Title: History of Kansas Content:  Many railroads were planned after the Civil War, but not all were actually built. The Panic of 1873 made it difficult to fund. Land speculators and local boosters identified many potential towns. Towns that were reached by the railroad had a chance, while the others became ghost towns. In Kansas, nearly 5000 towns were mapped out. However, by 1970 only 617 were actually used. In the mid-20th century, closeness to an interstate exchange determined whether town would survive or struggle.Raymond A. Mohl, The New City: Urban America in the Industrial Age, 1860-1920 (1985) p 69 ===Cattle drives=== After the Civil War, railroads did not go to Texas. Instead, they brought their cattle to Kansas. Once in Kansas, the cattle would be sent on a train going east on the Kansas Pacific Railway.Robert R. Dykstra, The Cattle Towns (1983) In 1871, Wild Bill Hickok became marshal of Abilene, Kansas. He fought John Wesley Hardin there. After Hickok disarmed him, he ran away."Hardin Credited with 27 Killings". The Wichita City Eagle, August 30, 1877, p. 2, col. 6 (report of his arrest). Hickok was also a deputy marshal at Fort Riley. He was also a marshal at Hays in the Wild West. In the 1880s at Greensburg, Kansas, a big well was built to get water for the Santa Fe and Rock Island railroads. It is deep and in diameter. This makes it one of the world's biggest hand-dug wells.Big Well official homepage Coronado, Kansas was created in 1885. It was involved in one of the bloodiest county seat fights in the history of the American West. The shoot-out on February 27, 1887 left many people dead and wounded. ===Exodusters=== In 1879, many black people left southern states and came to Kansas. They came because there was cheap land and better treatment. These people were called exodusters. They created small towns in Kansas like Nicodemus, Kansas in 1877.Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction (1992) ===Prohibition=== On February 19, 1881, Kansas became the first state to make alcohol illegal. This started with the temperance movement. After 1890, prohibition and progressivism came together. This created a reform movement. This movement led to four reformist governors being elected from 1905 to 1919. Those governors wanted extreme prohibitionist laws. Kansas did not make alcohol legal again until 1948. Kansas did not allow public bars to be legal until 1987. Kansas did not allow people to buy alcohol on Sundays until 2005. Many cities still do not allow that. 29 counties in Kansas are considered "dry."Robert Smith Bader, Prohibition in Kansas: A History (1986) ==Farming== thumb|Boosterism: cover of a promotional booklet published in 1907 by the Rock Island railroad ===Environment=== Early residents found that Kansas was not the "Great American Desert". However, they found that the weather and environment of Kansas can be very difficult to live in. Tornadoes, blizzards, droughts, hail, floods, and grasshoppers made it difficult to grow crops. Many early residents lost a lot of money trying to be a farmer in Kansas. In the 1890s, many of these people joined the Populist movement, or they moved east. In the 20th century, new technology, crop insurance, and help from the federal government made farming easier. Many immigrants (many of which were German) came to Kansas in the 20th century. They came because they heard Kansas had good dirt, cheap land, and they could get 160 acres of land to keep for free (if they were American citizens). ===Farm life=== Very few single men worked on a farm alone. Farmers understood the need for a hard-working wife and many children, to handle the many chores, including child-rearing, feeding and clothing the family, managing the housework, feeding the hired hands, and handling the paperwork and financial details (especially after the 1930s).Deborah Fink, Agrarian Women: Wives and Mothers in Rural Nebraska, 1880-1940 (1992) In the late 19th century, farm women were important in keeping the family going by working outdoors. After a generation or so, women started leaving the fields. This changed their roles within the family. New technology such as sewing and washing machines made women play domestic roles. The scientific housekeeping movement was promoted across the land by the media and government extension agents. It was also promoted by county fairs which showed achievements in home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm newspapers, and home economics courses in the schools.Chad Montrie, "'Men Alone Cannot Settle a Country:' Domesticating Nature in the Kansas-Nebraska Grasslands," Great Plains Quarterly, Fall 2005, Vol. 25 Issue 4, pp. 245–258 There was an idea that farm life on the prairies was lonely, but rural people had a social life. They often had activities that combined work, food, and entertainment such as barn raisings, corn huskings, quilting bees,Karl Ronning, "Quilting in Webster County, Nebraska, 1880-1920," Uncoverings, 1992, Vol. 13, pp 169-191 Grange meeting, church activities, and school functions. The women organized shared meals and potluck events. They also had visits between families.Nathan B. Sanderson, "More Than a Potluck," Nebraska History, Fall 2008, Vol. 89 Issue 3, pp. 120–131 ===Agriculture manufacturing=== In 1947, Lyle Yost created the Hesston Manufacturing Company. The company specialized in farm equipment. The type of equipment included self-propelled windrowers and the StakHand hay harvester. In 1974, Hesston Company commissioned its first belt buckles, which became popular on the rodeo circuit and with collectors. In 1991, the American-based equipment manufacturer, AGCO Corporation, bought Hesston Corporation. Farm equipment is still manufactured in the city. ===1890s=== In 1896 William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette, got national attention after criticizing William Jennings Bryan, the Democrats, and the Populists. He did that by writing an article called "What's the Matter With Kansas?"See online edition White criticized Populist leaders for letting Kansas go into economic stagnation. He also criticized them for not keeping Kansas up economically with nearby states. he said the reason was because their policies were anti-business, and that it scared away economic capital from the state. The Republicans sent out hundreds of thousands of copies of the article. They did this to support William McKinley during the 1896 United States presidential election. McKinley won the small towns and cities of the state. However, Bryan won the wheat farms and won the electoral vote, even though McKinley won the national vote. ==20th century== ===Progressive era=== Kansas was a big part of the progressive movement. It has a lot of support from the middle classes, editors such as William Allen White of the Emporia Gazette, and the prohibitionists of the WCTU and the Methodist Church.Robert Sherman La Forte, Leaders of reform: progressive Republicans in Kansas, 1900-1916 (University Press of Kansas, 1974) In 1915, the El Dorado Oil Field was the first oil field that was found using science/geologic mapping. It was around the city of El Dorado. It was part of the Mid-Continent oil province. By 1918, the El Dorado Oil Field was the largest single field producer in the United States. It was responsible for 12.8% of national oil production and 9% of the world production. Some said it was as "the oil field that won World War I". Between 1922 and 1927, there were many legal battles with the KKK. This led to the KKK no longer being in Kansas.Charles William Sloan, Jr., "Kansas Battles the Invisible Empire: The Legal Ouster of the KKK From Kansas, 1922–1927", Kansas Historical Quarterly Fall, 1974 (Vol. 40, No. 3), pp. 393–409 (ed. explains in detail how the KKK worked in Kansas.) The Flag of Kansas was created in 1925. ===Great Depression=== The Dust Bowl was a lot of dust storms that happened from 1930 to 1941. This was caused by a drought. The price of wheat lowered a lot, which cause a lot of farmers to leave. Because this was during the Great Depression, many unemployed men from the cities came to Kansas to work on farms.Timothy Eagan, The Worst Hard Tim : the Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)Craig Miner,Next Year Country: Dust to Dust in Western Kansas, 1890-1940 (2007) Kansas was part of New Deal programs like Civil Works Administration, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Works Progress Administration. These programs helped employ many Kansas men. The most important were New Deal farm programs. Those programs raised the price of wheat, and it allowed economic growth by 1936.Peter Fearon, "Kansas History and the New Deal Era," Kansas History, Autumn 2007, Vol. 30 Issue 3, pp 192-223 Republican Governor Alf Landon also did emergency programs. It included a balanced budget goal.Donald R. McCoy, Landon of Kansas (1966) The Agricultural Adjustment Administration succeeded in raising wheat prices after 1933. This helped get rid of the biggest problems economically.Peter Fearon, "Regulation and Response: Kansas Wheat Farmers and the New Deal," Rural History, Oct 2007, Vol. 18 Issue 2, pp 245-264 ===World War II=== The most important things Kansas did to help the war effort was provide a lot of grain and send tens of thousands of men to fight.Patrick G. O'Brien, "Kansas At War: The Home Front, 1941-1945," Kansas History, March 1994, Vol. 17 Issue 1, pp 6-25 Farmers didn't like the price ceilings and quotas for wheat, and their workers moved to factories. Farmers asked Congress to not draft young farmers.Michael J. Grant, "'Food Will Win the War and Write the Peace': The Federal Government and Kansas Farmers during World War II," Kansas History, Dec 1997, Vol. 20 Issue 4, pp 242-257 Wichita became an important place for making airplanes. They got tens of thousands of unemployed people from around the state to come work there.Peter Fearon, "Ploughshares into Airplanes: Manufacturing Industry and Workers in Kansas During World War II," Kansas History, Dec 1999, Vol. 22 Issue 4, pp 298-314 The Women's Land Army of America (WLA) was a women's labor pool during World War II. It was organized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It did not get many women from cities to do farm work. However, it did train hundreds of farm wives on how to handle machines, safety, proper clothing, time-saving methods, and nutrition.Caron Smith, "The Women's Land Army During World War II," Kansas History, June 1991, Vol. 14 Issue 2, pp 82-88 ===Cold War era=== Kansas allowed segregation in public schools, and they were in Topeka and other cities.Beatty, Robert and M. A. Peterson. "Covert Discrimination: Topeka- Before and After Brown." Kansas History 27 (Autumn 2004): 146–163. online On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court said in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation was not protected by the United States Constitution. During the 1950s and 1960s, intercontinental ballistic missiles were kept in some Kansas buildings. They were stored to prepare for a possible attack. The buildings were closed in the 1980s. On June 6, 1966, Topeka was hit by an F5 tornado. The "1966 Topeka tornado" started in southwest Topeka, moving northeast, hitting many buildings. The tornado caused $100 million in damage. ==Sports== The Kansas Sports Hall of Fame tells the history of sports in Kansas. ===College sports=== The first college football game played in Kansas was the 1890 Kansas vs. Baker football game in Baldwin City. Baker won 22–9. The first night football game west of the Mississippi River was played in Wichita, Kansas. The game was the 1905 between Cooper College (now called Sterling College) and Fairmount College (now Wichita State University). Also in 1905, Fairmount also played an experimental game against the Washburn Ichabods. This game was used to test new rules designed to make football safer. In 1911, the Kansas Jayhawks went to play against the Missouri Tigers for the first homecoming game ever. The first college football homecoming game ever on television was played in Manhattan. It was between the Kansas State Wildcats and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. In the 1951 season, the Southwestern head coach Harold Hunt got national recognition for rejecting a touchdown in a game against Central Missouri. Hunt told the officials that his player had stepped out of bounds. This would undo long touchdown run. Not a single one of the referees seen this happen, but they agreed to undo the touchdown. They put the ball back to the point where Coach Hunt said Johnson had stepped out. A photo of the run later showed that Coach Hunt was correct.www.opentheword.org - Man of the Year On October 2, 1970, a plane crashed. The plane had about half of the football team for Wichita State. They were going to play a game against Utah State University. 31 people were killed. The game was canceled. The Utah State football team had a memorial service at the stadium where the game would have been played. ===Professional sports=== The history of professional sports in Kansas starts from the creation of the Minor League Baseball Topeka Capitals and Leavenworth Soldiers in 1886 in the Western League. The African- American Bud Fowler played on the Topeka team that season. This was one year before the "color line" happened in professional baseball. The first night game in the history of professional baseball was played in Independence on April 28, 1930. It was between the Muscogee (Oklahoma) Indians and the Independence Producers. The Indians beat the Producers by 13 to 3 in a minor league game sanctioned by the Western League of the Western Baseball Association. 1,500 fans came to watch the game. The permanent lighting system was first used for an exhibition game on April 17, 1930. That game was between the Independence Producers and House of David semi-professional baseball team of Benton Harbor, Michigan. The Independence team won with a score of 9 to 1. 1,700 people watched.Bowman, Larry G. "I Think It Is Pretty Ritzy Myself: Kansas Minor League Teams and Night Baseball". Kansas History, Winter 1995/1996, pp 248–257. Kansas Historical Society. Retrieved 25 May 2013. ==Related pages== *Great Plains