KANSAS

Native Americans roamed the plains of Kansas at the time French explorers paddled the Mississippi River in the 1700s. The area now known as Kansas was part of the vast French holdings in central North America known as the Louisiana Territory. In 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, needed funds to support his European wars. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809) seized this opportunity and purchased Louisiana land for $15 million, doubling the size of the United States and bringing the region that would become Kansas and several other states under American control.

President Jefferson sent the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the country from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. When the expedition reached Kansas, they described the country as "delightful . . . the whole country exhibits a rich appearance." Although this account was favorable, other explorers reported Kansas to be a dry wasteland, and as a result migration to Kansas started out slowly compared to other parts of the country. However, the rich abundance of furbearing animals lured American trappers and traders to the area.

During the first half of the 1800s settlers started to migrate west to Kansas, at this point still an unorganized territory, in search of adventure and a new life. Missionaries also came to the plains and taught tribes of the region how to work the land. Eventually, the United States government would push all Native Americans westward onto reservations.

When gold was discovered in the 1850s in what is now Colorado, miners rushed across the country to seek their fortune. As mining grew in the west, transportation was needed to carry people and goods. The Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express to Denver made 19 stops in Kansas along the route. Federal land grants were awarded to other companies to encourage more railroad building and settlement along the railroads. Over the next several decades about 200 companies built railroads across Kansas. Many towns sprang up along the track, together with hotels, gambling houses, and saloons.

The 1850s were also a period of political turmoil in Kansas. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 formally organized the territory of Kansas, and allowed for the people who lived there to determine if slavery would be permitted there. Previously, the Missouri Compromise had prevented slavery from spreading into Kansas, and the predominantly anti-slavery North was greatly angered by what they saw as an attempt by the South to expand its power and influence. Pro-slavery southerners and anti-slavery northerners flooded into the region in an effort to gain control. There was frequent conflict between the two sides, the area became known as "Bleeding Kansas." The controversy over Kansas worsened the split between the North and the South, was a major force behind the formation of the Republican Party, and helped drive the nation in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Kansas would eventually be admitted to the Union as a free state in 1861.

After the Civil War thousands migrated to Kansas to take advantage of the government's promise of free land. In a government-backed effort to encourage settlers to move west, the Homestead Act of 1862 allowed any citizen who paid a ten dollar filing fee to claim up to 160 acres of federal land as long as they farmed the land for 5 years. In 1873 the Timber Culture Act made the same promise to those who would plant trees on one-fourth of the land they claimed within four years. By that time new Kansas homesteaders had already claimed about 6 million acres.

After the Civil War the government also encouraged the development of railroads by giving the railroad companies land grants. More than 200 companies laid tracks that zigzagged across Kansas. As the railroads offered land grant acreage at low prices and reduced fares to new settlers, they helped to open the state for commerce and development.

The new settlers in Kansas were known as "sodbusters" because they cut up large squares of sod and, as lumber was scarce, used them to make walls and roofs for their new homes. They planted crops in place of the sod. They soon discovered how harsh life could be on the plains. "Rattlesnakes, bedbugs, fleas, and the 'prairie itch' were what kept us awake at nights and made life miserable," wrote W.H. Russell, a Rush County settler. Also, a grasshopper plague in 1874 destroyed crops on 5,000 square miles of farmland. In addition, the severe weather—blizzards, rainstorms, droughts, and prairie fires—stranded trains and destroyed crops and homes.

After the Civil War cattle was abundant in Texas but scarce in the north. Texas cattle ranchers took advantage of the demand from the north and began driving their cattle to the nearest railroad stations in Kansas. "Cow towns" were established at cattle shipping points. The cow towns played host to cowboys looking to spend their money in hotels, saloons, dance halls, and gambling houses.

During the boom years of the 1870s and 1880s new settlers were attracted to Kansas due to better weather conditions and improved farming methods as well as easy railroad access to outlying areas of the state. Wealthy farmers and land developers bought up land and established towns. At the same time, more than 15,000 former slaves traveled from the south to Kansas to establish a new way of life for themselves. A blizzard in 1886 and a drought in 1887, however, quickly caused the state to fall into a depression. Ranchers were forced to leave because more than 20 percent of the state's cattle herd perished in the blizzard and the farmers lost all their crops in the drought.

Farmers who stayed behind were frustrated by falling wheat prices and the high cost of shipping goods. They formed the Farmers' Alliance and became a major component of the Populist Party in the 1890s. Members of the party were voted into congressional seats of other political office. The Populists were instrumental in implementing laws that helped farmers by regulating banks, stockyards, railroads, telegraph companies, and building-and-loan associations.

The Populist movement gave way to the Progressive administrations of governors from 1905 to 1913. New reforms called for laws that reduced railroad fares and costs for shipping grain. Child labor laws were instituted along with workmen's compensation and further banking regulations. In addition, the use of machines such as tractors and threshers made farming easier and helped increase crop production. New crops such as sorghum, sugar beets, broomcorn, and alfalfa were harvested in the plains.

During World War I (1914–1918) Kansas stepped up production of wheat to feed the troops. After the war more roads were built to accommodate automobiles built by a Kansan Walter P. Chrysler (1875–1940), founder of the Chrysler Motors automobile company. This modest recovery, however, was only temporary. During the Great Depression (1929–1939) Kansas was devastated. The country suffered the worst depression in history; stock markets crashed and Kansas crop prices dropped. In 1932 a severe drought began and turned the area into a "dust bowl. Governor Alfred M. Landon attempted to bring relief to farmers and businessmen by reorganizing state banks, cutting taxes, and halting mortgage foreclosures for six months. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's (1933–1945) New Deal provided jobs building libraries, schools, and post offices. The Agricultural Adjustment Act was also passed in 1933 as part of the New Deal. It sought to raise farm prices by encouraging farmers to reduce production. But true economic relief only came at the start of World War II (1939–1945). During the war plants in Kansas built more than 25,000 aircraft and produced munitions and artillery for the war effort. Wheat and soybean farming also stepped up to provide food for military personnel.

After the war, manufacturing growth steadily increased and people began to move from rural to urban areas. For the first three decades after the war, businesses grew in Kansas and meat packing, mining, flour milling, and petroleum refining became the largest industries in the state. In addition, more aircraft were built in Kansas than anywhere else in the country. Farming remained the most prominent part of the state's economy.

Farmers enjoyed prosperity in the 1960s and 1970s as feeds and improved fertilizers increased production, but they faced a crisis as a recession hit in the 1980s. Many farmers lost their land and were forced into bankruptcy. Kansas sought to expand its market of products and signed a trade agreement with the St. Petersburg region of Russia in 1993.

The 1990s also brought extremes in the weather. Drought and topsoil erosion damaged 865,000 acres, drove up prices, and depleted grain stores. From April through September 1993, floods caused more than $574 million worth of damage. Efforts to restore economic growth included the allocation of government block grants. In 1995 the median household income in Kansas was $30,346 and about 11 percent of all Kansans lived below the federal poverty level.

KANSAS

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