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Lousiana Purchase
Kansas was involved in the Lousiana Purchase. It was bought from France and was given the title unorganized territory. -
Indian Territory
The area that is now Kansas was set aside as Indian Territory but eventually, squatters took over the land and the government then made Kansas a territory. -
Kansas becomes a territory
Kansas becomes a territory as the Kansas-Nebraska law was passed. At this time, Kansas Territory stretched all the way to the Continental Divide and included the sites of present-day Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo. -
Bleeding Kansas
From 1855 to 1858, Kansas Territory experienced a multitude of violence and some open battles.The major incidents of Bleeding Kansas include the Wakarusa War, the Sacking of Lawrence, the Pottawatomie Massacre, the Battle of Black Jack, the Battle of Osawatomie, and the Marais des Cygnes massacre. -
The Wyandotte Constitution
The Wyandotte Constitution was adopted by the convention which framed it on July 29, 1859. It was adopted by the people at an election held October 4, 1859. It outlawed slavery but was far less progressive than the Leavenworth Constitution. Kansas was admitted into the Union as a free state under this constitution on January 29, 1861.[18] -
Kansas gains statehood
Kansas is admitted to the Union as the 34th state. -
Kansas Pacific Railroad
In 1863, the Union Pacific Eastern Division (renamed the Kansas Pacific in 1869) was authorized by the United States Congress's Pacific Railway Act to create the southerly branch of the transcontinental railroad alongside the Union Pacific. -
Kansas University was created
The the city of Lawrence was requuired to give the state $15,000 or the university would be built in Emporia. This picture shows the first building built on campus. -
William Quantrill raids Lawrence, Kansas
In retaliation for the collapse of a jail holding confedarate sympathizers, William Quantrill leads a band of confederate querillas in a violent raid on the city of Lawrence, killing over 150 men and boys and burning much of the town. -
Exodusters
In 1879, after the end of Reconstruction in the South, thousands of Freedmen moved from Southern states to Kansas. Known as the Exodusters, they were lured by the prospect of good, cheap land and better treatment. -
Kansas becomes the first state to ban the sale of alcohol
Spawned by the temperance movement, the law was narrowly passed by the states voters 92,302 to 84,304. -
"What's the Matter With Kansas"
In 1896 William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette attracted national attention with a scathing attack on William Jennings Bryan, the Democrats, and the Populists titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" White sharply ridiculed Populist leaders for letting Kansas slip into economic stagnation and not keeping up economically with neighboring states because their anti-business policies frightened away economic capital from the state. -
Erasmus Haworth from Kansas University discovers helium in natural gas
Up until this point helium was thought to be extremely rare, but the discovery of helium in natural gas allowed the United States to become the world's leading supplyer of the gas. -
The Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms caused by a massive drought that began in 1930 and lasted until 1941. The effect of the drought combined with the financial crisis of the Great Depression, forced many farmers off the land throughout the Great Plains. -
Suprme Court rules on the case of Brown v. Topeka Board of Education
The Supreme Court unanimously declared that separate educational facilities are 'inherently unequal' and explicity bans the segregation of governent run schools by race.
