A History of Kansas

by Anna E. Arnold

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.

State Capitol, Topeka.