At one period after the geography of the West was fairly well known, all the country embraced in the State of Kansas was supposed to be unfit for habitation—at least unfit for habitation by a civilized people. This erroneous conception of the country continued down to comparatively recent times. And … Read more

The Coronado expedition gave the Spaniards the first claim, the prior right and title to the Great Plains. The discovery, together with the exploration of the country by De Soto, should have given the great interior valley in the heart of the continent to Spain. This it would have done … Read more

Central Academy and Collegiate McPherson is one of the newer educational institutions of Kansas, and is the property and is conducted under the auspices of the Free Methodist Church. Many of the older citizens of McPherson and surrounding district attended Orleans Seminary. The Central Academy and College was founded in … Read more

After the return of Colonel Doniphan’s Expedition to Missouri the Indians became troublesome along the Santa Fe Trail. The force raised by the Government to protect travel and trade on the Plains was organized by Major William Gilpin. It was also commanded by him in its remarkable campaign along the … Read more

Gen. Henry Leavenworth was born in Connecticut in the closing year of the revolutionary war, 1783. While a boy he moved to Delaware county, N. Y., where he grew to manhood and secured such an education as the schools of that new country were able to afford. He afterward took … Read more

Rev, Samuel Price was not only an observer of early Southern Kansas history, but was himself a loyal participator in its making. One unusual event was his preaching the funeral sermon of the noted land agitator, David L. Payne. Mr. Price’s account of this event, taken from his carefully written … Read more

In the spring of 1842, Captain John C. Fremont made his first exploration of the Great Plains. He left Washington on the second of May and went to St. Louis. On the boat from St. Louis up the Missouri he met Kit Carson and engaged him as guide. Fremont organized … Read more

Field Notes By Joseph C. Brown, Untted States Surveying Expedition, 1825-1827 LES Miles.: 73 LES Chns.: Beginning. LES Miles.: 7 LES Chns.: 7 LES Miles.: 740 LES Chns.: 66 : Little Blue creek, 100 links wide and runs northward. Ford shallow and rocky. LES Miles.: [9] [Independence, nine miles southwest … Read more

The return of Padilla to Quivira may be considered a consequence of Coronado’s murch to the Great Plains. For he and three other Franciscans had been on that famous primal exploration. And it is to be regretted that it can not be recorded that they, or any of them raised … Read more

In the Spring of 1846, Francis Parkman made a “tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rockey Mountains” by way of the Oregon Trail. It is much to be regretted that Mr. Parkman was not actuated by more serious motives, for the record he left of his tour, while always … Read more