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Timeline of Kansas history

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For a detailed description of the events in the Kansas area, see History of Kansas.
Important dates in Kansas's history
Flag of Kansas
Flag of Kansas
July–August 1541
Coronado explores Kansas
April 30, 1803
Louisiana Purchase Treaty signed
May 30, 1854
Kansas Territory organized
July 29, 1859
Constitution adopted by convention
January 29, 1861
Kansas becomes 34th state
August 21, 1863
Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence
Spring 1879
Exodusters
February 19, 1881
First state to Constitutionally prohibit alcohol
1890s
Populist Revolt
July 1951
Great Flood of 1951
May 17, 1954
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

The timeline of Kansas is rich with the lore of the American West. Located on the eastern edge of the Great Plains, the U.S. state of Kansas was the home of nomadic Native American tribes who hunted the vast herds of bison. The region first appears in western history in the 16th century at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, when Spanish conquistadores explored the unknown land now known as Kansas. It was later explored by French fur trappers who traded with the Native Americans. It became part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In the 19th century, the first American explorers designated the area as the "Great American Desert."

When the area was opened to Euro-American settlement in the 1850s, Kansas became the first battlefield in the conflict in the American Civil War. After the war, Kansas was home to Wild West towns servicing the cattle trade. With the railroads came heavy immigration from the East, from Europe, and from Freedmen called "Exodusters". For much of its history, Kansas has had a rural economy based on wheat and other crops, supplemented by oil and railroads. Since 1945 the farm population has sharply declined and manufacturing has become more important, typified by the aircraft industry of Wichita.

Early history

  • 1541 : Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, the Spanish conquistador, visited Kansas.
  • 1600s : Kansa (sometimes Kaw) and Osage Nation (originally Ouasash) arrived in Kansas. (The Kansa claimed that they occupied the territory since 1673.)
  • 1719 : Europeans visited the Northern Pawnees.
  • 1724 : French commander at Fort Orleans, Etienne de Bourgmont, visited the Kansas River and established a trading post there, near the main Kansa village at the mouth of the river. Around the same time, the Otoe tribe of the Sioux also inhabited various areas around the northeast corner of Kansas.
  • End of the 18th century : Kansa and Osage Nation dominant in the eastern part of the state — the Kansa on the Kansas River to the North and the Osage on the Arkansas River to the South. Pawnees were dominant on the plains to the west and north of the Kansa and Osage nations, in regions home to massive herds of buffalo.
  • 1803 : Kansas, as part of the Louisiana Purchase, was annexed to the United States as unorganized territory.
  • 1806 : Zebulon Pike passed through the region, and labelled it "the Great American Desert" on his maps.

1820s to 1840s : Indian treaties and westward trails

  • 1820s : Kansas area (by then popularly known as the Great American Desert) was set aside as Indian territory by the U.S. government and closed to settlement by whites.
  • 1821 : After a brief period as part of Missouri Territory, Kansas returned to unorganized status.
  • 1821 : Santa Fe Trail was opened across Kansas as country's transportation route to the Southwest, connecting Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico.
  • 1825, June 3 : 20 million acres (81000 km²) of land was ceded by the Kansa Nation to the United States, and the Kansa tribe was thereafter limited to a specific reservation in northeast Kansas.
  • 1825, June : Osage Nation was limited to a reservation in southeast Kansas.
  • 1825, November 7 : Missouri Shawanoes (or Shawnees) were the first Native Americans removed to the territory by treaty.
  • 1827, May 8 : Cantonment Leavenworth, or Fort Leavenworth, (named in honor of Henry Leavenworth) was built just inside Indian territory to guard travelers on the United States' Western frontier. This was the first permanent settlement of white Americans in the future state of Kansas.
  • 1830 Indian Removal Act expedited the process of Inmdian removal.
  • 1831, August 30 : Ottawa ceded land to the United States and moved to a small reservation on the Kansas River and its branches.
  • 1832, April 6 : Ottawa treaty was ratified.
  • 1832, October 24 : U.S. government moved the Kickapoos to a reservation in Kansas.
  • 1832, October 29 : Piankeshaws and Weas agreed to occupy 250 sections of land, bounded on the north by the Shawanoes; east by the western boundary line of Missouri; and west by the Kaskaskias and Peorias.
  • 1833, September 21 : Treaty made with the United States and the Otoe tribe ceded their country south of the Little Nemaha River.
  • 1836, September 17 : The confederacy of the Sacs and Foxes in a treaty with the United States moved north of Kickapoos.
  • 1837, February 11 : United States agrees to convey to the Pottawatomies an area on the Osage River, southwest of the Missouri River.
  • 1840s : Section of this Santa Fe Trail through Kansas also used by emigrants on the California Trail and Oregon Trail.
  • 1842 : Treaty between the United States and the Wyandots, the Wyandots moved to the junction of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers (on land that was shared with the Delaware until 1843).
  • 1846 : Kansa reservation reduced by treaty.
  • 1847 : Pottawatomies were moved again, to an area containing 576,000 acres (2,330 km²), being the eastern part of the lands ceded to the United States by the Kansa tribe in 1846.

1850 to 1854 : Native American territory ceded

  • 1850 : Euro-Americans squatting on Native Americans land and clamor for the entire area to be opened for settlement.
  • 1851 : Momentum builds to take the land from the Native Americans that they had been promised "permanently."
  • 1851, September 17 : Cheyennes and Arapahoes tribes negotiating with the United States for land in western Kansas (the current state of Colorado).
  • 1852 : Congress began the process of creating the Kansas Territory.
  • 1852, December 13 : Representative from Missouri submitted to the House a bill organizing the Territory of Platte: all the tract lying west of Iowa and Missouri, and extending west to the Rocky Mountains.
  • 1852 : Wyandots attempte to establish a Territorial government in their section of Indian territory.
  • 1853 : Wyandots attempte to establish a Territorial government in their section of Indian territory.
  • 1853 : Wyandots' convention, composed of thirteen delegates, at which a constitution for their territory was formed.
  • 1853, February 10 : House bill referred to the United States House Committee on Territories, and passed by the full U.S. House of Representatives.
  • 1853, summer : Eastern Kansas soon be opened to white American settlers.
  • 1854 : Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company arrange and send anti-slavery settlers (known as "Free-Staters") into Kansas.
  • 1854 : Chippewas (Swan Creek and Black River bands) inhabited 8,320 acres (34 km²) in Franklin County.
  • 1854 : Nearly all the tribes in the eastern part of the Territory ceded the greater part of their lands prior to the passage of the Kansas territorial act and were eventually moved south to the future state of Oklahoma.
  • 1854, March 15 : Otoe and Missouri Indians ceded to the United States all their lands west of the Mississippi, except a small strip on the Big Blue River.
  • 1854, March 30 : Lands ceded by the Kaskaskias, Peorias, Piankeshaw and Weas.
  • 1854, May 6 : Delawares ceded all their lands to the United States, except a reservation defined in the treaty.
  • 1854, May 6 and May 10 : the Shawnees ceded 6,100,000 acres (25,000 km²), reserving only 200,000 acres (809 km²) for homes.
  • 1854, May 17 : Iowas ceded their lands, retaining only a small reservation.
  • 1854, May 18 : Kickapoos ceded their lands, except 150,000 acres (607 km²) in the western part of the Territory.
  • 1854, May 18 : Lands ceded by the Sacs and Foxes.
  • 1854, May 30 : The Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law, establishing the Nebraska Territory and Kansas Territory, which delineate the borders of Kansas Territory set from the Missouri border to the summit of the Rocky Mountain range; the southern boundary was the 37th parallel, the northern was the 40th parallel. North of the 40th parallel was Nebraska Territory.
  • 1854, June 10 : Missourians held a meeting at Salt Creek Valley, a trading post three miles west of Fort Leavenworth, at which a "Squatter's Claim Association" was organized.

1855 to 1859 : State formation

  • 1855 : Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company arrange and send anti-slavery settlers into Kansas.
  • 1855, March 30: Missourians who had streamed across the border (known as "Border Ruffians") filled the ballot boxes in favor of proslavery candidates. As a result, proslavery candidates prevailed at every polling district except one (the future Riley County), and the first official legislature was overwhelmingly composed of proslavery delegates.
  • 1855 : Kansas Territory violence and some open battles rise.
  • 1855, November 11 : Topeka Constitution, which was the first in order, was adopted by a convention of Free-Staters.
  • 1855, December 1 : Small army of Missourians, acting under the command of Douglas County, Kansas Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, laid siege to the Free-State stronghold of Lawrence in what would later become known as "The Wakarusa War."
  • 1855, December 15 : Topeka Constitution was approved by the people of the Territory but was never accepted as a legal document.
  • 1856, May 21 : Proslavery forces led by Sheriff Jones again attacked Lawrence, killing two men, burning the Free-State Hotel to the ground, destroying two printing presses, and robbing homes.
  • 1856, night of May 24 to the morning of May 25 : Pottawatomie Massacre occurred in what appears to be a reaction to the Sacking of Lawrence, John Brown and a band of abolitionists (some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles) killed with broadswords five settlers, thought to be proslavery, north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas.
  • 1857, November 7 : Lecompton Constitution was adopted by a Convention convened by the official pro-slavery government.
  • 1859 : Land tracts transferred to individual Chippewa families.
  • 1858 : Kansas Territory violence and some open battles slow.
  • 1858, April 3 : Leavenworth Constitution adopted by the convention at Leavenworth by a new Free-State legislature.
  • 1858, May 18 : People's elections passed the Leavenworth Constitution (all while the Lecompton Constitution was still under consideration), but he U.S. Congress refused to ratify it.
  • 1859, July 29 : Fourth constitution was drafted; the Wyandotte Constitution was adopted by the convention.
  • 1859, October 4 : People's election held and adopted Wyandotte Constitution, which outlawed slavery but was far less progressive than the Leavenworth Constitution.
  • 1859, end of the year: Bleeding Kansas violence virtually ceases.

1860s to the turn of the century

  • 1861, January 29 : Kansas was admitted into the Union as a free state under the Wyandotte Constitution.
  • 1861, May 25 : Great Seal of the State of Kansas was established by a joint resolution adopted by the Kansas Legislature.
  • 1861, June 3 : First Kansas regiment was called to duty in the American Civil War.
  • 1863 : The Union Pacific Eastern Division established in Kansas.
  • 1863, August 21 : William Quantrill led Quantrill's Raid into Lawrence destroying much of the city and killing over a hundred people.
  • 1863, October 6 : Battle of Baxter Springs, sometimes called the Baxter Springs Massacre, was a minor battle in the War, near the modern-day town of Baxter Springs, Kansas.
  • 1864, April : War between the Indians upon frontier settlers in Kansas and Nebraska.
  • 1864, July 28 : Seventeenth Kansas regiment was the last raised during the Civil War.
  • 1864, October 25 : Battle of Marais des Cygnes occurred in Linn County, Kansas.
  • 1867 : Joseph G. McCoy built stockyards in Abilene, Kansas and helped develop the Chisholm Trail, encouraging Texas cattlemen to undertake cattle drives to his stockyards.
  • 1869 : Union Pacific Eastern Division renamed the Kansas Pacific.
  • 1871 : Wild Bill Hickok became marshal of Abilene, Kansas.
  • 1885 : Coronado, Kansas, was established.
  • 1887, February 27 : shoot-out with boosters — some would say hired gunmen — from nearby Leoti left several people dead and wounded.
  • 1877 : Nicodemus, the first all-black town in Kansas, is founded by African-American migrants from Kentucky.
  • 1879 : large number of former slaves moved from Southern states to Kansas.
  • 1881, February 19 : Kansas became the first U.S. state to adopt a Constitutional amendment prohibiting all alcoholic beverages.

20th century

  • 1916: Kansas troops served on the U.S.-Mexico border during the Mexican Revolution.
  • 1922 and 1927: legal battles Kansas against the KKK, resulting in their expulsion from the state.
  • 1925: flag of Kansas was designed
  • 1927: flag officially adopted by the Kansas State Legislature in
  • 1954, May 17 Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education unanimously declared that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and, as such, violate the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees all citizens "equal protection of the laws."
  • 1950s and 1960s : Intercontinental ballistic missiles (designed to carry a single nuclear warhead) were stationed throughout Kansas facilities. They were stored (to be launched from) hardened underground silos.
  • 1961 : State flag modified with the word "Kansas" added below the seal in gold block lettering.
  • 1966, June 8th: Topeka, Kansas was struck by an F5 rated tornado, according to the Fujita scale. The "Topeka Tornado of 1966" started on the southwest side of town, moving northeast, hitting various landmarks (including Washburn University). Total dollar cost was put at $100 million.
  • 1980s : Kansas intercontinental ballistic missile facilities were deactivated.
  • 1993 : The Great flood of '93 afffected several states, including Kansas.

References