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A state of the central United States. It was admitted as the 34th state in 1861. Organized as a territory by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, it became a virtual battleground, known as Bleeding Kansas, for free and slave factions (1854–1859). Kansas was finally admitted as a free state. Topeka is the capital and Wichita the largest city. Population: 2,760,000.
For more information on Kansas, visit Britannica.com.
The geographic center of the 48 contiguous states of the United States is in Kansas, one mile north of the city of Lebanon. The geodetic center (which takes into account the curvature of the earth) of North America is in Osborne County in north-central Kansas. The state is rectangular, approximately 408 miles east to west, and 206 miles north to south. Kansas is bordered to the east by Missouri, to the south by Oklahoma, to the west by Colorado, and to the north by Nebraska. Because of its geographic center and because of its agricultural prominence, Kansas is often referred to as "the heartland of America."
The state is customarily divided into four different geologic regions. The northeastern part of Kansas is the Dissected Till Plains, so-called because the retreating glaciers of the last ice age left the land looking as though it had been divided and plowed. It has forests and an abundance of water. The southeastern part of Kansas, known as the Southeastern Plains, is marked by limestone hills, the Osage Plains, and grass. To the west of these two regions is the Plains Border, so called because its western edge borders the eastern edge of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. This region is plagued by severe droughts and tornadoes. Also prone to drought are the High Plains, which occupy the western part of Kansas and rise westward up into the Rockies. It is a dry area whose people rely on an underground aquifer for irrigation of their crops.
The most historically important of Kansas's rivers are the Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Cimarron. The
Prehistory
It is not known when humans first arrived in what is now Kansas. Archaeologists and paleoanthropologists have continued to push backward in time the era when the first people arrived in North America, probably more than 100,000 years ago. During the last ice age, a glacier extended southward into northeastern Kansas and would have obliterated evidence of habitation earlier than 11,000 B.C.
There is much evidence of humans south of the glacier in 11,000 B.C., including long sharpened stone points for spears. These Paleo-Indians, a term meaning people who predate the Native American cultures that existed after 7000 B.C., were nomads who hunted mammoths and giant bison, as well as other big game. By 7000 B.C., the glacier had retreated far to the north, leaving the gouged landscape of the Dissected Till Plains; as the climate of Kansas warmed, new cultures were introduced. The archaic Indians of 7000 B.C. were not the wanderers their predecessors had been. With the extermination of large game, they became focused on small animals and on plants as sources for food. During the period between 5000 B.C. and 3500 B.C., people formed small settlements, and they often hunted with atlatls, slotted spear throwers that added greater power than was possible when throwing a spear by hand alone. These people also developed techniques for making ceramics.
By A.D. 1, the people in Kansas lived off of the wildlife of Kansas's forest. They still used stone tools, but they were making great strides in their pottery making. During this era, bows and arrows began to supplant spears and atlatls, with spear points becoming smaller and sharper. Maize, first grown in Mexico and Central America, appeared in Kansas, perhaps between A.D. 800 and 1000, probably coming from an ancient trade route that extended southwestward into what is now Mexico. Settlements became larger, and in eastern Kansas large burial mounds were built, suggesting evolution of complex societies.
After A.D. 1000, Native Americans in Kansas grew not only maize, but squash and beans as well. They used the bow and arrow to hunt bison and small game. The
Native Americans of northern Kansas and southern Nebraska lived in large communal lodges built of sod. Those to the south made thatched-roofed, plaster-covered houses. These people likely traded with the Pueblo Indians to the southwest, and at least one habitation within what is now Kansas was built by the Pueblo.
By the time of the arrival of the first European explorers in 1541, the settled cultures probably had already been driven out by numerous invasions of warlike nomadic cultures such as the Apache. The Pawnees inhabited northwestern Kansas, the Kiowas the high western plains, the Comanches the central part of Kansas, and the Wichita the southern plains. The Kansas, "the people of the south wind," for whom the state is named, and the Osages had yet to migrate into eastern Kansas; they would arrive in the 1650s. There were frequent wars among these tribes, and they often fought the nomadic Apaches, who tended to follow the herds of bison.
Exploration
The first recorded European explorer of the Kansas region was Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and his followers, who were looking for riches. In Kansas, he found a land rich in farms and diverse Native American cultures. Some of the tribes he encountered resented Roman Catholic priests for trying to convert them, and one priest was killed. Pieces of Spanish chain mail have been uncovered in central Kansas, indicating that a few Spanish soldiers also may have died there.
France claimed the region of Kansas in 1682, but it was not until 1724 that explorers from Europe and European American colonies began coming to Kansas on a regular basis. The first was Étienne Veniard de Bourgmont, who traveled through Kansas as a trader, while exploring the land for the French government. In 1739, Paul and Pierre Mallet led several traders through Kansas to the southwest, blazing a trail for other traders. The French built Fort Cavagnial, near what would become Leavenworth, to aid French travelers and to provide a meeting place for Native Americans and French traders; the fort was closed in 1764. In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana territory, which included Kansas, from France.
Kansas was still a frontier when the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through it in 1804. In 1806, Zebulon M. Pike led an expedition through Kansas, helping to blaze trails from east to west that Americans would follow. In 1819, Major Stephen H. Long explored part of Kansas and the Great Plains, calling the region the Great American Desert, probably because of a drought and the seemingly endless dry, brown grass. Perhaps he missed or dismissed the large forest that still covered much of Kansas.
Early Settlements
Bleeding Kansas
In 1854, in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the U.S. Congress established Kansas as an official territory, but in so doing, Congress violated a compromise between slave states and free states that was supposed to make both Kansas and Nebraska free states. Instead, Congress said that the people of Kansas and Nebraska would vote on whether to make the territories free or slave states when they applied for statehood.
In 1855, Kansas tried to elect a legislature that would write a state constitution to present to Congress as part of its application for statehood. Most of the settlers in Kansas, such as Mennonites and Quakers, were antislavery (known as "free staters"), but proslavery men from outside Kansas were imported to vote in the election, and through intimidation of antislavery voters and ballot-box stuffing, they "won" the election. The new legislature quickly wrote a proslavery constitution, which Congress rejected because the state legislature was not recognized as legitimate. In 1855, the Topeka Movement favoring a free state was begun, and its followers wrote their own state constitution; this, too, was rejected by Congress because the authors had not been properly elected.
By 1856, proslavery terrorists were killing free-state farmers. On 21 August 1856, an out-of-state proslavery gang invaded Lawrence, Kansas, an overwhelmingly free-state community, and murdered over 150 people and burned down most of the town. The antislavery fanatic John Brown gathered some of his followers and invaded farms along Pottawatomie Creek, south of Kansas City, Kansas, murdering five proslavery men; this became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre. A proslavery militia later attacked John Brown and some of his followers, only to be captured by those they tried to kill. This made John Brown a hero among many antislavery people. These events inspired the nickname "Bleeding Kansas," and the violence and murders continued even after the conclusion of the Civil War (1861–1865).
Statehood
Beginning in 1860 and lasting until telegraph lines were established between America's West and East, the Pony Express passed through Kansas. By 1861, Kansas had managed to have an election that Congress recognized as valid, and the resulting territorial legislature wrote a state constitution forbidding slavery that Congress also recognized as valid. On 29 January 1861, Kansas was admitted as the thirty-fourth state in the Union, although a large chunk of its western territory was ceded to what eventually would become the state of Colorado. Topeka was declared the state capital. On 12 April 1861, the Civil War began, pitting proslavery Southern states, the Confederacy, against the rest of the country, the Union.
Over 20,000 Kansans, out of only 30,000 eligible men, enlisted in the Union army; at the war's end, 8,500 (28.33 percent) of the Kansas soldiers had been killed, the highest mortality rate of any Union state. The first skirmishes against Confederate regulars occurred in 1861 along the Missouri River, with the first significant combat for Kansan troops occurring near Springfield, Missouri, in the Battle of Wilson's Creek, with the First Kansas Volunteer Infantry suffering heavy losses. Kansan historians claim that the first African Americans to see significant combat in the Civil War were the First Kansas Colored Infantry, who were formed into a regiment in August 1862, and who fought Confederate troops at Butler, Missouri, on 29 October 1862 in the Battle of Toothman's Mound. Under Colonel James M. Williams, white and black Union troops fought together as a unit for the first time in a battle at Cabin Creek on 2 July 1863 in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), against Confederate troops who had raided a train.
The most significant battle in Kansas during the Civil War occurred when Union forces under the command of Major General James G. Blunt and Confederate forces under General Douglas Cooper met in a series of clashes involving more than 25,000 troops, concluding in the Battle of Mine Creek, in which 10,000 troops fought. The First Kansas Colored Infantry underwent a forced march northeastward through Kansas to the battle and was stationed in the Union line's center. The regiment advanced to within thirty yards of the Confederate center, enduring heavy losses until the Confederate line broke and fled, ending the major Confederate threat to Kansas.
During the war, Confederate guerrilla units raided Kansan settlements. Under the command of Captain William Clarke Quantrill, "Quantrill's Raiders" executed farm families and burned villages and towns. On 21 August 1863, Quantrill led 450 of his troops into Lawrence, Kansas; with most of the men of Lawrence off to war, Quantrill's Raiders killed nearly 200, few of them men. Quantrill remains despised in Kansas.
Building a State
From 1867 to 1869, a fierce war between the United States and Native Americans was fought in western Kansas. The Pawnees and others had objected to violations of treaties that guaranteed them the right of ownership of some of the land in Kansas. In 1868, General Phil Sheridan led an offensive against the warring tribes, and in 1869 the tribes were forced to settle in the Indian Territory, southwest of Kansas.
The 1870s and 1880s saw an influx of over 300,000 people into Kansas. Many were guided there by the New England Emigrant Aid Society (NEEAS) of Massachusetts. Among the people the NEEAS guided to Kansas were Mennonites from Russia, who in 1874 brought with them a hardy, drought-resistant, cold-resistant strain of dwarf wheat called "Turkey red wheat." This soon became the favorite winter wheat of Kansas, and it helped advance the growing of wheat throughout the United States.
One of the first actions of the new state legislature in 1861 was to grant women the right to vote in school board elections. It was a small advance for voting rights, but it was considered progressive at the time. Even so, some women activists scorned it, making enemies where they once had friends. During the 1870s and 1880s (known as the sodbuster decades for the sod houses that were built), many women activists were sidetracked by the prohibitionist movement, which was seen as a woman's issue because of the severe social problem of drunken husbands beating their wives. In 1880, Kansas voters approved the prohibition of sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages in the state. The law was ignored throughout Kansas; saloons operated openly in many towns.
In 1874, locusts invaded Kansas and much of the Midwest, denuding farmlands. It was an era of drought, and an adequate irrigation system did not yet exist. Over 30,000 people fled the drought. Once the rains returned in the late 1870s, the influx of settlers renewed. During 1879–1880, 30,000 "Exodusters" (a play on "sodbuster" and "exodus"), African Americans fleeing Southern states, migrated into Kansas.
Kansas was proud of its progressive image, and in 1887, women at last received the right to vote in municipal elections. Within a few weeks, the first female mayor elected in America, Susanna Madora Salter, became mayor of the town of Argonia. The next year, five towns had female mayors and city councils consisting entirely of women. The Populist Party (a.k.a. the People's Party) was founded in Topeka in 1890, and Populist Kansas governors, beginning with Lorenzo Lewelling in 1892, were supported by women. By 1911, over 2,000 women held public office in Kansas. In 1912, Kansas voted to give women full suffrage, the same voting rights as men had. In 1932, Kansas elected its first female member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kathryn O'Loughlin McCarthy.
In 1900, Kansas had an official population of 1,470,495 people. Before 1907, maize was the state's principal crop, but it was replaced in 1907 by wheat, much of it descended from the Turkey red wheat brought by Russian immigrants. The land still suffered from drought, about once every twenty years, but it was not until 1920 that farmers began to extensively irrigate their farmland. The irrigation system created a boom that made Kansas the world's leader in wheat production. In 1923, a motorized combine was introduced to Kansas, allowing a couple of men to do what had been the work of several horses and a score of men in 1900. In 1930, portable irrigation sprinkler systems were introduced, and the state became an example of prosperity.
Dust Bowl
Drought hit Kansas again during the 1930s. Most of the state's forest had been converted to farmland; its native grasses and other plants had been supplanted by sweeping farms, rich in wheat, maize, sorghum, and other cultivated grains. When streams dried up, and when the irrigation system could not find enough water for the central and western parts of the state, the soil dried. The topsoil had become powder. Kansas had always had high winds, and in the 1930s, the winds blew the powdery soil high into the air, often making day as dark as night. During 1934, the region became known as the "dust bowl."
Many farmers abandoned their farms. Some found work in Kansas's factories. Oil and natural gas strikes in southern Kansas and zinc mining in the western hills helped provide Kansas with income. By 1937, the prohibition law was seen as oppressive. Kansas changed the law to allow 3.2 percent beer to be produced and taxed; it also instituted a sales tax.
World War II and the 1950s
During World War II, Fort Riley, established in 1853 to protect travelers on the Santa Fe Trail, became a major military training base. In 1942, a prisoner of war camp was built near Concordia. The factories of Kansas became important parts of the production for war, and the oil and natural gas suppliers gained in importance. In 1943, Dwight David Eisenhower, who had been raised in Abilene, became Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, and he helped the growth of the military industry in Kansas.
The "progressive" state of Kansas had long had a dirty secret: racial segregation. On 28 February 1951, the father of eleven-year-old Linda Brown, an African American, filed suit in the United States District Court against Topeka's Board of Education, asking that she be allowed to attend a whites-only school and alleging that segregation violated Amendment XIV of the U.S. Constitution. On 17 May 1954, a team of attorneys led by Thurgood Marshall won a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that racial segregation was inherently unequal and therefore a violation of the Constitution. Brown v. Board of Education became the landmark court decision that would change the course of American society during the next fifty years.
The Modern Era
By 1960, the population of Kansas had increased to over 2,000,000 people. In 1969, part of the Kansas National Guard was called to duty and sent to serve in Vietnam. In 1970, the student union at Kansas University was set afire, probably as part of protests against the war.
In 1972, the state's constitution was amended, reducing the number of elected officials in the executive branch and extending to four years from two the terms of the elected officials of the executive branch. During that year, the Kansas legislature ratified the ill-fated Equal Rights Amendment that would have added a statement to the United States Constitution that women and men were to have the same civil rights. In 1973, the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant was begun; it would not come on line until 1985. In 1978, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, daughter of Alf Landon, Republican nominee for president in 1936, was elected to the United States Senate. She was the first woman who was not a widow of a senator to be elected to the Senate.
In 1980, Kansas established and funded programs to prevent child abuse. In 1986, Kansas changed its alcoholic beverage laws to allow serving liquor "by the drink." It also approved a state lottery. Its population was just under 2,500,000 in 1990. In 1991, Joan Finney became Kansas's first woman governor. Former Governor Mike Hayden was placed in charge of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. During the 1990s, the elaborate irrigation system for the High Plains and Plains Border regions became severely strained because the underground aquifer, consisting of sand mixed with water, was being seriously diminished, creating sinkholes and threatening an end to the underground water supply. In 2000, nearly 3,000,000 people lived in Kansas, mostly in cities.
Bibliography
Anderson, George L., Terry H. Harmon, and Virgil W. Dean, eds. History of Kansas: Selected Readings. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987.
Bader, Robert Smith. Hayseeds, Moralizers, and Methodists: The Twentieth-Century Image of Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988.
Davis, Kenneth S. Kansas: A Bicentennial History. New York: Norton, 1976.
Masters, Nancy Robinson. Kansas. New York: Grolier, 1998.
Napier, Rita, ed. A History of the Peoples of Kansas. Lawrence: Independent Study, Division of Continuing Education, University of Kansas, 1985.
Shortridge, James R. Peopling the Plains: Who Settled Where in Frontier Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.
Wedel, Waldo R. Central Plains Prehistory: Holocene Environments and Culture Change in the Republican River Basin. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
Facts and Figures
Area, 82,264 sq mi (213,064 sq km). Pop. (2000) 2,688,418, an 8.5% increase since the 1990 census. Capital, Topeka. Largest city, Wichita. Statehood, Jan. 29, 1861 (34th state). Highest pt., Mt. Sunflower, 4,039 ft (1,232 m); lowest pt., Verdigris River, 680 ft (207 m). Nickname, Sunflower State. Motto, Ad Astra per Aspera [To the stars through difficulties]. State bird, Western meadowlark. State flower, native sunflower. State tree, cottonwood. Abbr., Kans.; KS
Geography
Almost rectangular in shape and mostly part of the Great Plains, Kansas is famous for its seemingly endless fields of ripe golden wheat. The land rises more than 3,000 ft (914 m) from the eastern alluvial prairies of Kansas to its western semiarid high plains, which stretch toward the foothills of the Rocky Mts. The rise is so gradual, however, that it is imperceptible, although the terrains of the east and the west are markedly different. The state is drained by the Kansas and Arkansas rivers, both of which generally run from west to east.
The average annual rainfall of 27 in. (69 cm) is not evenly distributed: the eastern prairies receive up to 40 in. (102 cm) of rain, while the western plains average 17 in. (43 cm). Occasional dust storms plague farmers and ranchers in the west. The climate is continental, with wide extremes—cold winters with blizzards and hot summers with tornadoes. Floods also wreak havoc in the state; hence, flood-control projects, such as dams, reservoirs, and levees, are a major undertaking.
Topeka is the capital; other important cities are Wichita (the state's largest city),
Economy
Kansas is historically an agricultural state. Manufacturing and services have surpassed agriculture as income producers, but farming is still important to the state's economy, and Kansas follows only Texas and Montana in total agricultural acreage. The nation's top wheat grower, Kansas is also a leading producer of grain sorghum and corn. Hay, soybeans, and sunflowers are also major crops. Cattle and calves, however, constitute the single most valuable agricultural item. Meatpacking and dairy industries are major economic activities, and the Kansas City stockyards are among the nation's largest. Food processing ranked as the state's third largest industry in the 1990s.
The two leading industries are the manufacture of transportation equipment and industrial and computer machinery. Wichita is a center of the aircraft industry, producing chiefly private planes. Other important manufactures are petroleum and coal products and nonelectrical machinery. The state is a major producer of crude petroleum and has large reserves of natural gas and helium. Kansas was once part of a great shallow sea and has commercially valuable salt deposits.
Government and Higher Education
Government in Kansas is based on the constitution of 1859, adopted just before Kansas attained statehood. An elected governor serves a term of four years. The legislature has a senate with 40 members and a house of representatives with 125 members. Kansas is represented in the U.S. Congress by four representatives and two senators and has six electoral votes in presidential elections. The state has long been a Republican stronghold but has had some Democratic governors. Republican Bill P. Graves, elected in 1994 and reelected in 1998, was succeeded by Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, who also won (2002, 2006) two terms.
Institutions of higher learning include the Univ. of Kansas, at Lawrence; Kansas State Univ., at Manhattan; Wichita State Univ., at Wichita; and Washburn Univ. of Topeka, at Topeka.
History
Early Inhabitants, Exploration, and Relocations
When the Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado visited (1541) the Kansas area in his search for Quivira, a fabled kingdom of riches, the area was occupied by various Native American groups of the Plains descent, notably the Kansa, the Wichita and the Pawnee. Another Spanish explorer, Juan de Oñate, penetrated the region in 1601. A result of Spanish entry into the region was the introduction of the horse, which revolutionized the life of the Native Americans. While not actually exploring the Kansas area, Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, claimed (c.1682) for France all territory drained by the Mississippi River, including Kansas.
French traders and Native Americans had a great deal of contact during most of the 18th cent. By the Treaty of Paris of 1763 ending the French and Indian Wars, France ceded the territory of W Louisiana (including Kansas) to Spain. In 1800, Spain secretly retroceded the territory to France, from whom the United States acquired it in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The region was little known, however, and subsequent explorations to include Kansas were the Lewis and Clark expedition (1803–6), the Arkansas River journey of Zebulon M. Pike in 1806, and the scientific expedition of Stephen H. Long in 1819.
Most of the territory that eventually became Kansas was in an area known as the “Great American Desert,” considered unsuitable for U.S. settlement because of its apparent barrenness. In the 1830s the region was designated a permanent home for Native Americans, and northern and eastern tribes were relocated there. Forts were constructed for frontier defense and for the protection of the growing trade along the Santa Fe Trail, which crossed Kansas. Fort Leavenworth was established in 1827, Fort Scott in 1842, and Fort Riley in 1853.
Pro- and Antislavery Factions
Kansas, at this time mainly a region to be crossed on the way to California and Oregon, was organized as a territory in 1854. Its settlement, however, was spurred not so much by natural westward expansion as by the determination of both proslavery and antislavery factions to achieve a majority population in the territory. The struggle between the factions was further complicated by conflict over the location of a transcontinental railroad, with proponents of a central route (rather than a southern route) eager to resolve the slavery issue in the area and promote settlement.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), an attempted compromise on the extension of slavery, repealed the Missouri Compromise and reopened the issue of extending slavery north of lat. 36°30′ by providing for popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska, allowing settlers of territories to decide the matter themselves. Meanwhile, the Emigrant Aid Company was organized in Massachusetts to foster antislavery immigration to Kansas, and proslavery interests in Missouri and throughout the South took counteraction. Towns were established by each faction—Lawrence and Topeka by the free-staters and Leavenworth and Atchison by the proslavery settlers.
Soon all the problems attendant upon organizing a territory for statehood became subsidiary to the single issue of slavery. The first elections in 1854 and 1855 were won by the proslavery group; armed Missourians intimidated voters and election officials and stuffed the ballot boxes. Andrew H. Reeder was appointed the first territorial governor in 1854. The first territorial legislature ousted (1855) all free-state members, secured the removal of Gov. Reeder, established the capital in Lecompton, and adopted proslavery statutes. In retaliation the abolitionists set up a rival government at Topeka in Oct., 1855.
The Wakarusa War and Bleeding Kansas
Violence soon came to the territory. The murder of a free-state man in Nov., 1855, led to the so-called Wakarusa War, a bloodless series of encounters along the Wakarusa River. The intervention of the new governor, Wilson Shannon, kept proslavery men from attacking Lawrence. However, civil war ultimately turned the territory into “bleeding Kansas.” On May 21, 1856, proslavery groups and armed Missourians known as “Border Ruffians” raided Lawrence. A few days later a band led by the abolitionist crusader John Brown murdered five proslavery men in the Pottawatamie massacre. Guerrilla warfare between free-state men called Jayhawkers and proslavery bands—both sides abetted by desperadoes and opportunists—terrorized the land. After a new governor, John W. Geary, persuaded a large group of “Border Ruffians” to return to Missouri, the violence subsided.
The Lecompton legislature met in 1857 to make preparations for convening a constitutional convention. Gov. Geary resigned after it became clear that free elections would not be held to approve a new constitution. Robert J. Walker was appointed governor, and a convention held at Lecompton drafted a constitution. Only that part of the resulting proslavery constitution dealing with slavery was submitted to the electorate, and the question was drafted to favor the proslavery group. Free-state men refused to participate in the election with the result that the constitution was overwhelmingly approved.
Despite the dubious validity of the Lecompton constitution, President James Buchanan recommended (1858) that Congress accept it and approve statehood for the territory. Instead, Congress returned it for another territorial vote. The proslavery group boycotted the election, and the constitution was rejected. Lawrence became de facto capital of the troubled territory until after the Wyandotte constitution (framed in 1859 and totally forbidding slavery) was accepted by Congress. The Kansas conflict and the question of statehood for the territory became a national issue and figured in the 1860 Republican party platform.
Kansas became a state in 1861, with the capital at Topeka. Charles Robinson was the first governor and James H. Lane, an active free-stater during the 1850s, one of the U.S. Senators. In the Civil War, Kansas fought with the North and suffered the highest rate of fatal casualties of any state in the Union. Confederate William C. Quantrill and his guerrilla band burned Lawrence in 1863.
Life on the Prairie
With peace came the development of the prairie lands. The construction of railroads made cow towns such as
Agricultural production was periodically disrupted by national depressions and natural disasters. Repeated and prolonged droughts accompanied by dust storms, occasional grasshopper invasions, and floods all caused severe economic dislocation. Mortgages often weighed heavily on farmers, and discontent was expressed in farmer support of radical farm organizations and third-party movements, such as the Granger movement, Greenback party, and Populist party. Tax relief, better regulation of interest rates, and curbs on the power of railroads were sought by these organizations. Twice in the 1890s, Populist-Democrats were elected to the governorship.
As conditions improved, Kansas returned largely to its allegiance to the Republican party and gained a reputation as a conservative stronghold with a bent for moral reform, indicated in the state's strong support of prohibition; laws against the sale of liquor remained on the books in Kansas from 1880 to 1949. Over the years the use of improved agricultural methods and machines increased crop yield. Irrigation proved practicable in some areas, and winter wheat and alfalfa could be cultivated in dry regions.
Wars and Depression
Wheat production greatly expanded during World War I, but the end of the war brought financial difficulties. During the 1920s and 30s, Kansas was faced with labor unrest and the economic hardships of the depression. As part of the Dust Bowl, Kansas sustained serious land erosion during the long drought of the 1930s. Erosion led to the implementation of conservation and reclamation projects, particularly in the northern and western parts of the state. In 1924 an effort of the Ku Klux Klan to gain political control was fought by William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette, who supported many liberal causes. Alfred M. Landon, elected governor in 1932, was one of the few Republican candidates in the country to win election in the midst of the sweeping Democratic victory that year. He was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in 1936.
During World War II agriculture thrived and industry expanded rapidly. The food-processing industry grew substantially, the cement industry enjoyed a major revival, and the aircraft industry boomed. After the war agricultural prosperity once again declined when the state was hit by a severe drought and grasshopper invasion in 1948. Prosperity returned briefly during the Korean War, but afterward farm surpluses and insufficient world markets combined to make the state's tremendous agricultural ability part of the national “farm problem.”
Modern Kansas
Kansas has become increasingly industrialized and urbanized, and industrial production has surpassed farm production in economic importance. Flood damage in the state, especially after a major flood in 1951, spurred the construction of dams (such as the Tuttle Creek, Milford, and Wilson dams) on major Kansas rivers, and their reservoirs have vastly increased water recreational facilities for Kansans. Since the 1970s, Kansas has become increasingly more urban and suburban. Accordingly, the economy has shifted its emphasis to finance and service industries located in and around the major urban centers.
Bibliography
See P. Gates, Fifty Million Acres: Conflicts over Kansas Land Policy, 1854–1890 (1954); R. S. Brownlee, Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy (1960); W. T. Nugent, The Tolerant Populists (1963); J. R. Cook, The Border and the Buffalo (1967); C. C. Howes, This Place Called Kansas (1984); H. E. Socolofsky and H. Self, Historical Atlas of Kansas (2d rev. ed. 1989); R. Richmond, Kansas: A Land of Contrasts (3d ed. 1989).
State in the central United States bordered by
Local Time: Jul 19, 4:06 AM
Local Time: Jul 19, 3:06 AM
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| State of Kansas | |||||||||||
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| Official language(s) | English[2] | ||||||||||
| Capital | Topeka | ||||||||||
| Largest city | Wichita | ||||||||||
| Area | Ranked 15th | ||||||||||
| - Total | 82,277 sq mi (213,096 km²) |
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| - Width | 211 miles (340 km) | ||||||||||
| - Length | 417 miles (645 km) | ||||||||||
| - % water | 0.56 | ||||||||||
| - Latitude | 37° N to 40° N | ||||||||||
| - Longitude | 94° 35′ W to 102° 3′ W | ||||||||||
| Population | Ranked 33rd | ||||||||||
| - Total (2000) | 2,688,418 | ||||||||||
| - Density | 32.9/sq mi 12.7/km² (40th) |
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| Elevation | |||||||||||
| - Highest point | Mount Sunflower[3] 4,039 ft (1,232 m) |
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| - Mean | 2,000 ft (600 m) | ||||||||||
| - Lowest point | Verdigris River[3] 679 ft (207 m) |
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| Admission to Union | January 29, 1861 (34th) | ||||||||||
| Governor | Kathleen Sebelius (D) | ||||||||||
| U.S. Senators | Sam Brownback (R) Pat Roberts (R) |
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| Congressional Delegation | List | ||||||||||
| Time zones | |||||||||||
| - most of state | Central: UTC-6/-5 | ||||||||||
| - 4 western counties | Mountain: UTC-7/-6 | ||||||||||
| Abbreviations | US-KS | ||||||||||
| Web site | www.kansas.gov | ||||||||||
Kansas (IPA: /ˈkænzəs/) is a
Midwestern state[4] in the central region of the
Historically, the area was home to large numbers of nomadic Native Americans that hunted bison. It was first
settled by European Americans in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery issue. When officially
opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854, abolitionists from New England and
pro-
Kansas is bordered by Nebraska on the north; Missouri on the east; Oklahoma on the south; and Colorado on the west. The state is divided up into 105 counties with 628 cities. It is located equidistant from the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. The geographic center of the 48 contiguous states is located in Smith County near Lebanon. The geodetic center of North America was located in Osborne County until 1983. This spot was until then used as the central reference point for all maps of North America produced by the U.S. government. The geographic center of Kansas is located in Barton County. Kansas is also one of the six states located on the Frontier Strip and one of several within Tornado Alley.
The western two thirds of the state, lying in the great central plain of the United States, has a generally flat or undulating surface, and on a large scale appears almost perfectly flat.[8] However, the eastern third is more hilly and forested. The land displays a gradual slope up from east to west; its altitude above the sea ranges from 684 feet (208 m) along the Verdigris River at Coffeyville in Montgomery County, to 4039 feet (1,231 m) at Mount Sunflower, one half mile from the Colorado border, in Wallace County.
The Missouri River forms nearly 75 miles (120 km) of the state's northeastern boundary. The Kansas River (locally known as the Kaw), formed by the junction of the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers at appropriately-named Junction City, joins the Missouri at Kansas City, after a course of 170 miles (274 km) across the northeastern part of the state. The Arkansas River, rising in Colorado, flows with a bending course for nearly 500 miles (800 km) across the western and southern parts of the state. It forms, with its tributaries (the Little Arkansas (pronounced Ar-Kansas), Ninnescah, Walnut, Cow Creek, Cimarron, Verdigris, and the Neosho), the southern drainage system of the state. Other important rivers are the Saline and Solomon, tributaries of the Smoky Hill River; the Big Blue, Delaware, and Wakarusa, which flow into the Kansas River; and the Marais des Cygnes, a tributary of the Missouri River.
Areas under the protection of the National Park Service include:
Kansas contains three climate types, according to the Köppen climate classification: humid continental, semiarid steppe, and humid subtropical. The eastern two-thirds of the state has a humid continental climate, with cold winters and hot summers. Most of the precipitation falls in the summer and spring. The western third of the state has a semiarid steppe climate. Summers are hot, often very hot. Winters are cold in the northwest and cool to mild in the southwest. Also, the western region is semiarid, receiving an average of only about 16 inches (40 cm) of precipitation per year. Chinook winds in the winter can warm western Kansas all the way into the 80 degree Fahrenheit (25 °C) range. The far south-central and southeastern reaches of the state have a humid subtropical climate, with long, hot summers, short, mild winters, and much more precipitation than the rest of the state.
Precipitation ranges from about 46 inches (1200 mm) annually in the southeast of the state, to about 16 inches (400 mm) in the southwest. Snowfall ranges from around 5 inches (130 mm) in the fringes of the south, to 35 inches (900 mm) in the far northwest. Frost-free days range from more than 200 days in the south, to 130 days in the northwest. Thus, Kansas is the 9th or 10th sunniest state in the country, depending on the source. Western Kansas is as sunny as parts of California and Arizona.
In spite of the frequent sunshine throughout much of the state, the state is also vulnerable to strong thunderstorms, especially in the spring. Many of these storms become Supercell thunderstorms. These can spawn tornadoes, often of F3 strength or higher. According to statistics from the National Climatic Data Center, Kansas has reported more tornadoes (for the period 1st January 1950 through to 31st October 2006) than any state except for Texas - marginally even more than Oklahoma. It has also - along with Alabama - reported more F5 tornadoes than any other state. These are the most powerful of all tornadoes. Kansas averages over 50 tornadoes annually.[9]
| Monthly Normal High and Low Temperatures For Various Kansas Cities | ||||||||||||
| City | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Concordia | 36/17 | 43/22 | 54/31 | 64/41 | 74/52 | 85/62 | 91/67 | 88/66 | 80/56 | 68/44 | 51/30 | 40/21 |
| Dodge City | 41/19 | 48/24 | 57/31 | 67/41 | 76/52 | 87/62 | 93/67 | 91/66 | 82/56 | 70/44 | 54/30 | 44/22 |
| Goodland | 39/16 | 45/20 | 53/26 | 63/35 | 72/46 | 84/56 | 89/61 | 87/60 | 78/50 | 66/38 | 50/25 | 41/18 |
| Topeka | 37/17 | 44/23 | 56/33 | 66/43 | 75/53 | 84/63 | 89/68 | 88/65 | 80/56 | 69/44 | 53/32 | 41/22 |
| Wichita | 40/20 | 47/25 | 57/34 | 67/44 | 76/54 | 87/64 | 93/69 | 92/68 | 82/59 | 70/47 | 54/34 | 43/24 |
| [2] | ||||||||||||
For millennia, the land that is presently Kansas was inhabited by Native Americans. The first European to set foot in present-day Kansas was Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, who explored the area in 1541. In 1803, most of modern Kansas was secured by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Southwest Kansas, however, was still a part of Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas until the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848. From 1812 to 1821, Kansas was part of the Missouri Territory. The Santa Fe Trail traversed Kansas from 1821 to 1880, transporting manufactured goods from Missouri and silver and furs from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Wagon ruts from the trail are still visible in the prairie today.
In 1827, Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent settlement of white Americans in the future state. The Kansas-Nebraska Act became law on May 30, 1854, establishing the U.S. territories of Nebraska and Kansas. Kansas Territory stretched all the way to the Continental Divide and included the sites of present-day Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo.
Missouri and Arkansas sent settlers into Southeastern Kansas, namely Crawford County, Bourbon County, and Cherokee County. These settlers attempted to sway votes in favor of slavery. The secondary settlement of Americans in Kansas Territory were abolitionists from Massachusetts and other Free-Staters, who attempted to stop the spread of slavery from neighboring Missouri. Directly presaging the American Civil War, these forces collided, entering into skirmishes that earned the territory the name of Bleeding Kansas. Kansas was admitted to the United States as a free state on January 29, 1861, making it the 34th state to enter the Union. By that time the violence in Kansas had largely subsided. However, during the Civil War, on August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led several hundred men on a raid into Lawrence, destroying much of the city and killing nearly two hundred people. Until the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Quantrill's raid was the single bloodiest act of domestic terrorism in America.
After the Civil War, many veterans constructed homesteads in Kansas. Many African
Americans also looked to Kansas as the land of "John Brown" and led by
men like
