KANSAS SINCE THE CIVIL WAR
=Beginning of this Period.= Nearly three score years have passed since
the close of the Civil War; a period of work, growth, and progress.
The earlier years in Kansas were but a time of preparation, and with
the end of the war the people were at last free to turn their
attention to farming or to other occupations. Hundreds of new settlers
poured into the State each year. Little pioneer homes dotted the
eastern part of the State more and more thickly and the line of
settlement moved rapidly westward.
=Indian Troubles on the Frontier.= As the white-topped wagons of the
immigrants became more numerous the Indian and the buffalo were pushed
farther on. But the red man did not give up his hunting ground without
a struggle. The encroachments of the settlers had long been resented.
Even before the close of the Civil War, while the soldiers were needed
elsewhere, the Indians had begun their depredations on the frontier.
In 1865 and 1866 settlements were attacked in Republic and Cloud
counties, stock was driven away, much property was destroyed, and a
number of people were killed. The few settlers on their scattered
claims were poorly armed, and, with no soldiers near to protect them,
they were in constant fear of wandering tribes of hostile Indians.
[Illustration: Great Seal of the State of Kansas
It has long been customary for each nation to have a great seal.
The United States has one, as has also each of the states. A seal
is used to make an impression on a document as a sign of its
genuineness. The design for the Great Seal of Kansas was adopted
by the first State Legislature. The thirty-four stars represent
the thirty-four states comprising the Union at that time. The
scene is supposed to typify the settlement and growth of the
State. The motto “_Ad astra per aspera_,” meaning “To the stars
through difficulties,” is peculiarly descriptive of the state’s
history.]
=Open War with the Indians.= The next year United States troops were
sent to protect the frontier. They drove the Indians back and
destroyed one of their villages. This only made the red men eager for
revenge, and they began an open war on all settlers, immigrant trains,
traders, and travelers. Robberies and murders were committed along the
whole frontier, particularly in the Republican, Solomon, and Smoky
Hill valleys, and in Marion, Butler and Greenwood counties. Travel
over the Santa Fe and other westward trails almost ceased and the line
of settlement was pushed eastward many miles. Many tribes engaged in
these attacks. They dashed into the State from north or south or west,
committed their cruelties, and were gone.
=The Broken Treaty.= At one time the Government made a treaty with
several tribes by which they were removed to a reservation in the
Indian Territory, but were to have the privilege of hunting in Kansas
as far north as the Arkansas River, and were also to be provided with
arms. They kept their promise of peace only until they could get ready
for another attack, and while part of them were being supplied with
arms at one of the forts the rest were engaged in a most heartless and
bloody raid on the northwestern settlements.
=The Indians Subdued.= This led Governor Crawford to organize several
companies of Kansas volunteers and to ask for more United States
soldiers. Later a regiment of Kansas volunteer cavalry was called for,
and on November 4, 1868, Governor Crawford resigned his office to take
command of this, the Nineteenth Regiment. After considerable fighting
the Indians were finally subdued, and by 1870 the trouble was
practically ended. There were a few outbreaks from time to time, but
none of them was very serious. During this contest, which had lasted
from 1864 to 1869, the lives of more than a thousand Kansas settlers
had been lost, a great deal of property had been destroyed, and the
westward movement of settlement had been greatly retarded.
[Illustration: A PRAIRIE STREAM, COMMON IN THE WESTERN PART OF
THE STATE.]
=The Homestead Law, 1862.= Shortly after the admission of Kansas to
the Union, Congress passed a measure that had a wonderful effect on
the growth of the State. This measure was the Homestead Law, passed in
1862. This law provides that any person who is the head of a family,
or who is twenty-one years of age, and who is a citizen of the United
States or has declared his intention to become such, may acquire a
tract of one hundred and sixty acres of public land on condition of
settlement, cultivation, and occupancy as a home for a period of five
years, and on payment of certain moderate fees. It also provides that
the time that any settler has served in the army or navy may be
deducted from the five years. Previous to 1862 settlers bought their
claims of the Government. The liberal provisions of the Homestead Law
attracted thousands of settlers to Kansas. Many of the newcomers were
young men who had been in the army.[16] Many of them were foreigners
newly arrived in America, while thousands of others came from the
eastern or central states. Nearly all of them were poor. Many had
scarcely enough to provide for themselves until the harvesting of
their first crop. But they were full of hope and ambition, and were
willing to undertake the toil and privations of pioneer life for the
chance to make real their dreams of a home on the Kansas prairies.
[Illustration: A TIMBERED STREAM, COMMON IN THE EASTERN AND
CENTRAL PARTS OF THE STATE.]
=Many Drouths in the Early Years.= The task of turning the bare plains
into fertile fields was a heavy one, and the brave people who began it
endured many hardships and met many discouragements and disappointments.
Severe drouths were of frequent occurrence in the early days, and hot
winds often swept across the country. The year 1869 was dry, with a
partial failure of crops, and in 1874 came a long dry spell, followed
in the late summer by a scourge of grasshoppers.
[Illustration: STATE GOVERNORS. 1861-1877.
THOMAS CARNEY
CHARLES ROBINSON SAMUEL J. CRAWFORD
JAMES M. HARVEY
NEHEMIAH GREEN THOMAS A. OSBORN]
=The Grasshopper Invasion, 1874.= At different times there had been
invasions of grasshoppers in the country west of the Mississippi
River, but none of them was so disastrous as the one of 1874. The
grasshoppers, which were a kind of locust, came into the State from
the northwest and moved toward the southeast. The air was filled with
them. They covered the fields and trees and destroyed everything green
as they went. They left ruin and desolation in their pathway. In the
western counties, where the settlements were new and the people had no
crops laid by to depend upon, the result was much like that of the
terrible years of 1859 and 1860. By the time of the invasion there
were more people, more provisions, and more money, and the State was
able to do much to help the thousands of its citizens who were left
destitute. It became necessary, however, to accept aid from the East
again, and thousands of dollars and many carloads of supplies were
distributed to the needy. Never since has Kansas had to ask for help.
In more recent years our State has given generously to sufferers in
other states and in other lands.
This visit of the grasshoppers was prolonged into the next year, for
they had deposited their eggs in the ground and the next spring large
numbers of young grasshoppers hatched. These destroyed the early
crops, but for some unaccountable reason they soon rose into the air
and flew back toward the northwest whence the swarms of the year
before had come. There was still time for late planting, and the crops
of 1875 were abundant.
=Prosperous Years Follow the Grasshopper Invasion.= The coming of the
grasshoppers had temporarily discouraged immigration, but prosperous
years followed and people were again attracted to Kansas. More of the
prairie was turned into farms; new towns sprang up; the country came
to be more thickly settled; railroads, schools, and churches were
built; new counties were organized; and the old stories of “The Great
American Desert” were gradually forgotten. Kansas was taking her place
among the states.
=Life of the Early Settlers.= In order that this great result might be
accomplished, that the Kansas of to-day might be, a generation of men
and women had to conquer these vast prairies that were swept by
blizzards, parched by drouths, scorched by hot winds, and scourged by
grasshoppers. A few of the pioneers gave up and returned to their old
homes, but most of them were of the sturdy type and remained, always
believing that the day of better things was to come. Though they had
little money and few of the comforts and conveniences of life, and
though they were often filled with homesickness for the friends and
scenes they had left behind, they stayed and worked and hoped. Volumes
could be filled with stories of the hardships and sorrows of those
brave people; stories of mothers who died from overwork or exposure or
lack of care, of children who sickened from want of proper food, of
homes swept away by prairie fires, and of homesteads mortgaged and
lost.
=The Pleasures of Pioneer Life.= But this is only one side. Pioneer
life was not all dark. Most of the people were strong and healthy, and
the out-door life with plenty of exercise and simple food kept them
so. Although there was privation and hard work there was also much
pleasure. Ask any old settler whether the people had good times in
those days, and you will hear tales of spelling schools and of singing
schools, of literary societies at which debating was an important
feature, and of the country dance with its old-time music on the
fiddle. These affairs were attended by young and old from miles
around; a trip of from ten to fifteen or even twenty miles was not
unusual. Buggies were scarce, and most of the settlers went on
horseback, or in farm wagons that did not always have spring seats.
Quilting and husking bees, house-warmings, and camp meetings were
other events of the early days. Since there were no telephones and
since it was often days from one mail to another, pioneer families
counted it a pleasure to “visit around” and exchange the news. Those
were the days of real hospitality; the “latch-string hung out at every
door,” and all were welcome to enter. No house was too small nor no
food supply too scanty for the entertainment of friends or wayfarers.
Those were the days, too, when the children often waited for “second
table” or stood up to eat because there were not enough chairs for
all; when the boys wore high-topped boots, the girls wore sunbonnets,
and a calico dress was good enough for almost any occasion.
=Buffalo Hunting.= In the earlier years the buffalo hunt was one of
the pleasures of the pioneers. In the fall parties of men with their
teams and hunting outfits would set out for the buffalo range to
secure a supply of meat for the winter. They were usually successful
in finding not only buffaloes, but antelopes, wild turkeys, and
occasionally elk or deer.
=Extermination of the Buffalo.= Remarkable stories are told of the
great numbers of buffaloes still roaming our western prairies fifty
years ago; stories of herds miles in width moving across the country.
With the inrushing tide of immigration the buffaloes rapidly
disappeared. Within little more than a dozen years after the close of
the Civil War there were practically none left. This was not because
they were used as food, but because they were killed for their hides.
Large numbers were slaughtered and skinned and the bodies left on the
plains. The hides were shipped east by carloads, where they were sold
to make robes.
[Illustration: PILE OF BUFFALO HIDES READY FOR SHIPMENT.]
=Selling Buffalo Bones.= In a few years the prairies were thickly
strewn with bleaching bones, and these, too, were gathered up and
shipped east, where they were ground into fertilizer to be used on
worn-out farms. These bones brought from six to ten dollars a ton, and
money earned in this way served to tide many a homesteader through the
winter. It has often been regretted that the Government did not take
measures to restrict the killing of the buffalo, but the danger of
extermination was not realized until too late.
=The Trappers.= A great deal of trapping was done, especially by the
younger men. Often several of them would make up a party, and with
guns, traps, and a winter’s supply of provisions start for a favorite
trapping ground, where they would make a camp along some stream.
Sometimes the camp was a tent, but more often it was a dugout in the
bank with the front part made of logs. Along the streams they caught
chiefly the beaver, the otter, the raccoon, and the wildcat, and on
the prairies the big gray wolf and the coyote. The busy days were
filled with the work of visiting the traps, caring for the pelts,
chasing wild game, and keeping an alert watch for Indians. When spring
came and they turned homeward to take up the work on the farms they
often carried with them several hundred dollars’ worth of furs.
[Illustration: COYOTE.]
=The Exodus, 1878-1880.= The population of Kansas was gradually built
up from many sources, but until 1878 there were not many negroes in
the State. In that year there began in some of the southern states a
movement among the colored people to migrate to western and northern
states. So many thousands of them left the Southland that the movement
came to be called “The Exodus.” It is not strange that the State famed
for its fight for freedom should attract many of the ex-slaves, or the
“Exodusters,” as they were called. During the years 1878-’80 several
thousands of negroes arrived in Kansas. A few had teams and some farm
implements, some had a scanty supply of household goods, but many had
nothing at all and had to be given aid. A very few of them homesteaded
land, others found employment as farm hands, and the rest settled in
different towns of the State.
[Illustration: STATE GOVERNORS, 1877-1893.
JOHN P. ST. JOHN
GEORGE T. ANTHONY GEORGE W. GLICK
LYMAN U. HUMPHREY
JOHN A. MARTIN LORENZO D. LLEWELLING]
=The Kansas Boom in the ’80’s.= The ten years following the
grasshopper invasion of 1874 were all good years. The rains fell and
crops flourished. It was a period of remarkable growth and prosperity.
During these years the railroads were making special efforts to bring
settlers into the State, and Kansas was widely advertised. Reports of
the opportunities here stimulated immigration, and settlements
overspread the western prairies. Great confidence was felt in the
future of the State, and people in the East eagerly invested in
western land and property. Money was easy to borrow, and the Kansas
people borrowed liberally and began speculating in real estate. Kansas
was soon “on the boom.” Property was bought, not to use, but to sell
again at a higher price. Cities and towns laid out additions which
were divided into lots and sold for large sums. Expensive improvements
were made, and public and business buildings were constructed that
were far larger and more costly than the needs of the time demanded.
Railway and street-car lines were built where there was not business
enough to support them. Hundreds of new towns were mapped out and the
lots sold. Many of these towns never existed except on paper, and most
of the others were later turned into pastures or cornfields.
=Collapse of the Boom, 1887.= Since the new settlers were not familiar
with soil and climate conditions in Kansas many of them selected land
that was not adapted to agriculture, therefore much of the farming was
not profitable. In 1887 came one of the most severe drouths that was
ever known in the country. The people lost confidence in Kansas and
the boom collapsed. Eastern people wanted their money back, but there
was nothing with which to pay them. Money could not be borrowed and
mortgages were foreclosed. People who had bought property at high
prices, expecting to sell at a profit, found themselves unable to sell
at any price. Many who had counted themselves wealthy found their
property almost valueless. Banks and business houses failed and
hundreds of people were ruined. Thousands left Kansas, some of the
western counties being almost abandoned. The year 1887 was followed,
however, by several good crop seasons. A great deal of attention was
given to the study of farm conditions, and Kansas began to make
progress again.
=The Opening of Oklahoma.= In 1889 Kansas lost about 50,000 of her
population. This came about through the opening of Oklahoma to
settlement. The President issued a proclamation setting high noon of
April 22 as the time at which the settlers could enter the new country
to take claims. The opening of Oklahoma had been anxiously awaited for
years, and, as the appointed time drew near, people from all parts of
the United States began to assemble along the southern line of Kansas.
Arkansas City was the chief gathering place, for it was at this point
that the one line of railroad entered Oklahoma. When, at noon, April
22, the cavalrymen who patroled the borders fired their carbines as a
signal that the settlers could move across the line, a great shout
went up, and the race for claims began. Hundreds crowded the trains,
thousands rode on fleet horses, many rode in buggies and buckboards,
others in heavy farm wagons, and some even made the race on foot. In
the morning Oklahoma was an uninhabited prairie, at midday it was a
surging mass of earnest, excited humanity, in the evening it was a
land of many people. Within a few days the breaking plow was turning
the sod on many homesteads, while merchants, bankers, and professional
men were carrying on their business in tents or in rough board
shanties. The rush of settlement to Kansas was remarkable, but the
settlement of Oklahoma is the climax in the story of American
pioneering. Although Kansas furnished such a large number of the
Oklahoma settlers, immigration to our State from the East soon made up
the loss.
=The Panic of 1893.= In 1893 a financial panic extended over the whole
country, accompanied in Kansas by a partial failure of crops. Those
were dark days in Kansas, for many of the people were still burdened
with heavy mortgages. But this period should be remembered as our last
“hard times.” Within two or three years conditions had greatly
improved. The twenty-five years following that time brought almost
uninterrupted prosperity.
=Kansas in the Spanish-American War.= In 1898 the long period of peace
that the country had enjoyed since the Civil War was broken by the
Spanish-American War. The call for soldiers was eagerly responded to
in Kansas, and four regiments were raised. Our State had furnished
seventeen regiments during the Civil War and two for fighting the
Indians, therefore the four for the Spanish-American War were numbered
the Twentieth, the Twenty-first, the Twenty-second, and the
Twenty-third. The Twenty-third was composed of colored soldiers. The
only one of these regiments called upon to do any fighting was the
Twentieth, which was ordered to the Philippines. There, under a
Kansan, Colonel Fred Funston, the men of this regiment took part in
the campaigns that followed, and by their bravery and efficiency
brought much credit to themselves and to their State. The Twenty-third
was sent to Cuba. The other regiments were trained and kept in
readiness, but the early end of the war prevented their active
service.
[Illustration: STATE CAPITOL, TOPEKA.]
[Illustration: SENATE CHAMBER IN THE STATE CAPITOL.]
=The State Capitol.= The year 1903 is an interesting one, for it
marked the completion of our State Capitol. Shortly after the
admission of Kansas to the Union the people selected Topeka as the
seat of government. As soon as the Civil War was over and they had
time to think about public improvements they began to lay plans for
building a capitol. Every state has a capitol, or state house as it is
often called, in which there are offices for the Governor and other
state officers as well as large rooms for the meetings of the
Legislature. It is for the state what a courthouse is for a county. It
should, of course, be a fine building, of which the people can be
proud. But back in the ’60’s Kansas people were few in number and had
little money. They could not afford to build a capitol that would be
large and handsome enough for the future, nor did they wish to
construct a small, cheap building that would have to be set aside
later. Instead they planned a fine structure to be built a little at a
time as they could afford it.
[Illustration: A KANSAS CATTLE RANCH.]
In 1866 the Legislature provided for the erection of what is now the
east wing of our state house. As the State grew in wealth and
population, more money was appropriated from time to time for the
construction of other wings, the great central portion, and lastly the
high dome that reaches nearly three hundred feet into the air. The
building was completed in 1903, having been thirty-seven years in the
making. It grew as the State grew, costing altogether between three
and four millions of dollars. It is fitting that the great State of
Kansas should now have one of the finest capitols in the United
States.
=The Floods.= The people of Kansas had withstood a number of drouths,
but beginning in 1903 they were, for the first time, visited by a
series of floods. The first one was probably the most destructive.
Most of the water came down the Kansas River from the tributaries
draining central and western Kansas, where there had been heavy
rainfall. Farms and towns along these streams were flooded, property
was swept away, and a number of lives were lost. Topeka, Lawrence, and
Kansas City, where portions of the cities were inundated for days,
suffered heavy losses. The following year nearly every stream in the
State poured a flood of water down its valley, and many people had to
flee to the hills for safety. In 1908, for the third time in five
years, Kansas was again visited by high water. The loss occasioned by
these floods amounted to many millions of dollars, but help poured in
to the sufferers from many sources and they straightway began the work
of repairing and rebuilding. In a short time all traces of the
calamity had disappeared.
[Illustration: STATE GOVERNORS, 1893-1914.
JOHN W. LEEDY
EDMUND N. MORRILL WILLIAM E. STANLEY
WILLIS J. BAILEY
EDWARD W. HOCH GEORGE H. HODGES
WALTER R. STUBBS]
Stories of floods in Kansas have been handed down from far-off Indian
days, but the earliest flood of which there is any account was in
1844. The Indians told the white men about it and advised against
building close to the rivers, but no attention was paid to the
warning. Since the recent floods, however, a number of people have
moved back from the streams. A few of the cities, including Topeka,
Lawrence, and Kansas City, have built dikes, bridges have been
lengthened to give streams more room, and several railroad grades have
been raised above the danger line.
=Kansas To-day.= While the floods caused much loss and suffering, the
State’s resources had become so great that the condition of general
prosperity was not seriously affected. Each year has added to the
prosperity and progress of the State until now Kansas is one of the
great states of the Union. We have only to look about us to see how
marvelously conditions have changed since pioneer days. Great fields
and orchards are spread over what was once the Indians’ hunting
ground, and cattle have taken the place of the roving herds of
buffaloes. Tractor plows now turn the soil where once there was only
buffalo grass, thriving towns and cities stand where once the tepee
stood and shining rails of steel mark the paths of Indian ponies and
emigrant trains.
All these things have been done within a single generation. Thousands
of the men and women who came into Kansas in their wagons and drove
across the unfenced plains are still among us, but now when they
journey over the same country they go in swiftly moving trains or
automobiles. Where once they saw only the prairie and a few settlers’
cabins they now see roads and bridges, farms and ranches, stores,
banks, mills, mines, and factories. They see what they have helped to
build, a great state, and they may well be proud of it. By their
unconquerable faith and courage and their unremitting toil they have
made Kansas what it is to-day.
=Government of Kansas.= As the pioneers look at their State they may
feel a pride not only in the acres that have been brought under
cultivation and the wealth that has been produced, but also in a
government that is one of the most advanced in the Union. Many
measures have been passed to promote the welfare of the people. Among
the important ones are: the child-labor law, the truancy law, the
anti-cigarette law, the law providing for juvenile courts, laws
pertaining to public health, the fire-escape law, the “blue sky” law,
the primary-election law, and the law governing public utilities.
These are only a few, but among the hundreds of measures that have
been passed, affecting the character of our government, none stand out
more prominently than the two amendments to our Constitution providing
for prohibition and for woman suffrage.
=Prohibition in Kansas.= Temperance was a live topic in Kansas from
the beginning; even in Territorial days laws were passed that tended
to regulate, in some degree, the liquor traffic. During the first
eighteen years of statehood there was a constant increase in sentiment
favorable to prohibition, and, in 1880, during the administration of
Governor John P. St. John, the people voted to adopt the following
amendment to the Constitution: “The manufacture and sale of
intoxicating liquors shall be forever prohibited in this State, except
for medical, scientific, and mechanical purposes.” The law has been
strengthened from time to time, and more attention has been given to
its enforcement, until to-day Kansas is one of the strictest
prohibition states, and the popular sentiment against the use of
liquor is stronger here, perhaps, than anywhere else in the United
States. For many years Kansas stood almost alone as a prohibition
state, but in recent years the number of prohibition states has
increased rapidly, and in 1918 a prohibition amendment to the National
Constitution was offered by Congress, and in 1919 it had been ratified
by the necessary two-thirds of the states. Kansas was among the
number. It is a matter of pride in Kansas that ours was a pioneer
state in this great movement.
=Woman Suffrage.= Kansas has been one of the most liberal of the
states in its laws concerning the rights of women, but it is only in
recent years that Kansas women have had full political rights. In 1861
women were given the right to vote in district school elections, and
in 1887 in city elections. The question of complete woman suffrage was
voted upon and defeated in 1867, and again in 1894, but in 1912 it
carried by a large majority. Only six states, Colorado, Idaho, Utah,
Wyoming, Washington, and California, preceded Kansas in granting to
women the right of suffrage. A number of other states have followed
Kansas, and now (1919) Congress has offered to the states for
ratification a woman suffrage amendment to the National Constitution.
=Kansas in the World War.= The period from the opening of the
twentieth century to the beginning of the World War was, on the whole,
one of peace and prosperity in Kansas. No great destructive force,
such as famine or panic, left the people struggling for existence, nor
did anything occur to stir their deeper emotions. Their chief
interests were in building up their homes and their businesses and in
developing their State. But suddenly, in 1914, like the people of the
rest of the United States, they began to give more thought to the
affairs of other countries, and when on April 6, 1917, the United
States entered the war, the people of Kansas were ready to carry their
share of the burdens.
[Illustration: CAMP FUNSTON.
The largest inland training camp in the United States. The 89th
National Army Division and the 10th Regular Army Division were
trained at Camp Funston.]
The young men of the State began at once to offer their services in
the national guard, in the regular army and in the navy. There were
more than 18,000 of these volunteers. Within a few weeks Congress
passed the Compulsory Service Act, under the provisions of which
approximately 42,000 Kansas men were called into service during the
war. The National Guard, numbering about 10,000 men, was soon called.
Altogether there were fully 70,000 Kansans in the forces of the United
States. These men were sent to practically every organization in the
army, though the greater portion of them were in the 89th National
Army Division, the 10th Regular Army Division, the 35th National Guard
Division, and the 117th Ammunition Train of the 42d Division. All of
these except the 10th Division, which had not yet completed its
training when the armistice was signed, were sent to France, where
they took part in important engagements and bore themselves bravely,
notably the Rainbow Division in the last battle of the Marne, the 89th
at St. Mihiel and the Argonne, and the 35th Division in the Argonne
drive. Many of our young men went into special branches of service,
such as the Air Service, Railway Engineering, Signal Corps,
Quartermasters Corps and Ordnance Corps. The Federal Government
established two Officers’ Training Camps in Kansas, one at Fort Riley
and one at Fort Leavenworth. Many Kansas men attended these camps and
received commissions.
Hundreds of Kansas young women rendered skilled and devoted service as
nurses, both in the training camps and overseas.
The people of the State took an active part in various kinds of war
work and subscribed more than their quota to all appeals for funds and
to all bond issues.
Altogether, Kansas played its part in the war with its accustomed
loyalty and spirit.
=The Period Since the Civil War.= In the present chapter we have
touched only in a general way upon the State’s progress, but growth
has been in many directions and each activity has a history of its
own. In order that we may better understand the advancement that has
been made we will study more fully three of the most important phases
of the State’s progress and development――industry, transportation, and
education.
SUMMARY
The years since the Civil War have been eventful ones. The
Indian troubles on the frontier lasted from 1864 until 1869.
Much property and more than 1000 lives were lost. National
troops and a regiment of Kansas soldiers were required to
quell the trouble. Governor Crawford resigned his position
and took command of the Kansas troops. In 1878-’80 thousands
of negroes arrived in Kansas. This movement from the South
was called the “Exodus.” The grasshopper invasion in 1874
was followed by ten years of prosperity. Then came the boom,
which was ended by the drouth in 1887. Eastern moneylenders
held thousands of Kansas mortgages, and though several good
crop years followed, the State had not yet recovered when
the panic in 1893 brought renewed trouble. Good crops
followed, and Kansas soon entered upon a period of
prosperity which has continued to the present time. Kansas
furnished four regiments for the Spanish-American War in
1898, and made the most of every opportunity to serve in the
World War in 1917-’18. The State Capitol, which was begun in
1866, was completed in 1903. The years 1903, 1904, and 1908
were the flood years. Among the many important governmental
measures are the prohibition and woman suffrage amendments.
During the period since the Civil War Kansas has become a
great and prosperous state.
REFERENCES
Andreas, History of Kansas, Selected Topics.
Blackmar, Kansas, Selected Topics.
Parrish, The Great Plains.
Wright, Dodge City, the Cowboy Capital.
Crawford, Kansas in the Sixties.
Spring, Kansas, chap. IV.
Prentis, History of Kansas, pp. 168, 172-173, 184, 194, 204, 211,
218-222.
Historical Collections, Selected Topics.
McCarter, Price of the Prairie. (A novel.)
QUESTIONS
1. What were the conditions in Kansas at the close of the Civil
War?
2. Give an account of the Indian troubles in Kansas.
3. How did the Homestead Law affect immigration?
4. Give an account of the grasshopper invasion and its effect on
Kansas.
5. What progress was made during the next ten years?
6. What effect did the railroads have on immigration?
7. When was the “boom”? Describe conditions during the boom.
What were some of its causes? What ended it?
8. What was the effect of this boom on Kansas? What have you
learned from talking with persons who lived here in the “boom
days”?
9. Tell something of the “hard times” of the early ’90’s.
10. What part did Kansas take in the Spanish-American War?
11. Give an account of the building of the State Capitol.
12. Give an account of the floods in Kansas.
13. Give an account of the opening of Oklahoma. How did it affect
Kansas?
14. Compare Kansas to-day with Kansas as it was fifty years ago.
15. What part did Kansas take in the World War?
16. What is the prohibition amendment? The woman suffrage
amendment?