1870/1871--After the Civil War, many families came from Clermont County, Ohio and settled on the high prairie in what is now known as Ohio Township in the northwest part of Morris County. On their way, they laid over at Topeka where they met others from Clermont County, Ohio.
1871--Many Italian and other immigrants came to the coal mining region of southeast Kansas.
Crawford County: Arma, Bruce; Mulberry, Pittsburg, Litchfield.
Cherokee County: Stilson/Scammon, Wier City, West Mineral.
1871--About then coal mines were opened near Mulberry--Crawford County. This was also about the date of transition from the name Mulberry Grove to Mulberry.
15-Apr-1871 James Butler Hickok replaced Tom Smith as Marshal of Abilene.
Jul 1871--The Santa Fe Railroad extended its line to Newton, Kansas, which then succeeded Abilene as the terminus of the Chisholm Trail. The cattle boom at Newton only lasted a year for the railroad was soon extended to Wichita.
Aug 1871--During this period there was considerable violence in the saloons and dance halls at Newton, with nine men being shot down in one shootout.
1872--"Home on the Range" song words written in Smith County by Dr. Brewster M. Higley, M.D.
1872--Ellsworth succeeded Abilene as the northern terminus (shipping point) of the Texas cattle trail.
1872--A branch of the Santa Fe Railroad arrived at Wichita, and the town "busted-wide-open." A sign was erected at the outskirts of town proclaiming: "Everything goes in Wichita."
1872--When the Santa Fe Railroad was completed to the Colorado border, the days of the Santa Fe Trail as a main transportation route were over. Dodge City remained the cattle shipping point for 10 years.
1873--The Kaw Indians were removed from their reservation in Morris County to Oklahoma Territory, thus opening this land for white settlement.
1873/1874--German Mennonite immigration to Kansas and South Dakota from Russia. Southeast McPherson and adjoining Marion (Hillsboro), Harvey (Halstead-where they built a flour mill by the Little Arkansas River, North Newton), and Reno (Buhler-one of the oldest Mennonite Brethren churches in Kansas) counties became the home of German-Russian Mennonites.
1870s--Bethel College at Newton was founded by Swiss and German Mennonites from Russia; what is now the General Conference Mennonite Church.
Mar 1874--The Kansas legislature amended the state militia law. This allowed anyone who objected to military service on religious grounds to obtain release. All they had to do was sign a declaration of objection in the county clerk's office.
31 Jul/Sep 1874--Grasshopper plague (Rocky Mountain Locust) visited Kansas. The grasshopper invasion devastated crops (corn) in Kansas and many people lost nearly everything. Aid (clothes, provisions and money) was sent from the East to help the people get through the hard winter.
1874 Four Kansas Railroads shipped 122,914 head of Texas cattle in eight months.
1874/1875 -- Mennonites from Russia introduced Turkey Red wheat to Kansas.
Mid 1870's--Small western towns such as Catherine, Munjor, Pfeifer, Schoenchen and Liebenthal were founded in the middle 1870's by Volga Germans, German catholics who emigrated from Russia.
1875--The Kansas State Historical Society was organized.
1876--State legislature abolishes color distinction from Kansas law.
1878--By this time the buffalo, upon whose abundance the plains Indian's life and culture were wholly dependent, had disappeared from Kansas and was rapidly approaching total extinction.
1878--Robert Layton took advantage of the available fuel at Pittsburg, Crawford County and established a zinc smelter. Pittsburg became the center of the leading zinc-smelting area in the United States.
1878--Prag, a Czech Community in Rawlins County (P.O. located 7 miles below the forks of the Beaver River, near Ludell), is mentioned in a report submitted by Captain William G. Wedemeyer of the 16th Infantry, regarding losses suffered by settlers during the 1878 Cheyenne raid in Northwestern Kansas.
27 Sep 1878--Chiefs Dull Knife and Little Wolf of the Northern Cheyenne led their people in a rebellion and flight from confinement and starvation on the reservation in Oklahoma (Indian Territory) to their home lands in Yellowstone. The trek climaxed on 27 Sep 1878, when 284 braves, women and children made their final stand on the bluffs of Ladder Creek, now Beaver Creek, just south of Scott County State Park. This encounter with the U.S. Cavalry was the last Indian battle in Kansas. The site--Squaws Den Battleground--drew its name from the pit in which the women and children were placed after helping to dig rifle pits for the warriors. The breastworks the Indians dug to withstand the attack by soldiers are still visible.
1878--Western Kansas continued to have Indian problems until the last Indian raid in Decatur County, Kansas in 1878.
1878/1879--A colony of several hundred (Susquehanna) River Brethren from Pennsylvania arrived in the old-time corrupt cowtown of Abilene, Dickinson County, Kansas. They brought with them fifteen carloads of household and farming equipment, and more than 500,000 dollars in cash. With this stuff they at once began to organize homes and fields on virgin land purchased from the Kansas Pacific Railroad.
1879--The prominent issue of the Kansas legislature was prohibition.
1880--An amendment to the Kansas Constitution approved by Kansas voters prohibited the manufacture, sale, or gift of all forms of intoxicating liquor. Kansas became the first state in the United States to pass this controversial amendment.
1880's--Carry A. Nation lived at Medicine Lodge before she began her crusade against liquor that took her to all parts of the United States and England.
1881--Bethany College of Lindsborg was founded by Swedish immigrants.
1881/1882--Most of the trail herds headed for Dodge City, another shipping point on the Santa Fe Railroad line.
1882--Dodge City was the "Cowboy Capital" of the West.
1883 Litchfield--Crawford County is listed as "located four miles northeast of New Pittsburg. It is a coal town in every sense, about 500 car loads of coal being shipped each month. There are here a post office, public school, a general store, a drug store, two blacksmith shops, a wagon shop and about 200 inhabitants" according to A. T. Andreas HISTORY OF THE STATE OF KANSAS in 1883.
30 Apr 1884--Several cowboys, including Henry Brown (later Caldwell City Marshall), attempted to rob a Medicine Lodge bank.
1884--Lane University was established in Lecompton and was attended by Ida Stover, President Eisenhower's mother.
1884--Haskell Indian Nations University was established in Lawrence.
1884/1885--The era of the great cattle drives ended when the Kansas Legislature, alarmed by the increase of the cattle disease called "Texas Fever" brought into the state by the Texas tick, passed legislation forbidding the importation of Texas cattle between March 1 and December 1, the season for the long drives.
1885--Last Texas cattle drive to Dodge City.
1886--Kansas Wesleyan University was built in Salina, Kansas.
1887--Susanna Medora Salter of Argonia was the first woman mayor in the United States to be elected in southeastern Kansas.
1887--while drilling a well, Sam Blanchard struck salt at 300 feet. Hutchinson has been built on top of one of the world's greatest salt deposits.
1888--Almost a dozen salt plants were in operation at Hutchinson.
1889--Mentholatum was invented by Albert Alexander Hyde of Wichita.
5 Oct 1892--The notorious Dalton Gang rode into Coffeyville, Montgomery County, Kansas and attempted to rob two banks, the Condon Bank and the First National Bank. They took about $25,000 in 12 minutes. A shootout followed which claimed the lives of eight men: the outlaws, Grat and Bob Dalton, Dick Broadwell and Bill Powers; and four Coffeyville residents, Charles T. Connelly, Coffeyville city marshal (killed by Grat Dalton in "Death Alley"), Lucius M. Baldwin, George B. Cubine and Charles Brown. Three other townsmen were wounded.
1894--Many companies organized to develop oil and gas fields in Kansas.
1895--Wichita State University in Wichita was founded as Fairmount College.
1896--West Mineral in Cherokee County was founded in 1896 as a mining town.
1898--Kansas enlists four regiments for service in the Spanish-American War.
1900--The last ethnic group to enter Kansas in large numbers was Spanish-speaking Mexicans, brought to the state as laborers for various Railroad companies. Numbering only 71 in 1900, their totals reached 13,570 in 1920 and 19,042 in 1930. Their primary population concentrations were in Railroad centers.
No comments:
Post a Comment