Clark while encamped on Independence Creek six miles
north of Atchison, were the first to celebrate Independence Day on Kansas
soil. On July 4, 1804 they fired a salute in observance of the occasion and
issued an additional gill of whiskey to the men.
In the winter of 1818, a detachment of soldiers, members of the First
Rifle Regiment of Maj. Stephen H. Long's Yellowstone expedition estab-
lished the first military post in Kansas on a large island in the river six
miles south of Atchison. French trappers had previously discovered this
island and christened it Isle au Vache (Cow Island). When Major Long
joined the detachment in July 1819, he brought the first river steamboats
seen in this section. Many members of this expedition were prominent in
the development of the West. Maj. John O' Fallen became one of the
wealthiest and most influential leaders of St. Louis, Mo., and a private,
Bennett Riley, became military Governor of California and was honored
by having Fort Riley (see Tour 3) named for him.
A council was called for August 24, 1819 after the Indians fired on the
soldiers encamped on Cow Island. At the last moment, several chiefs re-
fused to attend because of their disagreement as to precedence in rank, but
peace was declared, according to one account, rather "because of the gun-
fire, rocket and flare displays, and flag hoisting, than because of Major
O'Fallon's eloquence."
By 1850 the California gold rush and the general western trek had
FREE BRIDGE, ATCHISON
brought settlers to this desirable river landing. Most of the homesteaders
were anti-slavery but the Missouri settlers determined to use Atchison as
a wedge in making Kansas a slave State. They filed claims there for the
privilege of voting and kept the community in a constant state of unrest.
They even named the city in honor of an ardent slavery advocate, David
R. Atchison, United States Senator from Missouri, and, at one time, Act-
ing Vice President of the United States. Although he was not a Kansan,
Atchison attended the celebration for the opening of the townsite, and in
his speech, exhibited his broad tolerance by admitting that "some North-
erners are fairly worthy men who wouldn't steal a nigger themselves."
The city was incorporated August 30, 1855, by a special act of the ter-
ritorial legislature, and the toss of a coin decided the first mayor. At this
time the Southerners raised $400 to start their newspaper, the Squatter
Sovereign, a vehement champion of slavery, which fought so bitterly with
the Free State paper that a duel between the two editors appeared inevi-
table. Indeed, the editor of the Sovereign issued a challenge, but his rival
refused to accept it.
The drifting population of the 1850*5 and i86o's contributed to the
lawlessness that characterized the ribald frontier days. The first minister
l68 CITIES AND TOWNS
to come to Atchison (1855) lost most of his audience to a chuck-a-luck
game across the street. The Reverend Pardee Butler, a Free State minister,
attempted to reform the city in the 1850'$ and, for his efforts, was re-
warded with a lone and hazardous voyage on a raft down the "Big
Muddy." Ignoring the threats of his attackers, he returned to Atchison a
few months later, and narrowly escaped hanging. According to the min-
ister's subsequent report of the proceedings, "after exposing me to every
sort of indignity, they stripped me to the waist, covered my body with tar,
and then for want of feathers, applied cotton wool. Then they sent me
naked upon the prairies."
The Northerners, however, gained in power and by 1857 their arro-
gance led to violence. Some of them purchased the Sovereign and com-
pletely reversed its policies. Others began to pilfer from Missourians in
the hills across the river.
John Brown, Free State protagonist, also figured in Atchison's history.
Hearing that Brown was traveling nearby in 1857, a g rou p of Southern
sympathizers went out to capture his party, but were captured instead.
Brown ordered one of the prisoners to pray.
"I only know, 'Now I lay me . . .' " the man objected.
"Then say it!" Brown commanded, and the frightened prisoner knelt
and recited the child's prayer.
Though they remained but two years, the Mormons, an independent
group, established the first large settlement in 1855. Their farm, four
miles west of the city on the south side of US 73, was enclosed by ditches,
which have been obliterated by cultivation and erosion. This encircling
moat was used to prevent cattle from straying.
Lincoln visited Atchison December 2, 1859, and addressed a group
here, using the same speech with which he won the Presidency later at
Cooper's Hall in New York City. The Atchison Champion, published by
John A. Martin, did not report the visit because the editor, like most Kan-
sas Republicans, was supporting Seward. Even the man who introduced
him had to refer to his notes before naming a "Mr. A. Lincoln." But
Lincoln won his audience, although it consisted mostly of hecklers and
the curious. It was reported that he admonished his audience with these
words: "You cannot secede from the Union! If you do, you will hang as
surely as John Brown hanged today."
From Atchison in 1859 the first telegraph message from the West to
the East was dispatched and in the same year the city achieved the dis-
tinction of being the first west of the Mississippi to have direct connection
with St. Louis and the East. At the first city council meeting, it was de-
cided to issue $100,000 in bonds to establish a railroad from St. Joseph,
Mo., to Atchison, 15 miles west of any other railroad point. A charter was
obtained from the Missouri legislature and in the winter of 1859-1860
the new line was completed and in operation.
With the advantage of a good steamboat landing and the best wagon
road leading West, Atchison flourished from the first. Early day trail and
river traffic was tremendous. The city directory of 1860 casually remarked
that the entire trade carried on by private enterprise with Utah and the
ATCHISON 169
forts was from Atchison. In 1862 Ben Holladay bought the equipment of
the bankrupt Russell, Waddell & Majors Freighting Company and moved
its headquarters from Leavenworth to Atchison. At one time, following
its organization in 1856, the company boasted 6,000 teamsters, 50,000
head of oxen, and more than 5,000 wagons. According to the estimate of
the original company, they carried 21 million tons of freight through
Atchison. Sometimes as many as 1,600 wagons stopped here in a single
night. Butterfield's Overland Dispatch, established in Atchison in 1864,
was one of the most important freighters, having 55 wagonmasters, 1,500
drivers, 1,200 mules, and 9,600 head of oxen. Holladay acquired Butter-
field's Dispatch in 1866.
Carrying the mails from Atchison for the West on the overland stages
was a million-dollar business. Mail coaches departing daily took 17 days
to make the round trip from Atchison to Denver. Postage was $5 an ounce
and the finest of tissue was fashionable as writing paper.
The Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway was another local enterprise.
Ambitious to become the eastern terminus for a great south and west sys-
tem, the municipality voted a bond issue of $500,000 as a basis for the
venture, and in 1859 a company was incorporated by an act of the terri-
torial legislature. Construction was delayed, however, and it was not until
1872 that the road to Topeka and Wichita opened, providing the first unit
of a great railway system. Other roads were established and Atchison de-
veloped into an important railroad center.
In 1880 the city reached the peak of a steady growth in population and
industry. It had three breweries, which were closed by State prohibition in
1 88 1, two flour mills, railroad shops, and packing houses. Since 1900, it
has become important as a wholesale and jobbing center. The city ranks
fourth in Kansas and tenth in the United States in the production of hard
wheat flour, three mills having a combined capacity of 5,600 barrels a
day. A foundry established in 1871 is now one of the largest concerns in
the United States exclusively engaged in the manufacture of locomotive
parts. Atchison's industrial output also includes overalls, leather goods,
plumbing fixtures, and processed eggs and poultry. The newest industry,
the result of several years of research and experimentation, is the manu-
facture of industrial alcohol for motor fuel.
The two spaces reserved for Kansas in Statuary Hall in the Capitol at
Washington, D. C, are occupied by statues of Atchison men John J.
Ingalls, author and United States Senator, and George Washington Click,
a Kansas Governor and national leader in the Democratic party. Atchison
was the birthplace of Amelia Earhart Putnam, the noted aviatrix; Maj.
Gen. Harry A. Smith, a World War commander, who received several
decorations for bravery, and later was commandant at Fort Leavenworth;
and Mateel Howe Farnham, the novelist daughter of Ed Howe, who won
a $10,000 prize offered by the Pictorial Review Magazine and Dodd, Mead
& Company, publishers, with her book, Rebellion.
170 CITIES AND TOWNS
POINTS OF INTEREST
The SITE OF THE OLD MAYFLOWER HOUSE, SE. corner 2nd
and Main Sts., is occupied by the Union Depot. The hotel, built in 1857-
1858, was an important starting place for stagecoaches traveling into the
West.
The SITE OF THE MASSASOIT HOUSE, 201 Main St., where dis-
tinguished visitors were entertained in the early days, is occupied by a
wholesale drug company. Lincoln spent a night in the hotel after making
a campaign speech. Fugitive slaves were hidden in the old hostelry during
the days of conflict, and it was there that Horace Greeley ate his first din-
ner in Kansas.
In a tiny PARK, Main St. between 3rd and 4th Sts., adjoining the
depot on the west, is a stone marker that commemorates the visit of the
Lewis and Clark expedition, July 4, 1804.
The LOCOMOTIVE FINISHED MATERIAL PLANT (open 8-5,
weekdays), E. end of Park St., is the only plant of its kind in Kansas and
one of the largest in the United States. Established as a foundry in 1871
by John Seaton, the plant has been engaged since 1906 in the manufac-
ture of locomotive parts. Material is sold to nearly every railroad in the
United States and to railroad companies in Mexico, Japan, and several
European countries. The plant employs an average of 400 men.
An OLD BUILDING (open 8-5 weekdays), NW. corner 4th and
Commercial Sts., housed the first telegraph office. It was from this office
that the first telegraphic message was sent from the West to the East in
1859. The building, a three-story structure of brick painted yellow, erected
in 1858, is occupied by law and real estate offices.
PIONEER HALL (open 8-5 weekdays), NE. corner N. 4th St. and
Kansas Ave., a two-story brick building built in 1872, has served a variety
of purposes. It housed the first congregation of the Christian Church of
Atchison, organized in 1882, and served as a civic hall and headquarters
for a volunteer fire department. The building, now used by a Negro club,
has not been altered.
The BIRTHPLACE OF AMELIA EARHART PUTMAN (private),
SW. corner Santa Fe St. and N. Terrace, a two-story brick and frame
house of Victorian design, overlooks the Missouri River from the crest of
a bluff. It was in this house, now occupied by another family, that the
noted flyer spent most of her childhood with her grandparents. Former
playmates recall the aviatrix as a studious child who, in moments of relax-
ation, liked to play Indian or go on "make-believe" trips in an old-fash-
ioned carriage in a neighbor's barn.
The ATCHISON COUNTY COURTHOUSE, SW. corner N. 5th and
Parallel Sts., completed in 1897, is a three-story limestone structure with
a clock tower, designed in the Romanesque style by George P. Washburn
of Ottawa, Kans.
A marker on the lawn commemorates the address made by Lincoln De-
cember 2, 1859, although the speech actually was delivered in a Methodist
Church on Parallel Street between 5th and 6th Streets.
ATCHISON 171
The W. P. WAGGENER HOME (private), 819 N. 4th St., is a
good example of the pretentious architecture of the i88o's and 1890'$.
Built in 1885 by the late Balie P. Waggener, father of W. P. Waggener,
the three-story brick building has four porches and an arched main en-
trance. Typical of the architectural furbelows of the period are two cop-
per griffins on the ridge of the roof.
A law library, on the third floor, has approximately 10,000 volumes in-
cluding the statutes of every State and Territory.
ST. BENEDICT'S COLLEGE (campus open at all hours), NE. corner
N. 2nd and Division Sts., is a Catholic institution for young men, with
a spacious, well-kept campus skirting the Missouri River and provid-
ing a magnificent view of the river valley. Established in 1858 by the
Order of St. Benedict, the college confers degrees of Bachelor of Arts
and Bachelor of Science and has an enrollment (1938) of 250 students.
The present buildings, the first of which were completed in 1885, are de-
signed in the Romanesque and Tudor Gothic styles.
The TUDOR GOTHIC MONASTERY (admittance only to office and parlors)
is (1938) being erected on the campus. Designed by Brielmaier & Son
of Milwaukee and modeled after the Benedictine monasteries of the
Middle Ages, the E-shaped edifice of native stone with white trim will
cost approximately a million dollars.
The ED HOWE HOME (private), 1117 N. 3rd St., where the journalist
and author died October 3, 1937, is a simple two-story brick structure
with white stone trim. "The Sage of Potato Hill" was the author of nu-
merous magazine articles and several books, the best known of which is
the Story of a Country Town.
SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MEMORIAL HALL (open for special
events), 819 Commercial St., is a two-story brick and limestone build-
ing of classic design. It was erected in 1922 as a memorial to the Atchison
County men who lost their lives in the World War. The AMERICAN LE-
GION MUSEUM (open on application to caretaker) is on the second floor.
In addition to a number of Indian relics, the museum includes a captured
German flag, brought from a fort near Coblenz, Germany, by Maj. Gen.
Harry A. Smith, former resident of Atchison.
The ATCHISON AGROL PLANT (open 8-5 weekdays), SW. corner
S. 1 3th and Main Sts., manufactures a blend of alcohol and gasoline for
use as motor fuel. Established in 1935 as a research unit of the Chemical
Foundation of America, the plant began operating on a commercial basis
December 2, 1937, and has a capacity of 10,000 gallons daily.
The OLD McINTEER HOUSE, NW. corner N. i3th St. and Kan-
sas Ave., built in 1881, and designed in the manner of an Irish castle,
with a profusion of gables and towers, has been converted into an apart-
ment building.
The GLOBE PUBLISHING PLANT (open 8-J> weekdays), 123 S.
5th St., a two-story building of red brick with a stone foundation, is
the home of the Atchison Daily Globe, founded by Ed Howe in 1877.
Walt Mason began writing his rhymes in prose form while working as a
IJ2 CITIES AND TOWNS
reporter for Howe, who objected to the publication of "poetry" in his
newspaper.
MOUNT ST. SCHOLASTICA, 801 S. 8th St., a Catholic high school
and college for young women, has a 42-acre campus. Founded as a grade
school in 1863 by the Benedictine Sisters, the college draws students from
remote sections of the United States and from France and Canada.
The large administration building of brick and stone, designed in the
Tudor Gothic style by Brielmaier & Son of Milwaukee, was completed in
1924. A new chapel of Roman design, with a facade of stone, and the re-
mainder in mingled shades of buff brick, was designed by the same archi-
tects. A lacework of stone at the main entrance is surmounted by a large
rose window of carved stone and colored glass.
The school has a total enrollment of 275 and the college awards the
degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science.
MAUR HILL, 1400 S. loth St., is a Catholic preparatory school for
boys. Established in 1920 by the Fathers of St. Benedict's College, Maur
Hill is a successor of Midland College, an English Lutheran institution.
Five modern buildings, four of which are Tudor Gothic in design, are
on the spacious campus. A bronze statue near the campus entrance de-
picts St. Maur and St. Placid, teachers of youth, seated at the feet of St.
Benedict, patron saint of the Benedictine Order.
JACKSON PARK, entrance 1600 S. 6th St., is a rugged i4O-acre tract
with circuitous one-way drives that skirt precipitous bluffs. From the
highest point in the park, Guerrier Hill, there is a good view of the Mis-
souri Valley. Park facilities include a bandstand, small lakes, swings, and
other amusements for children, and a small 200. A World War cannon
and a large stone monument were placed in the park in memory of the
Atchison men who served in the World War. The drives are lined with
beds of iris of different varieties and colors, which bloom in May.
The KANSAS STATE ORPHANS' HOME (open on application),
0.5 m. NE. of city limits on Waggener Rd., consists of nine buildings of
modern brick construction on an attractive 24O-acre tract of land. The
home, which provides broad educational, domestic, and recreational facili-
ties, was established in 1885 as a refuge for orphaned children of soldiers.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS
Independence Creek, .5.9 m.; Hickory Point, 27 m. (see Tour 12); Atchison
County Lake, 22.4 m. (see Tour 12 A).
e
Railroad Stations: i3th St. between Willow and Spruce Sts. for Missouri Pacific
R.R.; E. yth St. for Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R.; E. 8th St. for Atchison, Topeka
& Santa Fe Ry. ; 8th and Walnut Sts. for Union Electric Ry.
Bus Stations: Bus Terminal, 8th and Walnut Sts., for Southern Kansas Greyhound,
Santa Fe Trailways, and Missouri-Kansas-Oklahoma Bus Lines.
Taxis: 150 per person in city; service in rural districts at moderate rate.
Accommodations: Two hotels; municipal camp grounds in Forest Park, at east edge
of city limits; three privately-owned tourist camps.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 721 Walnut St.
Radio Station: KGGF (1010 kc.).
Motion Picture Houses: Three.
Swimming: Pfister Park Pool, NW. edge of town on Buckeye St., adm. io0; Nata-
torium, 2826 Walnut St.; Municipal Pool for Negroes, 3rd and Ash Sts.
Golf: Edgewood Golf Course, W. edge of city on US 166, 18 holes, greens fee 2 50,
weekdays, 3 50 Sunday.
Annual Events: Montgomery County Fair, Sept.; Industrial Festival, Oct.
COFFEYVILLE (744 alt., 16,198 pop.), lies immediately north of the
Kansas-Oklahoma line in a sandy basin bounded on the west and south by
a low range of hills, and on the east and north by the Verdigris River.
The city is quartered by Eighth Street, running east and west, and Wal-
nut Street, running north and south. The business section is at the center,
and residences occupy all but the north quarter, the industrial area.
James A. CorTey hauled two loads of lumber from Humboldt, about
sixty miles north, and built a house and trading post near the present in-
tersection of Fifteenth and Walnut Streets in July 1869. The construction
of the Lawrence, Leavenworth & Galveston Railroad through the region
in the following year resulted in the growth of a settlement around Cof-
fey's establishment. The village, named Coffeyville, was south of what is
now Twelfth Street and west of Walnut Street, near the northern border
of the Cherokee Strip (see HISTORY). Great cattle lands extended south-
west. The Cookson Hills to the east and south were a rendezvous for des-
peradoes in their grim game of cat-and-mouse with frontier sheriffs.
Coffeyville throve on cattle and railroad trade. Cattlemen and cowboys,
who flocked to the settlement by scores, called it Cow Town. The popu-
lation numbered several hundred at the end of the first year. Cafes, sa-
loons, dance-halls, and gambling houses multiplied. Cowboy "law" with
its round of riots, brawls, and shootings, prevailed. Twelfth Street, the
main thoroughfare of Cow Town, was known as "Red Hot Street." Old-
timers allow that it was well-named.
Octave Chanute, civil engineer for the railroad, acquired a tract north
of Cow Town in 1871 and platted "a railroad addition to the town of
174 CITIES AND TOWNS
Coffeyville." A subsequent act of the legislature, sponsored by the railroad
company, provided for its incorporation as a separate town. When the
first election was called in March 1872, citizens of the older Coffeyville
realized that their town was in danger of losing its name. Highly indig-
nant, they filed suit in the district court challenging the legislature's act.
They won the case and the act was declared unconstitutional.
Parkersburg at the southeast, meanwhile, taking advantage of the quar-
reling Coffeyvilles, became an increasingly formidable rival for border
trade. To protect their interests the two Coffeyvilles joined forces and
were incorporated as one town in 1873.
The Dalton family settled near Coffeyville in 1882. Adaline Lee Younger,
mother of the tribe, was said to be a relative of the notorious Younger
boys who terrorized the Missouri Valley States in post-Civil War days.
The bloody Dalton raid, favorite theme of Coffeyville's crackerbox histo-
rians and story-tellers, occurred on October 5, 1892. In a running gun-
fight, following attempted bank robberies, four bandits and four citizens
were slain. "The city," said the Coffeyville Journal, "sat down in sack
cloth and ashes to mourn for the heroic men who had given their lives for
the protection of property . . . and the maintenance of law in our midst."
Coffeyville boomed in 1903 with the development of natural gas and
oil fields in Kansas and nearby Oklahoma, so that by 1910, with a popu-
lation of about twenty thousand, it ranked sixth in size among the cities
in the State. Its transition from an average market town to an important
industrial city, its present status in southeast Kansas, was completed by
1915.
Local factories produce flour, bricks, pigments, tank cars, chemical prod-
ucts, stockfeeds, roofing tile, structural steel, and machinery used in the
oil industry. About a thousand inhabitants are employed in refining petro-
leum and manufacturing gasoline and lubricants. Since 1930 Coffeyville
has been a center of organized labor activities in Kansas. Labor leaders
participate in all civic enterprises and Labor Day is celebrated annually
by the entire population.
POINTS OF INTEREST
The MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM (open), 1008 Maple St., is a three-
story structure of brick and limestone, built in 1925 in memory of Coffey-
ville citizens who served in the World War. Six Doric columns above
the east entrance are flanked by life-sized figures of stone, symboliz-
ing war and peace. The south facade is similarly columned. The audito-
rium seats 2,800 and is the scene of the annual Industrial Festival.
The PLAZA, 9th and Walnut Sts., contains a group of buildings at
its center, several of which figured in the Dalton raid. The building at
the south end of the Plaza block, now occupied by a real estate office, for-
merly housed the Condon Bank. Its facade is scarred by bullets fired at the
Dalton gang.
Shortly after 9:30 a.m., on October 5, 1892, Jack Moore, William
Powers, and Bob, Grat, and Emmett Dalton galloped into Coffeyville,
COFFEYVILLE 175
hitched their horses in an alley between 8th and 9th Streets, just west of
Walnut Street, and strode boldly to the Plaza. Grat, Moore, and Powers
entered the Condon Bank. Bob and Emmett swaggered across the street
into the First National Bank.
C. M. Ball, cashier of the Condon Bank, when ordered to surrender the
funds, stalled for time by telling the bandits that the safe was operated by
a time lock that would not open until 9:45 a.m. "That is only three min-
utes yet, and I will wait," said the outlaw's spokesman. Bob and Emmett,
meanwhile, forced the employees of the First National Bank to open the
vaults, and stuffed a grain bag with $21,000 in gold and currency.
The bandits had been recognized and the alarm had been given. Two
hardware stores, Bowell's and Isham's, threw open their supplies of guns
and ammunition to the citizenry, who stationed themselves behind wagons
and sent a volley of shots through the windows of the Condon Bank.
When the firing broke out, rheumatic old men who had hobbled with
difficulty a moment before, dived into convenient barrels with acrobatic
agility. Pedestrians crawled headfirst under culverts and remained there
trembling, unmindful of protruding hindquarters. Men of wide girth
squeezed behind thin hitching posts or scrambled under porches. Scarcely
a box, fence, or doorway on the Plaza was unoccupied.
The bandits who had been tricked into waiting for the time lock to
open (the safe had been opened at 8:00 a.m.), burst from the Condon
Bank and raced through a withering crossfire toward the alley where their
horses were tied. "They were running with heads down," said a witness
of the gunfight, "like facing a strong wind."
Bob and Emmett ran from the rear door of the National Bank. Emmett
carried the grain bag over his shoulder while Bob, Winchester in hand,
covered his retreat. Firing with deadly precision he wounded Thomas G,
Ayers, and killed George Cubine, Lucius M. Baldwin, and Charles J.
Brown.
Bob and Emmett reached the entry to "Death Alley" where they joined
Grat, Moore, and Powers. Converging townsmen fired steadily at the ban-
dits. Bob emptied his gun and then slumped, mortally wounded, at the
base of a barn. Summoning his last ounce of strength, Grat shot and
killed Marshal Charles T. Connelly. Powers fell headlong, his body rid-
dled. Moore struggled onto his horse and died in the saddle a half mile
away. Emmett, shot through the hips, his right arm shattered, but still
clutching the bag of money, mounted his horse and returned to where
Bob lay dying. As he extended his arm to pull Bob up beside him, he was
knocked from the saddle by a slug in the back.
Thus ended the Dalton raid. Less than fifteen minutes had elapsed
since the bandits entered Coffeyville. The 1 6-year-old Emmett was the
only survivor. He had been hit twenty-three times. Sentenced to life im-
prisonment, he was subsequently pardoned after serving fourteen and a
half years. He later established himself in California as a contractor and
real estate dealer. He died at Los Angeles, aged 66, on July 13, 1937.
FOREST PARK, 8th St. at the east limits of the town, a 4O-acre
tract, is the site of the Montgomery County Fair held annually in Septem-
Ij6 CITIES AND TOWNS
her. In addition to the fair-ground buildings, there are picnic grounds,
children's playgrounds, fields for football and baseball, and camp grounds
at the north end which are equipped with running water, gas stoves, and
screened shelter houses.
The NATATORIUM, 2826 Walnut St., is a health resort built by
W. P. Brown in 1909. It contains a dance floor, a gymnasium, mineral
springs, medicinal baths, and an outdoor swimming pool of mineral water.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS
Walter Johnson's Former Home, OJ m. (see 'lour 7).
Dodge City
Railroad Stations: Front and Central Sts. for Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. ; 3rd
and Trail Sts. for Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry.
Bus Stations: 613 2nd St. for Southwestern Greyhound Lines, Santa Fe Trailways,
Red Ball Bus Lines, Intrastate Bickel Bus Line, and Dodge City to Jetmore Line.
Airport: 3 m. E. on Military Ave. No scheduled service.
Taxis: io0 and upward, according to number of passengers and distance.
Accommodations: Six hotels; tourist camps.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, Central and Military Aves.
Radio Station: KGNO (1340 kc.).
Motion Picture Houses : Three.
Swimming: Community Pool, Wright Park, 2nd and Water Sts.
Golf: Country Club, N. end of Avenue C, 9 holes, greens fee 250 weekdays, 5O0
Sun.; Westlinks Golf Club, 1.5 m. N. from W. Chestnut St. on i4th Ave., then
0.5 m. on Chilton Road, 18 holes, greens fee 250 weekdays, 350 Sun.
Dog and Horse Racing: Wright Park, 2nd and Water Sts.
Annual Events: Southwest Tractor Show, April; Red Cross First Aid and Water
Safety School, May or June; Great Southwest Free Fair, Sept.; Pioneer Picnic,
Sept.; Community Christmas program.
DODGE CITY (2,485 alt., 10,059 pop.), on the Arkansas River, is the
seat of Ford County and the metropolis of southwest Kansas. The city,
with its modern business and public buildings and attractive homes, breaks
the monotony of the Kansas short grass country. The newer development
of the business section has steadily advanced northward, the heart of the
present commercial district lying two blocks north of old Front Street, the
early-day business thoroughfare, paralleling the Santa Fe Tracks. The
looth Meridian W. passes through Dodge City and marks the division
between central and mountain time.
From the old Front Street area in the lowlands around the Arkansas
River the residential district also spreads northward over a series of low
hills. As in many western cities, there is a scarcity of large trees, but there
is a growing interest in tree planting, and the streets of the newer addi-
tions are bordered with young trees, elms predominating.
Situated in one of the greatest wheat-producing areas in the world,
Dodge City has been called "the buckle on the Kansas wheat belt." As
the point of supply for an agricultural and cattle-raising area, it is natu-
rally the trading and cultural center. Industrial development was followed
by a gradual production expansion, with enlarged distribution facilities for
agricultural machinery and implements. During the late 1920*5 and the
early 1930*8, Dodge City experienced a period of vigorous economic devel-
opment. Wheat crops in 1929 and 1930 created bank clearings in 1930
178 CITIES AND TOWNS
of $105,347,955 evidence of the financial security that enabled the city
to weather several years of depression without serious consequences.
In 1835 the Army established a small post at the mouth of Mulberry
Creek. As late as 1864, however, the only indications of colonization in
the Southwest were the settlers' emigrant trains, and the freighters' outfits
taking supplies from Fort Hays to the Indian Territory. Indian attacks, led
by such noted chiefs as Satanta, Dull Knife, and Wild Hog, were a con-
stant threat to travelers. Raids were especially frequent at the junction of
the Santa Fe Trail and the Arkansas River Trail, a favorite campground
for the wagon trains and the Government freighters on the Fort Hays-
Camp Supply route. To protect this site, the Government, in 1864, estab-
lished Fort Dodge, naming it for Col. Henry I. Dodge, and placing in
charge his nephew, Grenville M. Dodge. It was one of the most impor-
tant of the frontier forts and several Army Officers of note among them
Miles, Custer, Hancock, and Sheridan held posts there. The looth merid-
ian W. was the approximate west boundary of the reservation.
In 1871 a sod house, the first building on the townsite of Dodge City,
was erected five miles west of Fort Dodge by H. L. Sitler. The spot was
near a lone cottonwood tree standing near the entrance of Wright Park
that marked a long-used ford across the Arkansas River. Sitler, a Gov-
ernment teamster, with a contract to supply wood for Fort Dodge, invested
his earnings in cattle. The "soddy" was built as a cow camp and as a
stopping place for freighters and buffalo hunters. It was outside the bound-
aries of military regulations. For obvious reasons the first Dodge City
business houses tent saloons were located near Sitler 's place.
During the same year, Charles Myer, a veteran buffalo hunter, estab-
lished a trading post on the Dodge City site, and did business with the
hunters of a wide area to the north and south of his station.
In 1872 railroad construction gangs established headquarters near the
Sitler camp and soon the clutter of tents and portable shacks became
known as Buffalo City. A townsite was laid out later in the year, under
the name of Dodge City, by A. A. Robinson, chief engineer of the Santa
Fe Railway. In September the first passenger train pulled into the drab
little town, bringing the advance influx of immigrants, buffalo hunters,
card sharps, gamblers, and adventurers the heterogeneous, transient
population that gave early Dodge City its questionable but picturesque
reputation.
Revenue was unbelievably large from the great herds of buffalo on the
plains. For many years these great lumbering animals had been killed for
sport and food; but with the coming of the railroad, their commercial
value became evident. Before a depot could be built, the buffalo hides
were hauled in by the thousands and piled up on the ground to await ship-
ment. When this industry was at its height, R. M. Wright, Dodge City
historian, estimated that 25 million of these animals were in the Dodge
City hunting territory ; and added that many persons as well informed as
himself put the probable number at 100 million. Hunters could travel for
days without losing sight of the vast herds. Tom Nixon, buffalo hunter,
once killed 120 in 40 minutes. A good shot, quick-witted and agile, could
CITY HALL, DODGE CITY
earn $100 a day. The era of the buffalo hunter was comparatively brief.
Before the end of 1875 the great herds of shaggy animals were practically
exterminated. But the railroad was responsible for a greater industry
pushing its determined way into Dodge City the cattle industry.
Milling, bawling, Texas longhorns, driven by hundreds of cowboys and
trail bosses, came over the Texas Trail, a shortcut drifting west from the
Chisholm Trail to Dodge City, where the herds were shipped east on the
Santa Fe Railway, or driven north to the Ellis and Wakeeney railheads on
the Union Pacific Railroad. In addition, herds of young steers were rested
and watered at Dodge on their way to the great grazing areas in the North-
west. These drives were enormous undertakings. Herds of 17,000 to
40,000 were brought in at one time, driven by cowpunchers scarcely less
wild than their bucking, bellowing charges.
So, in 1882, Dodge City took its turn as the cowboy capital of the
Southwest and rode high on the wave of prosperity. Outfits of cattlemen
jostled freighters, hunters and soldiers in the streets that echoed to the
ribald songs and yells of the cowboy, and the wild oaths of the bull-
whacker and the muleskinner. The law was 100 miles away at Hays a
town not without high color of its own.
The motley elements that made up the community were far too diverse
for harmony. The freighter and the trader had nothing in common, except
ISO CITIES AND TOWNS
a mutual and intense dislike. The same condition existed between the cow-
boys and the buffalo hunters. And the soldiers, considering themselves
duly authorized fighters, were not averse to taking a hand a high hand
whenever and wherever a row started. Results necessitated the establish-
ment of Boot Hill Cemetery.
With the notable exception of Wild Bill Hickock, who centered his
activities at Hays and Abilene and is never definitely known to have visited
Dodge City, most of the gunmen famous in the annals of the Southwest
served terms as marshal or sheriff in the "Cowboy Capital." Jack Bridges,
the first marshal, and several of his successors held no commissions of
authority from the community but were hired by the saloon keepers and
gamblers to preserve some semblance of order among their boisterous
patrons.
Bat Masterson, who came to Dodge City as a boy of eighteen in 1872,,
followed a varied career as sub-contractor for the railroad, buffalo hunter
and scout before his election as sheriff in 1877. Defeated for reelection,
he went to Tombstone, Arizona, where he helped Wyatt Earp, also a
former Dodge City peace officer, in his efforts to clean up that notorious
mining town. Bill Tilghman served as one of Masterson' s deputies during
his term as sheriff while Ed Masterson, the sheriff's older brother, was
town marshal.
Sheriff Masterson wore clothes of the latest cut, a pearl gray bowler
hat, and a diamond stickpin. He often carried a cane, but in spite of his
foppish attire he was feared as one of the deadliest gunmen on the
frontier.
Other famous marshals included Mysterious Dave Mather, reputed to
be the lineal descendant of Cotton Mather; Prairie Dog Dave Morrow,
so-called because he carried on a profitable business of trapping prairie
dogs and selling the little animals to tourists at $5 a pair; and Luke Short.
Life at Dodge City was not all violent and tragic. Though the racing
cowpony and the detonation of the sixshooter were common sights and
sounds of the town, there were many citizens who carried on their busi-
ness quietly during the day and took no part in the uproarious night life.
These persons and their preferences were respected.
After the great herds were ruthlessly reduced to a few scattered rem-
nants, hunters and homesteaders were forced to descend to the compara-
tively dull business of gathering up and selling the bones of the thousands
of slaughtered buffalo. They were piled in huge ricks along the railroad
and shipped East for fertilizer. By 1881 it was estimated that Kansas had
received more than two million dollars for bones alone. During this period
it was a popular saying that in Dodge City buffalo bones were legal
tender.
In 1884, Dodge City held a Fourth of July celebration unique in the
history of the State and Nation. A bull fight, with "distinguished mata-
dors, all in Andalusian costume, . . . and 12 bulls," was given for the first
and, records say, the only time in the United States. The affair was much
talked of and generously advertised, creating wide-spread interest of sev-
eral sorts. Humane societies protested vigorously. State and Federal author-
II
ii
S3*
MEMORIAL IN BOOT HILL CEMETERY, DODGE CITY
ities wired orders to stop the show; it could not be given in the United
States. Mayor A. B. Webster wired tersely in reply, "Dodge City is not
in the United States" and went on about his business of completing the
elaborate arrangements.
On the morning of July 4th a great crowd was on the streets to see the
grand parade. The procession, headed by the mayor, included the Dodge
City Cowboy Band and the gaudily dressed matadors. At the fair-grounds
more than 2,000 people found seats in the huge amphitheater especially
built for the occasion.
The fight was repeated on the next day with an even better selection
of fighting bulls, more thrills and excitement. The Ford County Globe of
July 8, made this boastful comment:
Those present can testify that it was a genuine bull fight on each of the two days,
just as we said it would be, and parties who witnessed the performances are free to
say that they never beheld one, either in Old Mexico or Spain, that was more in
dead earnest than the ones given in this city.
Gradually, as other shipping terminals were established, Dodge City
became less important as a center of the cattle industry, and in 1884 the
State legislature, alarmed at the increase of the cattle disease known as
Texas fever, passed legislation forbidding the importation of Texas cattle
between March i and December i, the season of the long drives. This
ended the era of the cattle trail.
182 CITIES AND TOWNS
The city retained a moderate importance as a shipping point for the
large herds pastured in Southwest Kansas until the blizzard of 1886
destroyed the herds and the Kansas cattlemen gave up the battle with the
homesteaders, which had been raging since the tide or settlement began to
sweep over this section of the State in 1885. Many ranchers drove the
remnants of their herds into the unorganized territory south of the State
line. Others fenced a few thousand acres of grazing land and continued
on a smaller scale, but by 1890 large areas near Dodge City had been
broken up and sown to wheat and other crops.
From the days of the gambler and the card sharp, down through those
of the cowpony race, the bull fight, and the greyhound- jackrabbit cours-
ing, there had been a keen relish for sporting events. Today it finds outlet
in dog racing and in the raising and racing of saddle and harness horses,
and thoroughbred coursing hounds. The Wild Indian Kennels, just west
of Wright Park, are the largest in the Middle West. A familiar sight in
the environs of Dodge City is a beautiful thoroughbred jumper, followed
on his morning canter by a dozen or more graceful racing dogs.
The city has a modern school system including a junior college, a
denominational academy, and a business college. There are two well-
equipped modern hospitals and more than a dozen churches, several of
which are of architectural interest.
POINTS OF INTEREST
BOOT HILL, 4th Ave. and Spruce St., a promontory of "gyp-rock"
(gypsum), and clay rising 100 feet above the Arkansas River Valley, was
an early-day lookout.
About 1872 two cowboys, camped on this hillsite, had a gunfight. One
was killed and the murderer fled. The dead man, friendless and unknown,
was wrapped in his blankets and buried where he fell with his boots on.
So was Boot Hill dedicated.
Deaths in Dodge City during the first five years were frequent and
usually sudden. Often the victims were known only by a first name or an
alias. Public concern with the last rites was brief. Some had rude pine
coffins; others, wrapped in their blankets were buried as they fell with
boots on, or under their heads for a pillow.
Merritt Beeson, local historian, and son of Chalk Beeson, widely known
Dodge City pioneer, says the burial of Alice Chambers, dance hall girl, on
May 5, 1878, was the last on Boot Hill.
In 1879, when a schoolhouse was built on the site, the bodies were
moved to Prairie Grove Cemetery; and with one exception were buried
side by side, in four rows. Alice Chambers lies a short distance away,
alone.
In 1927 the city bought Boot Hill as a site for the CITY HALL, built
in 1929 and 1930. It is a two-story structure built of yellow brick and
concrete, with a tile roof, and houses the offices of city officials, and the
fire and police departments. A. R. Mann of Hutchinson was the architect.
Near the main entrance is the COWBOY STATUE, a well-proportioned
DODGE CITY 183
figure modeled in concrete, representing the western cowboy in the act of
drawing his gun. To the left of the entrance is the LONGHORN STATUE
the heads and yoke of an ox team molded in concrete on a concrete base.
These monuments recalling the Dodge City of the 1870*5 and i88o's, were
modeled by the late Dr. O. H. Simpson, a local dentist.
Near the hall is a clever but rather macabre hoax, also modeled by
Dr. Simpson, and "planted" as a bit of atmosphere for a Rotarian conven-
tion held in Dodge City in 1930. This is an imitation graveyard with
markers at several "graves" bearing the fictitious titles of early-day tough
characters "Shoot-em-up Ike," "One-Eyed Jake," "Toothless Nell." Par-
tially exposed and weathered concrete skulls and boot toes give the
expected thrill.
The local Rotarians, infected by the spirit of Dr. Simpson's hoax,
"planted" an old cottonwood tree on the hillside and passed it off to
visitors as the historic gallows tree from Horse Thief Canyon. It still
stands a rope, dangling suggestively from a high crotch, draped around
the dead trunk.
A veteran Dodge City peace officer, attired in cowboy regalia, is sta-
tioned in a small tent south of Boot Hill graveyard site. Tourists who
visit the Hill are entertained with anecdotes of early day Dodge City and
are requested to sign their names in the Boot Hill guest book.
WRIGHT PARK, 2nd Ave. and Water St., N. of the Arkansas River,
was named in honor of Robert M. Wright, a pioneer citizen and former
mayor. In it are the MEMORIAL FOUNTAINS, honoring World War vet-
erans; the HOOVER PAVILION, a cream-colored stucco building used for
entertainments and public meetings named in honor of G. M. Hoover,
Dodge City banker who left a bequest of $95,000 for civic improvement;
and the Great Southwest Free Fair Buildings. Multi-colored rock white
and black, and varied shades of orange, red, and amber from the Sawlog,
an upland stream near Dodge City, is used in various park constructions.
The OLD LONE TREE, 2nd Ave. and Water St., a cottonwood,
near the entrance of Wright Park, marks the site of the ford on the
Arkansas River when the town was founded in 1872. The tree is dead, but
the trunk has been preserved. A memorial plate shows a prairie schooner
and emigrants in bas-relief.
The SITE OF THE FIRST BUILDING, 305 2nd Ave., is marked with
a bronze tablet set in the wall of the present building. It is the approx-
imate place where H. L. Sitler built his sod house in 1871.
The SITE OF THE FIRST SCHOOL, NW. corner ist Ave. and Wal-
nut St., was marked in 1927 by a bronze tablet set in a five-foot sandstone
boulder, bearing the inscription, "Here public education had its begin-
ning in the Southwest in 1873."
The SANTA FE MARKER, NW. corner 2nd Ave. and Trail St., is a
red granite boulder about three feet high, erected in 1906 by the D. A. R.
and the State of Kansas. The inscribed bronze tablet bears the dates when
the old Santa Fe Trail was in use, 1822-1872.
The SITE OF OLD FORT DODGE MILITARY RESERVATION,
Central and Military Aves., is marked by a tablet set in the pavement in
184 CITIES AND TOWNS
front of the main entrance to the Lora Locke Hotel. Part of the city is
built on the old reservation and the hotel is on the western boundary line.
Two SUNDIALS, Front St. and Central Ave., stand side by side, in
the Santa Fe station park. They are 44 feet in diameter and separated by a
space of 44 feet. Visible from the windows of passing trains, the east
dial tells central standard time, the west dial, mountain time. The looth
meridian W. passes between them.
The FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NW. corner Central Ave.
and Vine St., is of the English Gothic style of architecture, designed
by Harry W. Jones of Minneapolis, Minn. It was completed in 1925 at a
cost of $150,000. The structure is of Kansas limestone trimmed with
Carthage, Mo., limestone. In the church auditorium is a pipe organ, built
in Lawrence and installed at a cost of $12,800.
THE SACRED HEART ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, NW.
corner Central Ave. and Cedar St., designed in the Spanish Mission style,
is constructed of limestone with red-tile, gable roof and domed belfry.
Above the arched entrance is a life-size figure of Christ. The interior of
the church is finished in tan stucco and the high ceiling of the nave is
supported by rough-hewn beams, stained a dark brown color. Above the
altar is an oil painting, "The Crucifixion," by George M. Stone. Designed
by Cram and Ferguson of Boston, the Church was completed in 1915 on
the site of the first Catholic Church in Dodge City built in 1879. Adjoin-
ing the church on the north are a parish house and a parochial grade
school, which harmonize with the church in design and construction.
The CITY LIBRARY (open 11-9 weekdays, 2-6 Sun.), NW. cor-
ner 2nd and Spruce Sts., an Andrew Carnegie beneficiary, is a one and
one-half story brick building of modified Romanesque design, constructed
in 1910. Fred Lipps of Dodge City was the architect. The library contains
14,000 volumes.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS
Beeson Museum, 1.4 m., Old Fort Dodge and the State Soldiers' Home, .5 m.;
Willroad Gardens, 5 m. (see lour 4A).
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<&>>>>>>>>
Emporia
Railroad Stations: Neosho St. and 3rd Ave. for Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry.;
6th Ave. and East St. for Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R.
Bus Station: Mit-way Hotel, 5th Ave. and Commercial St., for Santa Fe Trailways,
Emporia-Eureka bus Line.
Taxis: Minimum fare, 100.
Buses: Three intra-city lines, fare 80.
Traffic Regulations: Traffic lights at intersections in business district. Parking limi-
tations indicated by street signs. Speed limit 25 miles per hour.
Accommodations: Seven hotels; three tourist camps.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 6th Ave. and Merchant St.
Radio Station: KTSW (1310 kc.).
Motion Picture Houses: Three.
Golf: Emporia Country Club, N. end of Rural St., greens fee $i.
Tennis: Peter Pan Park, State Teachers' College campus.
Boating, Fishing, and Ice Skating: Peter Pan Park.
Annual Events: St. David's Day, March i; County Music Festivals, High School,
Grade, and Rural Schools, late in March, early in April; Spring Music Festival,
College of Emporia, April; State High School Music Festival, Teachers' College,
April; Statewide Scholarship Contest, Teachers' College, May; Santa Fe Brother-
hood Picnic, July; Community Play, Mid-Summer Night's Dream, Peter Pan Park,
July and August.
EMPORIA (1,133 a ft-> I 4 0< ^7 PP-) seat f Lyon County, division point
of the Santa Fe Railway and trading center of a farming and dairying region,
lies on a low ridge between the Neosho and Cottonwood Rivers. Although
its streets appear to have been laid through a forest of elms and maples,
Emporia was in fact platted on a treeless plain carpeted with bluestem
grass and on the surrounding slopes and valleys broad pastures of blue-
stem still flourish near fields of corn and wheat.
The business district, centered at 6th Avenue and Commercial Street, is
composed of two- and three-story brick structures that range architecturally
from the beetling-corniced roof of the 1890'$ to the bland utilitarian
facade of the 1930'$. Four blocks past the business district Commercial
Street runs plump into the Kansas State Teachers' College which, with the
College of Emporia, enables local civic leaders to call their town the
"Educational Center of the West."
The residential area consists largely of frame houses interspersed with
brick bungalows and an occasional Victorian structure. Trees are plenti-
ful; lawns are frequently marked with profuse shrubbery. Berkeley Hills,
a restricted neighborhood at the northwest of the city, contains trim mod-
ern houses of English and Dutch Colonial architecture. The streets in this
section deviate from the usual gridiron pattern and follow curved courses.
The inhabitants are mainly of Welsh and English extraction. St. David's
185
186 CITIES AND TOWNS
Day, honoring the Welsh patron saint, is annually observed by a program
at the Bethany Congregational Church and the serving of tea with "bara
brith," a Welsh shortbread.
Emporia manufactures cheese, candy, mattresses, stock feeds, patent
medicines, and flavoring extracts. There are three grain elevators with a
combined storage capacity of 75,000 bushels. The Santa Fe Railway main-
tains stockyards and feeding pens for livestock temporarily quartered here
enroute to eastern markets, that can accommodate 12,000 cattle and 60,000
sheep.
Emporia was established in 1857 by the Emporia Town Company, four
of whose five members were residents of Lawrence, Kansas. The townsite
was bought from the estate of an Indian, A. Hicks, for $1,800. George
W. Brown, president of the town company and editor of the Lawrence
Herald of Freedom, named the proposed town for an ancient city in
northern Africa which, according to Rollin's History of the Carthaginians,
was a place of great wealth and importance.
Set down on the prairie where bluestem grass grew shoulder-high, the
settlement consisted of an inn, a store, and a shanty in which Preston B.
Plumb, only member of the town company to reside in Emporia, pub-
lished the Kanzas News. The first issue of this sheet, dated June 5, 1857,
contained the town charter, a section of which prohibited the use and sale
of "spirituous liquor" within the townsite. Thus Emporia was the first
"dry town" in the Middle West.
A stageline was established between Emporia and Lawrence in the lat-
ter part of 1857. Aided by publicity in the Kanzas News and the Herald
of Freedom, the settlement made comparatively rapid strides. The popula-
tion of the township numbered 541 by the summer of 1859. Throughout
that year and into the next a severe drought withered the countryside and
impoverished its settlers. No rain fell for sixteen months. The water
supply at Emporia gave out, necessitating laborious journeys to the Cotton-
wood River.
Heavy rains fell in 1860 and Emporia resumed its progress. At a Fourth
of July picnic given in the village that year, Preston B. Plumb mounted a
rough platform beneath a brush arbor and delivered a bitter denunciation
of slavery. In 1862, practicing what had been implied in his previous
preaching, Plumb organized a company of 144 men and served in the
remaining years of the Civil War as captain, major, and, finally, lieutenant-
colonel of the nth Kansas Cavalry. On returning to civilian life he was
elected to the Kansas legislature. In 1877 he was elected United States
Senator from Kansas, an office he held until his death in 1891.
In post-Civil War years the Emporia region attracted cattlemen who,
buying gaunt Texas steers for as little as a dollar each, "put taller" on
the animals by turning them out to graze the long bluestem grass. About
$80,000 worth of cattle were sold in Lyon County during 1866. The
"fattening" industry was subsequently blighted by settlers who fenced off
the land. The cattlemen objected to the "spoilage" of the range, but their
protests were brushed aside by the incoming army of homesteaders.
EMPORIA 187
In 1867 the citizens of Lyon County voted $200,000 to insure the con-
struction of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad into Emporia. The first
train on this route arrived December 22, 1869. A similar sum was appro-
priated by the county government in 1869 to aid the extension of the
Santa Fe Railway. The first Santa Fe train entered Emporia on September
14, 1870. In that year Emporia was incorporated as a city of the second
class.
Equipped with railroad transportation and situated amid a fertile farm-
ing region, Emporia thereafter prospered as a trading center. Gas for
illumination was installed in 1880; streetcars drawn by mules were put in
operation the following year; and in 1885 an electric light plant was
established. The Santa Fe Railway built a stockyard in 1887, which was
enlarged between 1905-1909 at a cost of $90,000. A railroad yard con-
struction and improvement project undertaken by the Santa Fe in 1923
was completed in 1926 at an estimated cost of five million dollars.
Lack of an adequate reserve of water was for many years the Achilles'
heel of Emporia. In the drought of 1859 John Hammond, town carpenter,
had sunk a well on Mechanic Street and found water at 180 feet, but this
supply was not sufficient to satisfy the needs of a growing community. In
1880 a water plant was built by the Cottonwood River, but the quality of
the water obtained from this stream proved inferior and, six years later,
the plant was moved to the Neosho River.
The level of Neosho River, however, frequently dropped to an ex-
tremely low point under the summer sun and Emporia was periodically
threatened with a water shortage. In such an emergency during July 1913,
Emporians were forbidden to water their lawns and advised to boil all
water used for drinking. Dan Dryer, commissioner of public utilities, was
mildly ridiculed by the Nation's press in August 1920 because of his quite
reasonable demand that the amount of water in Emporia bathtubs not
exceed four inches.
In 1926 Emporia, aided by the Federal Government, solved its water
problem for all time. The Kahola Valley, 25 miles northwest of the city,
was dammed. The 400 acres of water thus impounded assure Emporia of
an inexhaustible supply. The project was completed in 1938.
Emporia is the birthplace of William Allen White, eminent journalist
and publisher of the Emporia Gazette.
POINTS OF INTEREST
The EMPORIA PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 9-9 weekdays; 2-6 Sun.),
6th Ave. and Market St., is a one-story brick structure designed by Felt
& Co. of Kansas City, Mo., and built in 19051906. It contains 30,000
volumes, complete files of all Emporia newspapers, including the Kanzas
News (1857-59), an d a valuable collection of old clippings, magazines,
and secretarial books.
PETER PAN PARK, Randolph and Rural Sts., a 5o-acre landscaped
tract, has at its northwest corner a lake from which radiate winding paths
188 CITIES AND TOWNS
that open on picnic grounds and a wading pool. A natural amphitheater,
equipped with a stage and a loudspeaking system, is used for Sunday
evening vespers, amateur theatricals, and various public meetings.
Peter Pan Park was donated to Emporia by Mr. and Mrs. William Allen
White in memory of their daughter, Mary, who was fatally injured while
horseback riding in 1921. Destined to be Mary White's permanent memo-
rial is the tender editorial that her father wrote upon her death. This
prose threnody has been reprinted in a score of anthologies. "Probably if
her father has any sort of lasting fame beyond the decade following his
death," William Allen White has said, "it will come from this editorial."
SODEN'S MILL (open on application at office), 1017 S. Commer-
cial St., a three-story corbel- stepped structure of cement and rough stone,
was built in 1860 by W. T. Soden. For many years before it ceased operat-
ing in 1924 this mill supplied most of the flour used in Lyon County.
After almost a decade of idleness the building was restored by L. S.
Anderson and F. J. Alderson and re-opened as a mill. The walls of the
first floor, near the water line, are six feet thick, reinforced by steel bars.
Rafters and beams are of black walnut, pinned and braced with pegs. The
second floor is similarly constructed of lighter timber. The upper walls
are eighteen inches thick. Much of the old machinery, including the roll-
ers, is in use. A new water wheel, propelled by about half the water
formerly used, supplies about twice as much power as did the old wheel.
The SODEN HOUSE (private), the west side of Commercial St.
near the Soden Mill, is a two-story Victorian mansion, built in the iSyo's
for W. T. Soden. The brick walls are broken by bay-windows and an
irregular out- thrust cornice, which forms a series of hat- like profiles around
the structure. The mansard roof, effusively ornamented with wrought iron
railings, is capped by a lookout tower.
The WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE RESIDENCE "RED ROCKS"
(private), 927 Exchange St., a large two-story house of Colorado sand-
stone, with Victorian-Gothic gables and dormer windows, was built in the
i88o's for Judge Almerin Gillette. Since 1900 "Red Rocks" has been the
home of William Allen White (see LITERATURE, NEWSPAPERS, and
HISTORY).
White was born in Emporia on February 10, 1868. A part of his youth
was spent in El Dorado where he attended high school. Following his
graduation he studied at the College of Emporia for two years, working
during vacations for the El Dorado Republican and the Emporia News.
In 1886 he enrolled at the University of Kansas, working part-time for
the Lawrence Journal. He left the university before graduation to follow
a career that took him successively to the Kansas City Journal, the Topeka
State Journal, and the Kansas City Star .
In 1895 he returned to Emporia, borrowed $3,000, and bought the
Emporia Gazette, a small daily and weekly. As an editor young White
attracted no particular attention until the appearance of his "What's the
Matter with Kansas?" editorial in August 1896. His vitriolic answer to
the question thus posed was widely circulated by the Republican party in
SODEN'S MILL, EMPORIA
the presidential campaign of that year. Editor White, elevated to Nation-
wide prominence overnight, thereafter consolidated his position with a
score of books and numerous articles.
Despite attractive offers from metropolitan newspapers, he remained in
his home town. Dubbed the "Sage of Emporia" for his interpretations of
national affairs, his counsel was sought by the leaders of the Republican
party. Not always a deep- dyed party man, he several times bolted the
Kansas G.O.P. In 1924 he ran for Governor as an independent candidate
to protest against the growing Ku Klux Klan complexion of the Republi-
can party in Kansas. Although defeated he polled votes sufficient to dis-
courage the entry of the Klan into subsequent contests.
White has received honorary degrees from three colleges and four uni-
versities. President Wilson appointed him United States delegate to the
proposed Russian Conference at Prinkipo in 1919, and in 1931 he served
with President Hoover's Organization for Unemployment Relief. He is a
trustee of the College of Emporia, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Will
Rogers Memorial Association, and, since 1925, a member of the Institute
of Pacific Relations.
The EMPORIA GAZETTE BUILDING, 517 Merchant St., is a two-
story structure of pressed-brick. Part of the first floor and the entire
basement are used to publish the Emporia Gazette, White's widely quoted
newspaper. Among past employees of the Gazette, is Walt Mason, the
"rippling rhymer," who began working for White in 1907. His prose-
190 CITIES AND TOWNS
poems, which he began writing while working as a reporter on the
Atchison Daily Globe, gradually caught the public's fancy, outgrew the
Gazette's small audience, and, as a syndicated feature, appeared in the
largest dailies in the country. Mason lived in Emporia until 1920 when
he moved to California, his present home (1938).
The SECOND CHRISTIAN CHURCH (Negro), SE. corner 8th
Ave. and Congress St., is a small box-style structure built in 1859 for use
by the white congregation of the Christian Church. Shortly afterwards
the building was moved to Americus to serve as the courthouse while that
town was seat of Lyon County (1858-60). It was subsequently returned
to Emporia and again used by the Christian Church until the early 1890'$
when it was sold to the Negro congregation of the Second Christian
Church. Excellently preserved, the structure appears much as it did in pio-
neer days.
The COLLEGE OF EMPORIA, W. end of iath Ave., an accredited
co-educational institution with an average enrollment of 400 students, was
founded in 1882 by the Kansas Synod of the Presbyterian Church. On the
50-acre campus overlooking Emporia are the administration building,
Lewis Hall of Science, Thomas Hall (men's dormitory), Mason Gymna-
sium, and Emporia and Dunlap Halls (women's dormitories). A semi-
circular drive (entrance at the southeast corner of the campus) skirts the
main buildings, the most prominent of which is the ADMINISTRATION
BUILDING or KENYON HALL, a three-story brick and stone structure of
modified Gothic architecture designed by Felt & Co. of Kansas City, Mo.,
and completed in 1929 at a cost of $275,000. It contains classrooms,
administrative offices, a little theater, and society meeting rooms. In the
north wing is a WAR MEMORIAL CHAPEL, the walls of which bear plaques
commemorating several past presidents of the college and those students
who served in the World War.
Another building on the campus is the ANDERSON MEMORIAL LIBRARY
(open: 8-5 Mon.; 7-9 Tues., Wed., Thurs.; 7:30-5 Fri.; 7:30-12:30
Sat.), a two-story new-classic building of Kansas limestone fronted by a
Grecian portico, was designed by Charles Squires of Emporia and dedi-
cated in 1902. On the second floor is MISSIONARY HALL, which contains
a library of missionary literature and a collection of curios gathered by
alumni of the college employed in foreign missionary work.
The library is named for Col. John B. Anderson, a railroad official who
died in 1897. While a division superintendent of a railroad in Pennsyl-
vania, Anderson had invited the employees to use his library. Among
those who accepted was Andrew Carnegie, then a telegraph operator.
Following Anderson's death in later years, Carnegie, grown wealthy, pro-
posed to commemorate his early friend by financing the construction of a
library in Pittsburgh, Pa. Mrs. Anderson of Manhattan, Kans., preferred
that the library be established at the College of Emporia, an institution in
which her husband had been interested. Carnegie assented. Books from
Colonel Anderson's private library supplied the nucleus of the present
collection which includes more than 22,000 volumes.
EMPORIA 191
The KANSAS STATE TEACHERS' COLLEGE, i2th Ave. and Com-
mercial St., is a co-educational institution with an average enrollment
of 1,500 students. As the Kansas State Normal School, the college was
organized in 1865. The opening sessions, held in the upper room of a
stone schoolhouse, were attended by 18 students. The first building was
erected in 1867 through private gifts and a legislative appropriation. The
present name was adopted on February 20, 1923.
The 46-acre campus, enclosed by a low brick wall, is shaded by more
than 70 varieties of trees, including Russian olive, Chinese elm, and Irish
juniper. The main entrance at the foot of Commercial Street opens on a
sunken garden which contains a fountain and a lily pool. The garden is
bordered by peach, pecan, catalpa, and mulberry trees.
Directly north of the sunken gardens is PLUMB MEMORIAL HALL, a
four-story, T-shaped structure of brick and stone, its main entrance flanked
by two massive columns. The building was designed by Charles H.
Chandler and completed in 1917. The front wing houses the administra-
tive offices of the college; the rear wing contains Albert Taylor Hall, an
auditorium which seats 2,000.
Southeast of Plumb Memorial Hall is the LABORATORY SCHOOL, a
three- story building of brick and terra cotta, designed by Charles D. Cuth-
bert and completed in 1929. The structure incorporates advanced ideas in
school planning. It contains kindergarten classrooms equipped with stages
and fireplaces, a library, a clinic, a science laboratory, and an auditorium-
gymnasium.
South of the Laboratory School is the Music HALL, a three-story build-
ing of brick and terra cotta, designed by Charles D. Cuthbert and erected
in 1928. It contains 18 studios, 33 practice rooms, several rehearsal halls,
and an air-conditioned auditorium where weekly student recitals and
monthly public concerts are presented.
Near the drive that extends from Commercial Street is the KELLOGG
LIBRARY (open: 7:45-9 Mon., Tues., Wed., Thurs.; 7:45-8:30 Fri.;
7:45-6 Sat.), named for Lyman Beecher Kellogg, first president of the
college. The structure was designed by John F. Stanton, and completed in
1903. The library contains more than 70,000 volumes. NORTON SCIENCE
HALL, a three- story building of brick and terra cotta, is named for Henry
B. Norton, first instructor of natural science at the college. The structure
was designed by John F. Stanton and built in 1907. It houses the depart-
ments of physics, biology, chemistry, and health education. A MUSEUM
(open 8-5 weekdays), in the hallways on each floor, contains fossils,
minerals, industrial exhibits, and biological specimens.
Facing Lake Wooster at the north of the campus are the women's dor-
mitories, Abigail Morse Hall and Morse Hall Annex. The remaining
buildings on the campus include the gymnasium, the Student Union build-
ing, and the power plant.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS
Lyon County State Lake, 14.2 m.; Cottonwood Falls, 23 m. (see Tour 4 A).
<<<<<<<<<<&>>>>>>>
Fort Scott
Railroad Stations: 623 E. Wall St. for St. Louis & San Francisco Ry.; 312 National
Ave. for Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R.; 219 N. National Ave. for Missouri Pacific
R.R.
Bus Stations: Goodlander Hotel, 2 S. National Ave. for Santa Fe Trailways,
Southern Greyhound Lines and Missouri-Ozark Lines.
Accommodations: Eight hotels; five tourist camps; boarding houses.
Information Service: Goodlander Hotel, 2 S. National Ave.; Chamber of Commerce
Marble Bldg.
Motion Picture Theaters: Three.
Swimming: Municipal pool, yth and Main Sts.; Bridal Veil Park pool (Negro)
W. 2nd St.
Picnic and Playgrounds: Gunn Park, W. end of 9th St.
Annual Events: Holy City, sacred cantata, last Sunday in March; Dairy Show, Sept.,
three days.
FORT SCOTT (800 alt., 10,763 pop.), the outgrowth of a frontier mili-
tary outpost, lies on the south bank of the Marmaton River, five miles
west of the Missouri Line. A city of "jogging" streets and fine old trees,
with buildings older than Kansas itself sandwiched in between modern
structures, Fort Scott is a blend of pioneer and modern America. At the
junction of three railroads, the city is important as a distribution and
shipping point and also as a manufacturing center in southeastern Kansas.
The Saturday afternoon bustle of farmers and their wives in and out of
stores, produce stations, and cafes indicates the place of agriculture in the
community's economy.
The business district extends south from Market Square, a triangular
plot bounded by Market, Oak, and National Avenues. National Avenue,
which bounds Market Square on the west, bisects the town from north to
south. Immediately adjacent to the business section on the south and west
is Fort Scott's older residential district, center of the social activities of
the i88o's and 1890'$. Gabled brick and stone structures for the most
part, with broad porches and deep windows, the houses are in good repair
and in many instances are occupied by descendants of the original owners.
Great elm trees form long green arches over the streets in this section, and
stone hitching posts still stand in front of many of the houses.
Approximately one mile from the business section on the south and
west are the newer residential districts with recently paved streets, straight
young trees, and rows of trim frame and stucco houses. Three railroads
cut through the north portion of the city near the river and the industrial
section.
Fort Scott has one of the first municipally-owned junior colleges in the
192
FORT SCOTT 193
State, with an enrollment of approximately 400. Schools, churches, lodges,
and clubs are centers for the community's social and cultural life.
Owing, no doubt, to the town's early military history and to the fact
that many of the residents are descendants of the first soldiers stationed
at old Fort Scott, patriotic organizations have been especially active within
the city from its earliest days and residents make even the lesser patriotic
days gala occasions. Carroll Plaza, today as in the past, is the scene of these
celebrations.
Provisions were made for a camp between Fort Leavenworth and Fort
Gibson when the old Military Road between the two was surveyed in
1837, but it was not until 1842 that a fort was founded at a point approxi-
mately midway between the two and named in honor of Gen. Winfield
Scott. Designated as the "Plaza," a parade ground was laid out and by
the summer of 1843 a number of military buildings, including officers'
quarters, soldiers' barracks, stables, a hospital, and a guardhouse, were
completed, all facing the parade grounds. Surrounding the square and its
buildings was a stockade, built of huge timbers 12 feet high. An iron gate
in the west side of the stockade was the only opening.
Fort Scott was garrisoned until 1855, when the Government abandoned
it, selling the lumber in the stockade and auctioning off fort buildings.
After the sale of the buildings Fort Scott carried on as a tiny settlement;
travel continued over the Military Road and the town grew in importance
through trade with soldiers, settlers, and Indians. Lying only five miles
from the Missouri Line, the town, before and during the Civil War,
became the rendezvous for both Free Staters and pro-slavery sympathizers,
and guerrillas and ruffians along the border plundered and stole from
both sides.
One of the old fort's officers' quarters was occupied by the Free State
Hotel in the late 1850*5, so named because it was a favorite stopping place
for such Free Staters as John Brown, Charles Jennison, Capt. James Mont-
gomery, and scores of sympathizers not so well known. The hotel became
nationally known through the columns of the New York, Philadelphia,
and Baltimore papers as the headquarters of Captain Montgomery, who
made widely publicized raids upon pro-slavery sympathizers in the
vicinity.
Local tradition in Fort Scott asserts that the term Jayhawker originated
with the patrons of the Free State Hotel. Pat Devlin, an Irishman and a
member of Captain Montgomery's band, so the story goes, returned late
one afternoon from plundering pro-slavery farmers along the Missouri-
Kansas border. Asked where he had been he replied that he had been
"jayhawking." "The jayhawk," he went on to explain, "is a bird in Ireland
that catches small birds and bullyrags the life out of them like cats do
mice. I'm in the same business myself and I call it jayhawking." Jay-
hawker was taken up by Captain Montgomery as a nickname for his band
and finally stuck as a name for all Kansas.
The Western Hotel, stopping place for pro-slavery men, stood directly
across the Plaza from the Free State Hotel in the days preceding the Civil
194 CITIES AND TOWNS
War, and rivalry between the two hostelries was as bitter as that between
the North and the South. Here, it is said, the Marais des Cygnes massacre
(see HISTORY) was plotted and here two pro-slavery men organized a
Blue Lodge by which they hoped to drive Free State men from the Terri-
tory by scaring them off their claims. The Free Staters, in turn, organized
the Self-Protective Association headed by Captain Montgomery.
Friction between the two factions came to a head in October 1857, when
Judge Joseph Williams of the United States District Court, a pro-slavery
sympathizer, began to hear the lawsuits between the Free State and the
pro-slavery men over homestead claims. Declaring that all decisions were
going against the Free State claimants because of partiality shown by the
court, the anti-slavery faction set up its own court in a log cabin a few
miles from town. This they called the "Squatters' Court" and, as no Bible
was handy, witnesses were sworn on an old medical book, Dr. Gunn's
Family Physician.
Pro-slavery sympathizers arrested a man named Rice, who was charged
with the murder of one of their comrades, and held him at^the Free State
Hotel pending his trial in the district court. Montgomery, with about 70
men, returned to Fort Scott to release the prisoner. A storekeeper named
Little, who was also United States marshal, fired into the group outside
the hotel from the transom of his shop. Immediately one of Montgom-
ery's men returned fire, shooting Little through the forehead as he looked
out. Shots rang out through the Plaza for several minutes. Montgomery
and his party surrounded the store, believing it garrisoned with pro-
slavery men. Ruffians in the band looted nearby stores. The Free Staters
broke into the store and Montgomery stopped the looting. The Free State
man was released. By 1860 the border was quiet again.
After the outbreak of the Civil War Fort Scott again assumed impor-
tance as a military post, large quantities of supplies being stored there for
the use of troops stationed as far south as the Red River. Lt. Col. Lewis
R. Lewell, commanding the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, was appointed Post
Commander in 1862, and fortifications, consisting of breastworks, stock-
ades, and three blockhouses Fort Henning, Fort Insley, and Fort Blair
were erected. Gen. James H. Lane, who was appointed Union commander
for recruiting in the department of Kansas in July 1862, also established
his headquarters at the fort.
Fort Scott, during the i86o's and 1870*5, was noted for its gaiety. Even
during the tense days before the war the Free State Hotel was as gay a spot
as was to be found in southeastern Kansas. Here, according to early news-
paper accounts, the "elite of the town" gathered and frequently "danced
and joshed each other until seven o'clock in the morning."
The Wilder House, just off the Plaza on Main Street, replaced the Free
State Hotel as a rendezvous in the late i86o's. Famed in the vicinity is the
reply of the hotel-keeper when new arrivals asked, "Is this the Wilder
House?" "You stay here awhile," he would drawl, "and you'll find there
ain't a wilder house in the country."
The Tri-Weekly Stage ran between Kansas City and Fort Scott in the
i86o's, the name of which, as the town wags explained it, meant "to go
FORT SCOTT 195
out one week and try to get back the next." The fare between the two
points was $10 and "carry a rail," the term of the day for walking along-
side the stagecoach when the roads were bad. "If the roads were good," an
historian writes, "a man passenger only had to carry a rail about a third
of the way. But it was worth the price to ride into the Wilder House with
a grand flourish."
Cohn's Restaurant and Confectionery on East Wall Street became the
social hub of the town in the i88o's. "The Delmonico of the West," one
local newspaper called it, "a royal restaurant with dining parlors hand-
somely painted and papered in the highest style of art, the popular and
stylish resort of the city. . . ." Cohn, restaurateur of parts, among other
elaborate dishes contributed "Quail a la Marmaton" and "Turkey a la
Pawnee" to the art of cuisine.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, social life was
greatly subdued. The town was developing as a manufacturing and trad-
ing center. Then in the early 1900'$ came a slump in business activity, a
gradual let- down after a half century of bustling activity.
For years farmers in the vicinity produced grains and vegetables with
only moderate success. In 1910, however, a survey was made and Fort
Scott business men offered to promote the establishment of ice cream fac-
tories and creameries if the farmers would devote their resources to the
raising of dairy cattle. Local banks extended credit to farmers who bought
dairy cows and marketed their milk in Fort Scott. Progress was slow in the
beginning for money was scarce and a limited market retarded production.
In 1918 the Borden Company erected a condensery, furnishing a year-
around market which insured the success of the dairying program.
In 1938, thirty milk trucks covered the territory, carrying approximately
150,000 pounds of milk a day into Fort Scott. Farmers receive almost
$1,000,000 yearly for the dairy products, the greater portion of which is
spent in this vicinity or deposited in local banks. Dairymen and business
men promote a Dairy Show annually. In addition to the dairy industry
Fort Scott has two railroad shops, an overall factory, a monument factory,
foundries, and paving brick plants. A hydraulic cement plant just north
of town is among the largest of its kind in the Middle West and deposits
of coal, which accompany the cement rock deposits, furnish fuel for the
plant's operation. The mining of coal is an industry of steadily increasing
importance in the area.
Fort Scott was the home of Eugene Fitch Ware, author and editor (see
LITERATURE).
POINTS OF INTEREST
CARROLL PLAZA, east of the business district and bounded by
Marmaton, Blair, Fenton, and Lincoln Aves., is a grass-grown square, once
the parade ground for soldiers stationed at the old fort. It is the oldest
area in the city, having been laid out in 1842. Although the points of the
square were undoubtedly intended to be directly north and south, a slight
miscalculation was made and its sides lie diagonal to Fort Scott's main
streets. On the square and facing it are the remaining fort relics.
196 CITIES AND TOWNS
Near the SE. entrance is FORT BLAIR (always open), a Civil War
blockhouse. Originally built on the corner of 2nd and Scott Streets, it was
moved to its site on the Plaza in 1924. The blockhouse is constructed of
sawed slabs, thoroughly spiked, covered with shingles and weather-boarded
with rough native lumber. Numerous openings in its sides were used as
loopholes for rifle fire. A bandstand near the center marks the SITE OF
THE OLD FORT POWDER MAGAZINE built in 1842. A stone canopy, near
the bandstand, marks the SITE OF THE OLD FORT WELL that was dug im-
mediately after the first soldiers arrived at Fort Scott. The canopy, con-
structed in the early part of the present century, is a reproduction of the
original built in the 1840*5.
The SITE OF THE OLD FORT STABLES, NE. corner Fenton and
Marmaton Sts., occupied by a storage barn, is designated by a bronze
marker. Another bronze marker, midway in the block, marks the SITE OF
THE FRONTIER BARRACKS.
The FORT SCOTT MUSEUM (open 9-5, daily), 103 Blair St., oc-
cupies one of the three remaining officers' quarters built during the first
year of the fort's existence. The museum, the property of the Fort Scott
Historical Society, contains souvenirs of the early fort, a collection of In-
dian relics, and, among other things, pictures of the town as it was in the
i85o's and i86o's. These are framed and mounted on walnut pedestals
made from pillars of a fourth officers' quarters that stood at the opposite
end of the block. The museum building, a two-and-one-half-story house of
Georgian Colonial design was operated as the Free State Hotel in the late
1850'$. It was remodeled in 1938 as a WPA project.
The GOODLANDER CHILDREN'S HOME (open with permis-
sion of superintendent), 107 Blair St., is in another of the officers' quarters.
The home, founded January 17, 1903, and named for C. W. Good-
lander, who provided funds for its opening, is non-sectarian. It is sup-
ported by an annual appropriation of $500 from the State, monthly con-
tributions from Fort Scott business men and residents of Bourbon County,
and through the proceeds from "Tag Day" held annually in Fort Scott to
raise money for improvements.
The OFFICERS' QUARTERS (open with permission of manager),
in Blair St., the third of the remaining buildings, has been made into an
apartment house although the building has undergone little change.
Immediately behind the three officers' quarters are several small
STONE HOUSES used by the troops as store houses. Behind these are the
FORT STABLES built with stone walls 14 inches thick. The stables are two
stories high with a huge hand-hewn beam between the stories.
The SITE OF THE OLD FORT GUARDHOUSE, corner of Lin-
coln and Fenton Sts., occupied by the city jail, is designated by a bronze
plaque. The guardhouse was built in 1843.
The FORT HOSPITAL, 106 Fenton St., is now used as a storage
barn. Occupying its original site the old building has undergone little
change except that the porches have been removed.
The NATIONAL CEMETERY, on E. National Ave. i m. E. of
National Ave., was established by act of Congress in 1862 and dedicated as
FORT SCOTT 197
a burial place for United States soldiers. The cemetery's 10 acres are en-
closed by a stone fence, with entrance through a folding iron gate. Four
mounted cannon guard the rostrum on the knoll near the center of the
grounds. From a tall shaft in the center of the rostrum the American flag
flies over the graves of Civil, Spanish- American, and World War soldiers.
Here, too, is the grave of Eugene F. Ware.
East National Avenue, the approach to the cemetery, is known locally
as "orphan street." Neither the city nor the State claim the thoroughfare,
and it has been allowed to fall into bad condition.
The HOME OF EUGENE WARE (private), SW. corner Eddy
and 2nd Sts., is known as the Drake Home. A two-story white frame
structure, the house has been remodeled throughout since Ware made his
home there in the i88o's and 1 890*5. Eugene Fitch Ware is best known
for his Rhymes of Ironquill, which ran through 13 editions. He came to
Kansas as a young man shortly after the Civil War, was admitted to the
bar, and in the latter part of the century served for a number of years as
editor of the Fort Scott Monitor.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS
Rock Creek Lake, 9 m.; Elm Creek Lake, 25.1 m. (see Tour 5); Crawford
County State Park, 27 m. (see Tour 13).
HutcLinson
Railroad Stations: 3rd Ave. and Walnut St. for Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry.;
C and Main Sts. for Missouri Pacific R.R. ; Ave. D and Main St. for Chicago, Rock
Island & Pacific Ry. and Arkansas Valley Interurban Ry.
Bus Stations: 18 E. 2nd Ave. for Cardinal and Southern Kansas Stage Lines, and
Greyhound and Santa Fe Trail ways.
Airport: Municipal airport, E. city limits, N. of US 508; no scheduled service.
Taxis: io0, upward.
Traffic Regulations: Traffic lights; straight ahead or right on green, left turn on
amber, stop on red.
Accommodations: Eight hotels, boarding houses, tourist camps.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 203 W. ist Ave.
Radio Station: KWBG (1420 kc.).
Theaters and Motion Picture Houses: Little Theater, Richardson Hall; five motion
picture houses in winter, four in summer.
Swimming: Carey Municipal Park, Park and Main Sts.; Stevens Swimming Pool,
1501 E. ist Ave.
Golf: Carey Municipal Park, 18 holes; greens fee 2 50 weekdays, 350 Sundays and
holidays; Country Club, 8 m. NW. on county road, 18 holes; greens fee $i. Prairie
Dunes Golf Club, 4 m. E. on county road, 9 holes; greens fee $i, weekdays; $2
Sundays and holidays.
Tennis: Public courts in Carey Municipal Park.
Baseball: Carey Municipal Park.
Wrestling and Boxing: Convention Hall, Ave. A and Walnut St.
Annual Events: Fourth of July Fiesta; Kansas State Fair, Sept.
HUTCHINSON (1,530 alt., 27,085 pop.), fourth largest city in Kansas,
lies slightly south and east of the center of the State on the north bank of
the Arkansas River. The city spreads out in the level valley land in the
form of the letter "T", its base extending eastward and its broad arms
reaching north and south. Although typical of the cattle country in its
friendliness, its lack of social distinctions, and in the clean way its broad
streets meet the open prairie, Hutchinson is a city of mills and factories.
Laid out with a lavish hand by pioneers who had more land than any-
thing else, Hutchinson has Jong straight streets, broad lawns, and many
parks. Unlike most Kansas river towns, it did not begin at the river's edge,
but grew from a tiny cluster of houses on Cow Creek which follows a
parallel course approximately one-half mile north of the river. Creeping
southward until it reached the river and at the same time pushing into the
prairie land on the north and east, Hutchinson has practically swallowed
up the narrow creek. Busy streets cross the creek bed in the residential sec-
tions and it is routed through huge tiles beneath the structures in the heart
of the business section.
Main Street, crossing the subterranean channel of Cow Creek at Ave-
198
HUTCHINSON 199
nue A, cuts squarely across town from north to south. Through a district
of shabby stores and garages near the river it passes into the main business
section, emerging finally into the better residential districts as it nears the
northern outskirts.
Business houses for the most part are brick structures two and three
stories in height with here and there a four-, five-, or eight-story building
occupying an important corner. Homes near the business section date back
to the 1 890'$ and the early 1900'$, built by the first fortunes made in salt
and cattle and in prairie real estate. Surrounding these are houses of Cali-
fornia bungalow type, flanked by rows of prim new residences of varying
architectural designs. The lower-income residential areas of Hutchinson
are west and east of the business section, their neat but shabby streets
hugging close to the river and the railroad tracks.
The irregular bulk of flour mills and the concrete cylinders of grain
elevators dominate the industrial area, which lies approximately a mile
east of the retail district. Nearby are salt plants, a refinery, railroad yards,
and numerous smaller industrial concerns. Along the railroad tracks on the
west side of Hutchinson is a second industrial district, and across the Ar-
kansas River at the south city limits is still another group of mills and ele-
vators, another refinery, and a nationally known salt plant.
The importance of the salt industry to the city of Hutchinson is evident
to the casual observer, and "Salt City" is often substituted for Hutchinson
in names of business firms. Built above salt deposits, reputedly among the
richest in the world, Hutchinson' s chief industry is the mining, processing,
and shipment of salt. Deposits that underlie the greater part of the metro-
politan area and the surrounding country are approximately 600 feet
below the surface and range from 300 to 350 feet in thickness. The city's
three salt-processing plants ship 3,000,000 barrels of salt annually to mar-
kets in all parts of the United States and geologists estimate that the sup-
ply is practically inexhaustible. Plants and mines employ approximately
600 men.
Although somewhat less spectacular, Hutchinson's wheat shipping and
storage industry attains heights in "wheat years" untouched by the com-
paratively steady salt industry. As the seat of Reno County, the most im-
portant wheat-producing area of Kansas, Hutchinson is a key city for the
shipment and milling of grain from the adjacent area and from the great
fields of southwestern Kansas. With eight elevators and three flour mills,
Hutchinson has storage facilities for more than io,qoo,ooo bushels of
grain. Claiming to be the smallest city in the world with its own grain
market dealing in futures, Hutchinson points to a ten-year average of grain
receipts at its markets in the period from 1925 to 1935, exceeding 46,-
000,000 bushels a year. Thirty grain firms maintain offices in the city.
Surrounded on all sides by oil fields, Hutchinson's petroleum industry
has developed gradually, but gives promise of exceeding both salt and
wheat in importance. A producing well, flowing at the rate of 3,600 bar-
rels of high gravity oil a day, is only nine miles east of the city and more
than 1,500 additional wells are within a radius of 100 miles of the city
limits. Adjacent to Hutchinson on the east is Kansas' most productive gas
200 CITIES AND TOWNS
well, yielding 128,600,000 cubic feet a day. Hutchinson has two refin-
eries, numerous distribution and supply companies, and long dark lines of
tank cars mingle with those loaded with wheat in its railroad yards.
Named for its founder, C. C. Hutchinson, the city was platted in No-
vember 1871, its first streets lying on both sides of Cow Creek near the
spot where the new Santa Fe Railway was to cross the Arkansas River. To
encourage settlement by sober, industrious persons, Hutchinson included
a clause in the deed to each lot specifying that if liquor were sold or given
away thereon at any time prior to 1875, the property and all improvements
would revert back to the original owner. After 1875 Hutchinson hoped
that the moral- sentiment of the settlers would be strong enough to control
the liquor traffic.
To the builder of the first house on the townsite Hutchinson offered to
give one of the choice lots in the settlement. This prize was won by A. F.
Homer who moved a black walnut building from the nearby town of
Newton. This was not the first prize Horner's portable house had won for
its builder. When the town of Brookville was founded on the Kansas
Pacific Railroad in the early 1870*5 its promoters, like Hutchinson's, of-
fered a town lot to the persons who built the first house. Horner quickly
built a house 20 by 60 feet which won the prize, but soon moved it to the
new town of Florence on the Santa Fe Railway to win another lot.
Horner was settled in the draughty house in Florence when the Santa
Fe pushed westward to Newton and promoters of that settlement offered
a similar prize. In due time Horner won it with his mobile walnut house.
Moving it for the last time to Hutchinson, Horner placed it on a lot at
the corner of First and Main Streets where it remained until it was torn
down to make room for a more modern structure. The building served as
C. C. Hutchinson's real estate office, the town's first post office, and first
hotel.
When Hutchinson was incorporated as a third class city in August 1872,
Horner's much-traveled building was only one of a number of low build-
ings along Main Street. The town boasted a newspaper, the Hutchinson
News, an inn, and a cluster of stores and houses. The promoters plowed
a wide furrow around the settlement to protect it from the fires that swept
so swiftly across the level grass-covered prairie, and, since stones for street
markers were scarce, citizens marked off streets with buffalo bones. The
Santa Fe Railway reached the Arkansas River crossing and Hutchinson
in the summer of 1872, but pushed westward almost immediately.
Having visions of Hutchinson as a prairie metropolis and a seat of cul-
ture and learning, the settlers made plans for churches and schools soon
after their arrival. The first regular church meetings were held in a build-
ing that on weekdays served as a butcher shop. During the second summer
of Hutchinson's existence residents voted $15,000 in bonds to build a
school building. Literary and musical societies were formed early, and in
1882 the Hutchinson opera house was built by public subscription on the
northeast corner of First Avenue and Main Street. The News carried long
paragraphs on the activities of Hutchinson's cultural societies and the
IN A SALT MINE, HUTCHINSON
town's social leaders sponsored home talent performances at the opera
house for special occasions, when "traveling talent" was not available.
By 1885 Hutchinson had attained a certain importance as a shipping
and trading center. The production of Turkey Red wheat, a variety par-
ticularly adaptable to prairie soil, was increasing yearly, and its increase
was accompanied by the growing importance of Hutchinson as a milling
center.
A few years later, following the discovery of natural gas, a wave of
prosperity swept southwestern Kansas and in 1887 Sam Blanchard of
Hutchinson drilled the first well in the vicinity on a farm south of the
city. At approximately 300 feet the drill struck salt and although local
residents were mildly amazed to learn that salt deposits existed beneath
the city they hardly considered prospects of a future industry until New
York promoters had a plant in operation almost in the heart of the city.
By 1888 almost a dozen salt plants were in operation in and near Hutch-
inson and the city's salt industry was permanently established less than
two years after the mineral was discovered.
Growing slowly and experiencing no booms, Hutchinson had a popu-
lation of 9,000 in 1900 and by 1910 had grown to more than 16,000. In
the 1920*5 oil wealth began to filter in from the south and west, and the
202 CITIES AND TOWNS
plentiful supply of cheap natural gas fuel attracted many smaller indus-
tries.
Hutchinson is the home of Gov. Walter A. Huxman, 2yth Governor of
the State, and one of the five Democrats elected to the office since Kansas
was admitted to statehood in 1861.
POINTS OF INTEREST
The RENO COUNTY COURTHOUSE, NW. corner ist Ave. and
Adams St., completed in 1930, is a fine example of modern architecture.
The structure which cost approximately a half -million dollars, is of Indiana
Bedford stone, Virginia marble, and yellow brick. In the courtroom, the
most highly decorated chamber in the building, is a mural painting by the
New York artist Adrenanti, an allegory of mercy, justice, and execution.
The SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, in ist Ave. Park, ist Ave. and Walnut
St., was erected to the memory of veterans of the Civil War by members
of the Joe Hooker Post, G. A. R., of Hutchinson. The monument, dedi-
cated in 1919, is surmounted by the figure of Abraham Lincoln with life-
size figures of soldiers and sailors of the Civil War upon each corner.
The SUN DIAL MONUMENT, in Sylvan Park, NE. corner Wal-
nut St. and Ave. B, commemorates President Harding' s visit to Hutchin-
son in 1923 when he spoke at the park's dedication.
The KANSAS STATE INDUSTRIAL REFORMATORY (open on
application), S. end of Reformatory Ave., is a penal institution for delin-
quents between 15 and 25 years of age. It comprises 1,300 acres within
the city of Hutchinson and controls 21 farms with a combined acreage of
4,000 acres adjacent to the city. The average wheat yield of the institution
is 18,000 bushels, and the sale of surplus swine contributes $8,000 annu-
ally toward its upkeep. The automobile tag factory, where Kansas State
automobile license tags are manufactured, has an output of 4,000 tags a
day. The institution houses approximately 1,000 inmates.
The BARTON SALT PLANT (open on application; guides), Cleve-
land and Campbell Sts. processes salt by evaporation. Water is forced
into the salt wells and the salt brought to the surface in the form
of salt brine. In time the moisture evaporates and impurities in the salt
are removed.
The CAREY SALT PLANT (open on application; guides), Poplar
St. and Avenue B, also processes salt by evaporation.
The CAREY LABORATORY (open on application; guides), on the grounds
of the Carey plant is among the largest and most complete laboratories of
its kind in the United States. Here salt from the mines is tested and new
methods for purifying devised.
The CAREY ROCK SALT MINE (open mornings only; guides),
E. end Carey Blvd. at city limits, although owned by the Carey Company
operates separately from the plant.
Mine visitors descend 645 feet to the mine bottom by way of an elec-
tric elevator in one minute and twenty seconds. Here they are permitted
to explore the 200 rooms of the mine and see the maze of subterranean
SALT PLANT, HUTCHINSON
railroad tracks by which salt is transported to the elevators. Rooms are
50 feet in width, 300 feet in length and have ceilings of rock salt from
7 to 10 feet high.
The "skip," or elevator, with a four-ton capacity raises the salt to the
mill on the surface in slightly more than a minute although its speed may
be increased to enable it to carry 1,000 tons of salt from the mine floor
in an eight-hour working day. Cars that convey salt from the mine rooms
to the "skip" carry between 20 and 25 tons of salt each trip and are filled
by motor-driven loaders which complete the task in 15 minutes.
The mine is electrically lighted and electric power is used throughout,
the company claiming that in this mine electricity is more extensively used
than in any other salt mine in the world.
The shaft of the mine was begun in May 1922 and completed in June
1923. Former Governor Jonathan M. Davis touched the button which
brought the first official "skip" of salt to the surface on June 23, 1923.
The mine employs approximately 60 men, and the mill, unlike other plants
in Hutchinson, processes salt by crushing and sifting.
204 CITIES AND TOWNS
CAREY MUNICIPAL PARK, Main St. between Park Ave. and the
Arkansas River, a gift of Emerson Carey to the city of Hutchinson, is en-
tered by a drive that affords a view of the Arkansas River, the park la-
goons, sunken gardens, swimming pool, baseball field, golf course, play-
grounds, and picnic grounds, and circles back to the entrance past the
police rifle range.
The EMERSON CAREY MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN, at the park entrance,
is an electrically lighted fountain backed by a decorative stone arch. The
spray design of the fountain changes constantly for an hour and a half
without repeating the same pattern. Dedicated October 24, 1935, the foun-
tain was built by subscriptions from Hutchinson business men and dedi-
cated to the memory of the late Emerson Carey, former owner of the
Carey salt interests and prominent Hutchinson philanthropist.
The MORTON SALT STABILIZED HIGHWAY, connecting Main
St. with the Morton plant, was built by accident. At intervals loads
of salt were dumped into soft places along the old dirt road that once
connected the plant with the city pavement until the thoroughfare was
completely surfaced with salt. Through experimentation and constant up-
keep by plant workers the road has become a satisfactory thoroughfare for
heavy trucks and wagons.
The MORTON SALT PLANT (open on application; guides), at
the N. end of Morton Salt Stabilized Highway, is one of the seven Mor-
ton salt plants in the United States. It refines salt by purifying and evap-
orating brine from deep wells. The staff of the plant's laboratory does
research work for the entire western division of the company's holdings,
an area which includes Kansas, Texas, California, and Utah.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS
Burrton oil fields, 17.2 m. (see Tour 4A).
Kansas City
Railroad Stations: Union Station, center yth St. Viaduct, W. side yth St. Trafficway,
for Union Pacific R.R. and Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Ry. ; Kansas City Terminal
Station, 434 Central Ave., for Missouri Pacific R.R. and Chicago Great Western
R.R.; 1900 Olathe Blvd. for Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R. ; 26th St. and Powell Ave.
for Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Ry.; 100 S. 8th St. (Rosedale) for St. Louis-San
Francisco Ry. Union Ticket Offices, 914 N. 6th St.
Bus Station: Union Bus Depot, 754 Minnesota Ave. for Missouri Pacific, Union
Pacific, Greyhound, Cardinal Stage, and Santa Fe Lines.
Airports: Fairfax Airport, 2.5 m. NE. of business district on Fairfax Rd., U. S.
Naval Base, training field and planes for hire; no passenger service. Kansas City
Municipal Airport, 102 Richards Rd., Kansas City. Mo. 3 m. E. of Kansas City,
Kans., business district, for Braniff, Hanford, and the Transcontinental & Western
Air Inc. Lines.
Taxis: Minimum fare io0.
Piers: ist St. and Minnesota Ave.
Streetcars: Fare io0, tokens four for 350, unlimited weekly pass $1.60. Supple-
mentary bus lines weekly pass $1.25.
Traffic Regulations: Turns may be made in either direction at intersections of all
streets except where traffic lights or officers direct otherwise. Stop signs at inter-
sections and school crossings, parking limitations signs on main business streets.
Accommodations: Two hotels, tourist camps.
Information Service: General, Chamber of Commerce, 727 Minnesota Ave.; road
information, Kansas Motor Club, 642 State Ave.
Radio Station: KCKN (1310 kc.).
Motion Picture Houses: Three downtown and n neighborhood houses; two for
Negroes.
Swimming: Clifton Park Pool, 2ist St. and Riverview Ave.; Klamm Park Pool,
22nd St. and Cleveland Ave.; Edgerton Park Pool (Negro), 3rd St. and Edgerton
Ave.; Shawnee Park bath-house, NW. corner Pyle St. and Osage Ave.; Rosedale
Pool, 29th St. and Springfield Ave. Admission 50 to 4:30 p.m., io0 evenings, holi-
days, and Sundays. Pools open during July and Aug.
Golf: Victory Hills Golf Club, 1 8 -hole, greens fee, 5O0 weekdays, 750 Saturday,
$i Sunday, 5 m. W. on US 40 to Vance Rd.; Quivira Lake Golf course, 9-hole,
greens fee, 50 cents weekdays, $i Saturday, $1.25 Sunday, 9 m. SW Argentine-
Holliday Rd., arrange courtesy card of admission at Chamber of Commerce or Qui-
vira Club.
Tennis: Heathwood Park, loth St. & Stewart Ave., 2 courts; Westheight Manor
Park, 20th St. & Wood Ave., 6; Bethany Park, nth St. & Central Ave., 4; Shawnee
Park, 7th St. & Osage Ave., 2; Emerson Park, 29th St. & Strong Ave., 4; City Park,
4122 Rainbow Blvd., 12; Klamm Park, 22nd St. & Cleveland Ave., 6; Quindaro
Park, 34th St. & Parkview Ave., 4; Parkwood Park, 9th St. & Quindaro Blvd., 2;
Big Eleven Lake, nth St. & Washington Blvd., 4.
Riding: Royal Riding Academy, Calvin Lake, 3 m. W. on Reidy Rd. ; Wonderland
Park stables, 44th St. and Muncie Blvd.
Annual Events: Kansas Day celebration, Jan. 29; Military ball on Mon. following
Lent; Music Week, first week after Easter; Mexican fiestas, May 5, Sept. 15 and
16; Wyandotte Garden Club Flower Show last week of May; American Royal Live
205
WYANDOTTE COUNTY COURTHOUSE, KANSAS CITY
Stock and Horse Show, Oct. or first of Nov.; American Legion Posts: Annual ball
sponsored by Company G of i37th Infantry, date set by committee.
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (773 alt., 121,857 PP-)> at the confluence of
the Missouri and Kansas Rivers at the eastern edge of the State, is the
largest city in Kansas and the seat of Wyandotte County.
Its position is one of great natural advantages. Situated in the heart of
the central plains region, Kansas City, with Kansas City, Missouri, forms
the industrial center for this vast region. Kansas City, Missouri, joins it on
the east, and so closely are they connected there is no apparent division.
On the north, south, and west are undulating farm lands, checkered with
fields of wheat and corn. Here, too, are stores of natural resources; small
oil and gas wells, rich limestone deposits, and stream beds yielding sand
valued at one million dollars annually. Near to the city are dairy farms,
truck gardens, and suburban estates. Highways are lined with commercial
signs, tourist camps, and wayside markets.
Within the city limits the undulating character of the terrain is intensi-
fied. The Kansas River, flowing from the southwest, approximately bisects
the urban area, and on either side of the narrow valley is spread a series of
hills and precipitous bluffs. Seventh Street Trafficway, traversing the city
from north to south, has as many "dips" as a roller-coaster railway, not-
withstanding the three viaducts bridging the river and seven railway lines.
Due to the hills and to the manner of its growth, its streets are not
KANSAS CITY 2OJ
regularly patterned for Kansas City has not grown around a single in-
dustrial unit ; it is a consolidation of villages. Eight individual towns were
merged to form the present corporate limits, resulting in many angling
and broken thoroughfares, and in five "main" streets, each centered in its
own business and residential district.
Although there is no apparent division between the two cities, Kansas
City, Kansas, has jealously retained a definite identity. The city points
with pride to the fact that a majority of the great industrial plants in the
river bottoms are on the Kansas side of the line, although they are always
included in an industrial survey of the Missouri city.
Greater Kansas City, which includes both cities and their suburbs, has
spilled over a large area in four counties, two in each State. On the Kansas
side it has grown steadily southward until it has crossed the Wyandotte
County line into Johnson County, where there are many comfortable
suburban homes. Paradoxically, Kansas City, Missouri's, most exclusive
residential development, Indian Hills, is also well within the borders of
Johnson County, Kansas.
On June 26, 1804, Lewis and Clark passed through the territory on
their expedition to the Pacific Coast. They landed on the neck of land be-
tween the two rivers that is called "Kaw Point," a part of the present city,
and rested for two days, making observations, and overhauling equipment.
Two years later, after crossing the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, they
stopped at this point on their return voyage. On Monday, August 15,
1806, Clark wrote in his diary: "The Kansas is very low at this time.
About a mile below it we landed to view the situation of a high hill,
which has many advantages for a trading house or fort; while on shore
we gathered great quantities of pawpaws, and shot an elk. The low
grounds are now delightful, and the whole country exhibits a rich ap-
pearance. ..."
This was the first written description of the territory. Twelve years later
it was made a part of the reservation granted to the Delaware Indians.
Twenty-five years later 1843 it was purchased from the Delaware
by the Wyandot, who laid the foundation for the present city.
The Wyandot, the last of the emigrant tribes, came from Sandusky,
Ohio, as a band of 700 not savages, but an educated, and in many in-
stances a cultured people. Intermarried with whites from generations back,
they were more white than Indian; their leaders were men of influence
and ability. They laid out the town, Wyandot City, in 1843, the first log
cabin being completed and occupied on December 10. Within twelve
months, despite flood and sickness and the delay of the Federal Govern-
ment in paying them for their Ohio reservation improvements, they had
built a school, the first free school in Kansas; a church, the organization
of which they brought from Ohio; a store owned in common by the na-
tion; and a council house in which they were to take far-reaching action.
The Wyandot were farmers, devoted to rural pursuits rather than urban
practices; and the little city grew very slowly until 1849, when the Cali-
fornia gold rush placed it on the great highway to the Pacific an alarm-
ing situation to Wyandot leaders. From past experiences, they knew that
208 CITIES AND TOWNS
the white men invading their precincts, sooner or later, would covet their
lands and that what white men wanted they would obtain. All they could
do was increase the value and obtain the best price possible. To accom-
plish this they must induce white men to settle among them ; and to bring
white men they must assume a Territorial status.
With this object in view, they met on October 12, 1852, in their coun-
cil house and elected Abelard Guthrie, a white man married into the tribe,
as a delegate to the Thirty-second Congress. Guthrie was not admitted to
Congress, but his presence in Washington forced the Territorial question
a fact of which Wyandot leaders were fully cognizant. On July 26,
1853, they met to take the more compelling action of organizing Kansas-
Nebraska into a provisional Territory, electing William Walker as Gov-
ernor, and re-electing Guthrie to the Thirty-third Congress.
Although this action also failed of recognition, it did serve to project
the little city of Wyandot into the national limelight. Kansas, by the Mis-
souri Compromise, was neutral territory. If it came into the Union as a Free
State, the balance of power would be thrown to the North; and it was
known that a majority of the Wyandot were with the North. (In 1848
when their church was divided, 135 of the 200 members had espoused the
Northern cause.) Thus, in this little Indian Settlement was staged a pre-
liminary to the national conflict (see HISTORY).
In the meantime, in 1855, the Wyandot petitioned for and received the
rights of citizens with their lands in severalty. This enabled them to dis-
pose of their property, which they did promptly; within a short time
Wyandot City passed into the hands of white men, and the Wyandot as a
nation disappeared from Kansas. Although advanced in civilization, they
were not equal to the white man's often unscrupulous shrewdness ; and in
1868, having dissipated the proceeds of the sale of their property, they
petitioned to be reinstated as wards of the Government. The petition was
granted. Those who chose were restored to the nation and given a home
with the Cherokee in Oklahoma. The few families who preferred to re-
tain citizenship, remained in the city, where some of their descendants
still reside.
The white settlers who succeeded them established a post office in the
spring of 1857, opened two banks the same year, and transformed the
quiet village into a booming town, which they called "Wyandotte."
Other towns sprang up nearby. Quindaro, on the bank of the Missouri
a little to the north and west, was founded in 1856 by Abelard Guthrie,
Charles Robinson, and others, and was named for Guthrie's Wyandot
wife, Quindaro Brown Guthrie. Intended as a Free State port to compete
with the pro-slavery towns of Westport, Missouri, and Leavenworth, it
was widely advertised and grew rapidly, for two years rivaling Wyandotte.
Ambitious for the trade of the Southwest, Wyandotte built a road to the
Kansas River and established a free ferry. Quindaro retaliated with a sim-
ilar road and ferry. Wyandotte then after effecting incorporation January
29, 1859, and electing its first mayor, James B. Parr, in February shifted
its business section from Nebraska Avenue to the levee, where a block of
business buildings was erected and Quindaro had no answer. One of
IN THE STOCKYARDS, KANSAS CITY
those buildings was "Constitutional Hall," wherein, July 1859, the con-
stitution of Kansas was written; and by that constitution the county of
Wyandotte was erected with Wyandotte as the county seat. Quindaro's
prosperity declined and came to an end during the Civil War.
In 1860, James McGrew established a slaughter house in the bottoms
now occupied by the stockyards; in 1866 the railroad connecting Wyan-
dotte with Topeka was completed; and in 1868, Edward Patterson and
J. W. Slavens began the first packing house with an annual kill of 4,000
animals. However, it was due to Charles F. Adams, descendant of Presi-
dents John and John Quincy Adams, that Kansas City became a meat
packing center. Adams acquired several large tracts of land in the Kansas
River Valley, now occupied by Armourdale and the central industrial dis-
trict, and built the first of the stockyards. He then persuaded Plankington
210 CITIES AND TOWNS
and Armour to remove the packing house they had set up in Missouri to
Kansas that it might be convenient to his stockyards. This they did in
1871, beginning the present Armour plant and the first of the major
packing units. Today Kansas City has eleven packing houses, including
those of the "Big Four" Armour, Swift, Cudahy, and Wilson requiring
the services of seven trunkline railroads.
Around the railroad and packing houses other towns grew up. Old
Kansas City, Kansas, on the strip of ground between the Kansas River and
the Missouri line, was platted in 1868 and incorporated October 22,
1872; Armstrong, on the hill to the south, was established in 1871.
Armourdale, named for the packers, in the low ground south of Arm-
strong, was founded in 1871 and incorporated in 1882; while Riverview,
built on the hill between Armstrong and Wyandotte, came into being in
1879.
These towns, all within a figurative stone's throw and animated with
boom times, soon were crowding each other; the need for consolidation
became apparent. Agitation was begun in 1876, but it was not until 1880
that Riverview petitioned and became a part of Wyandotte. In 1886 old
Kansas City and Armourdale were annexed by legislative enactment, and
Armstrong was included as intervening territory. Much discussion arose
over the proper name for the consolidated city. Wyandotte held out for
its name, but as it was argued that municipal bonds would sell better
under the title of Kansas City, Kansas, that was finally adopted.
Still the city was not complete. Across the Kansas River to the south
were Rosedale and Argentine. Rosedale took its name from the wild rose
covering the bluffs when it was a wayside stop on the Santa Fe Trail. It
was platted in 1872 and received impetus from the rolling mill opened in
1875. Argentine grew up around the Santa Fe Railway shops and yards,
established in 1880, and the plant of the Consolidated Kansas City Smelt-
ing and Refining Company, which drew raw materials from all over the
country and sent its smelted gold and silver to the mints of the world.
Argentine, so named from the Spanish word for silver, became a part of
the city by petition in 1909; Rosedale was forced in by legislative enact-
ment in 1922. Meanwhile, Quindaro, having rescinded its incorporation
and reverted to Quindaro Township, was absorbed by natural expansion.
And so the present city was formed.
The "Exodusters," freed Negroes from the South, and European peas-
ants Germans, Russians, Poles, Croats, Czechs, Slovakians lured by the
prospects of freedom in a new land, increased the city's population in
the late iSoo's.
The coming of the Negroes spread over a period of twenty years fol-
lowing the Civil War, but the peak was reached between 1878 and 1882.
In that four-year period twenty thousand are said to have landed on the
city's levee. Large numbers were sent on to Atchison, Topeka, and other
towns in the State; others were returned to the South. The majority, how-
ever, remained in Kansas City and were absorbed by its growing indus-
tries. Homes were found along Jersey Creek in a settlement called "Rat-
tlebone Hollow," and in old Quindaro; while literally hundreds squatted
KANSAS CITY 211
on the levee, putting up shanties of scrapwood to form what was known
as "Jumper," or "Mississippi Town."
"Mississippi Town" went out of existence in 1924, when it was con-
demned as an unsightly nuisance, and that part of the levee was trans-
formed into the Woodswether industrial district. "Rattlebone Hollow" is
still extant, although the Negroes are not confined to that area. As their
economic conditions improved and numbers increased, they have spread
over virtually the entire city, forming a substantial civic group. Negro in-
stitutions include a university, a hospital, and a high school. There are
also two Negro weekly newspapers.
The European immigrants first settled around the packing houses, but
have since moved to other parts of the city. "Strawberry Hill," a part of
old Riverview, is a Slavic settlement which retains many native customs,
although this racial group is fast being assimilated.
Kansas City's industries, except for odors from stockyards and packing
houses, are not obtrusive. Yet they are present to an astonishing extent.
Hay market and grain storage facilities are the largest in the world. Stock-
yards and meat-packing houses are second only to Chicago; and not even
Chicago has all of the "Big Four," with complete processing plants, as
Kansas City has. Serum plants, manufacturing serum for the protection
of animal health, rank first in the United States. Soap factories draw raw
materials from various parts of the world and distribute their manufac-
tured products throughout North America. Fabricating steel mills are the
largest west of the Mississippi; and flour mills, oil refineries, railway
shops and yards, and innumerable other activities contribute importantly
to its economic stability.
In the early days of Kansas City's industries, the bulk of traffic was
carried by steamboats on the Missouri River. Today (1938) this river
traffic is being revived. The city owns 9ol/> acres of levee land and, in
conjunction with the Public Works Administration, is engaged in an im-
mense levee development project. Aiding this work, Congress, by an act of
July 3, 1930, provided for a survey to determine the possibility of re-
establishing barges not only on the Missouri River, but on the Kansas as
well. Navigation of the Missouri is now a reality, and barges of i,ooo-ton
capacity are planned to operate on the Kansas to a distance of 9.5 miles
above its mouth.
POINTS OF INTEREST
1. HURON BUILDING, 907-909 N. yth St., 12 stories in height, is
the city's tallest building. Built in 1923 by the Elks Club, with a ballroom
and roof garden, it is now devoted to offices.
2. WYANDOTTE COUNTY COURTHOUSE, 7 th St. between Ann
and Barrett Aves., built in 1927, was designed in the neoclassic style by
Wight & Wight of Kansas City, Mo., and constructed of Bedford stone
and reenforced concrete. The front is decorated with a frieze of Greek
plaques symbolizing the leading industries of Kansas, fluted Doric col-
umns, and carved inscriptions. Interior walls of the first floor are of Italian
travertine with floors of terrazzo, bordered with tile and Tennessee mar-
212
CITIES AND TOWNS
KANSAS CITY
2I 3
if
KANSAS CITY
KANSAS
214 CITIES AND TOWNS
ble. On the third floor, the main hall, with its barrel-vaulted ceiling,
forms the beautiful Hall of Courts.
3. SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MEMORIAL BUILDING (open),
yth St. between Barnett and Tauromee Aves., of neoclassic design some-
what freely adapted was erected in 1924 as a monument to Wyandotte
County's World War heroes and is really two buildings, combining a
civic auditorium with the Memorial Hall, which contains military trophies,
memorial tablets, and photographs. Rose and Peterson of Kansas City
were the architects.
4. The WALLER RESIDENCE (private), 524 Ann Ave., a one-story
frame structure, was brought by boat from Cincinnati in 1858, and is one
of the oldest in the city. Governor Charles Robinson is believed to have
once used the front room for his office.
5. ST. MARY'S CHURCH, NW. corner 5th St. and Ann Ave., the
city's first Catholic church, was founded by Father Anton Kuhls, who also
founded the first hospital. The site of three acres was purchased in 1865
from Mathias Splitlog, a Wyandot, for $800, and the first building was
erected on the SE. corner of 6th and Ann Ave. that year. The present
building of gray limestone, designed in the English Gothic style, was
dedicated in 1903. Three altars of white oak, brought from Louisville,
Ky., were temporarily lost in the 1903 flood, but arrived in the city on
Saturday morning before the dedication on Sunday. At noon 25 men were
set to work, completing the installation at midnight.
6. The OLD WATER TOWER (not open), Fowler St., 100 yards S.
of Ann Ave., 40 feet high, suggesting the lookout of a feudal castle, was
erected in 19051906 as a part of the old Kansas City, Mo., water plant.
Prior to the 1903 flood, the connection was a pipeline bridged over the
Kansas River. The bridge was washed out in the flood, and a tunnel was
then made under the river and the tower erected. During the World War
a guard station was maintained in the tower to prevent dynamiting or
other possible destruction.
The PANORAMIC VIEW, from the end of Missouri Pacific Bridge,
Minnesota Ave. and 2nd St., is sweeping and comprehensive. Directly in
the foreground is the junction of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, form-
ing Kaw Point, where Lewis and Clark landed in 1804. To the right is
the overhead span of the Inter-city Viaduct and the James St. Bridge.
Across the Kansas River SE. is the hill described by Clark as advantageous
for a trading house or fort. At the foot of this hill is the strip of ground
where the Wyandot camped and 60 died while their leaders negotiated
land from the Delaware. Directly ahead, on the left side of the Missouri
River, is the Municipal Airport, with planes flying above waters where
once chugged slow-moving steamboats; and beyond it are the elevators
and towers of North Kansas City. On the left, back across the Missouri,
is the Fairfax industrial district, with the cone-topped tanks of the Phillips
Petroleum Company, and the floorlike fields of Fairfax Airport, and im-
mediately to the left is the site of the business block of old Wyandot, with
the new terminal elevator and dock directly in front.
7. SITE OF CONSTITUTIONAL HALL, 2nd St. and Nebraska Ave.,
KANSAS CITY 215
is occupied by the Chicago & Great Western Elevator. Constitutional Hall,
built in 1858 by Lipman Meyer at a cost of $4,000, was a four-story
brick building poorly constructed and never finished, although the con-
stitutional convention assembled there in July 1859, and framed the con-
stitution of Kansas. Undermined by water, it collapsed in May 1861.
8. FIRST COURTHOUSE OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY (private),
328 Nebraska Ave., a weathered, two-story frame building on a high ter-
race, was purchased from Isaiah Walker, a Wyandot, on July n, 1860,
for $1,800. It then stood on the back of the lot and was used as Wyan-
dotte's first post office. The county commissioners moved it to the front of
the lot and erected a log jail at the back. The jail has been demolished,
but the old courthouse is occupied as a residence by its present owner.
9. SITE OF WYANDOT COUNCIL HOUSE, 4 th St. at alley be-
tween Nebraska and State Aves., is designated by a wooden marker with
the inscription, "Site of Wyandotte Indian Council House 1843-1861."
The one-story, frame building that stood on the site was the first free
school in Kansas and the council house of the Wyandot nation.
10. HURON PARK, Minnesota Ave. between 6th and yth Sts., heart
of the downtown district, was "permanently reserved and appropriated"
as a burial ground by the Wyandot in the treaty of 1855. In 1859, when
the Wyandotte City Town Company plat was filed, it was designated as
public grounds under the title of "Huron Place," with 150 square feet on
each of its four corners dedicated to church sites. Churches were erected
but have since been removed. Within the park are the Carnegie Library,
Municipal Rose Garden, and the Indian Cemetery.
The CARNEGIE LIBRARY (open 9-9 daily), an elaborate version of
Italian Renaissance architecture, was designed by W. W. Rose of Kansas
City and erected in 19201924. It contains among other paintings: The
Pioneer Woman by G. M. Stone of Topeka; Cherubs, ascribed by local
critics to Rubens ; and two large canvases, Rebecca at the Well and Ishmael
and Hagar, by Giobe Montine. The latter two were owned by Elizabeth
Patterson of Baltimore, wife of Jerome Bonaparte and hence sister-in-law
to the Emperor. They are supposed to have been the gift of the Emperor
himself. After the marriage was dissolved by Napoleon, the paintings
were placed on the market and purchased by Mrs. Mary E. Craddock,
widow of a former mayor, who presented them to the library.
The MUNICIPAL ROSE GARDEN (open daily and evenings), de-
veloped in 1935, contains between 8,000 and 9,000 plants.
The INDIAN CEMETERY (Wyandot National Cemetery, locally called
Huron Cemetery), a scant two acres joining the library grounds on the
west, contains the remains of such Wyandot chiefs as Warpole, Tauromee,
George I. Clark, Big Tree, Serrahas, Squeendchtee, and Esquire Grey
Eyes, the Wyandot preacher. On the family stones are the names of the
Northrups, Zanes, Garrets, and others. The oldest stone is dated 1844.
After removal of the Wyandot from Kansas, obliteration threatened the
cemetery. In 1906, business men, with an eye to its commercial value,
caused a bill to be slipped through Congress, authorizing the sale of the
site and removal of the bodies to the second Wyandot cemetery at Quin-
2l6 CITIES AND TOWNS
daro. Wyandot descendants remaining in the city resisted the measure,
because in the 1850*5, when they sold most of their property, it was stip-
ulated that their burial ground should be preserved. Litigation was carried
through all the courts in the country, reaching the United States Supreme
Court in 1910. That body upheld the decisions of the lower courts, which
had ruled in favor of the bill; but because of aroused public sentiment,
Congress, in 1913, repealed the statute and converted the cemetery into a
city park, extending sepulchral rights to the Wyandot. Closely associated
with the cemetery is the name of Lydia B. Conley, a member of the Zane
family, who led the fight to keep it intact. When removal of the bodies
was attempted, she padlocked the gates, erected a temporary shelter
known as "Fort Conley," and mounted guard with a warning that it
would be "peril to trespass." As a qualified lawyer, she pleaded the
case before the Supreme Court, being the first woman to appear before
the court. In the winter of 19361937 Miss Conley obtained a restrain-
ing order to prevent a proposed parking lot at the east side of the burial
grounds; and on June 7, 1937, she threatened bodily harm to park de-
partment employees who were cutting grass and trimming trees in the
cemetery proper. For this she was arrested and given a lo-day jail sentence.
11. SEVENTH STREET METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
SOUTH, NE. corner 7th St. and State Ave., erected in 1888, is a red brick
building with a square tower and steeple. The church was founded in
1848, when 65 members of the Wyandot "Church in the Wilderness,"
espousing the cause of the South, followed the example set by the Georgia
conference and seceded from the mother church.
12. WASHINGTON AVENUE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
NW. corner 7th St. and Washington Blvd., erected in 1924, is a three-
story building, constructed of native stone, and designed in the English
Gothic style, with exceptionally beautiful mullioned windows of cherry
red and royal blue glass. Charles E. Keyser of Kansas City was the archi-
tect. The church organization dates back to 1844, when the Wyandot
built "The Church in the Wilderness." Bronze plaques in the vestibule
commemorate John Stewart, Negro missionary who first brought the
Methodist Church to the Wyandot in Ohio; and Lucy B. Armstrong,
daughter of a succeeding missionary and wife of a prominent Wyandot.
13. BIG ELEVEN LAKE, nth St. from Washington Blvd. to State
Ave., was, according to local legend, the haunt by night of sinister char-
acters and the scene of many diabolical murders, the bodies supposedly
committed to its muggy waters. In 1934 it was drained, the bottom
sanded, and the banks sodded and decorated with a scalloped rock de-
sign. After being refilled by the springs that feed it, it was stocked with
fish from the State Hatchery. The draining took place before a large
and curious audience, but when it was emptied, no human skeletons
were found, only a gold watch, an automobile tire, an assortment of tin
cans, and some fish.
14 . KANSAS STATE SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND (visitors by ap-
pointment), State Ave., between nth and i2th Sts., a unit of the State
educational system, is on an oak-studded hillside of 9.6 acres. Curving
KANSAS CITY 2iy
drives lead to the 12 red brick buildings, the first of which was erected in
1866 as an asylum for the blind.
15. OAK GROVE CEMETERY, N. end of 3rd St., i2l/ 2 acres, over-
looking the Missouri River, one of the oldest in the city, was purchased
from Sophia Walker Clement, daughter of Gov. William Walker, in
1868. Many pioneer families and notables connected with the city's his-
tory are buried here, prominent among whom were Mary Tenney Gray
(1833-1904), "Mother of the Women's Club Movement," so called be-
cause she initiated the Kansas Federation of Women's Clubs; William
Walker (1800-1874), Wyandot chief; and Mary A. Sturges (1809-
1892), Union Army nurse.
16. WESTERN UNIVERSITY (Negro), NW. corner 2 7 th and Grant
Sts., a coeducational institution, maintained by the African Methodist
Episcopal Church with State aid, was begun about 1862 as the Blatchely
School by the Reverend Eben Blatchely, a Presbyterian. Later it became
the Freedman's University and was converted into a normal school in
1872, when the first State aid was provided. From Blatchely's death in
1877, the school made little progress until 1896, when the Reverend
W. T. Vernon took charge. Under his management it has achieved a junior
college rating. The six red brick buildings are closely assembled on a hill
overlooking the Missouri River. On the campus is a statue of John Brown,
sculptured in Italy and unveiled June 9, 1911.
17. QUINDARO CEMETERY, NE. corner Smith and Parallel Rds.,
second Wyandot cemetery, was founded in 1852. The first interment was
that of Eliza S. Whitten, wife of the missionary, whose crumbling head-
stone is dated January 3, 1852. Beside it is the stone of Lucy B. Arm-
strong (1818-1892). Nearby was the grave (unmarked) of Katie Sage,
alias Sally-Between-the-Logs, who as a child in Virginia, was stolen from
her white parents by the Wyandot, brought up as a member of the tribe,
and married successively to three Wya 
