A History of Kansas (Arnold 1914)

by Anna Estelle Arnold

A History of Kansas

By
Anna E. Arnold
Author of Civics and Citizenship

Published by
The State of Kansas
State Printing Plant
Topeka
1914

Preface

No State has a history better calculated to inspire patriotism in its people than has Kansas. In this fact lies the greatest reason for teaching Kansas History in the schools. A knowledge of the difficulties that have been met and conquered in building the State will create in the minds of the boys and girls a greater respect for the sturdy qualities of the pioneers, it will give them a wholesome sense of the great cost at which the ease and comfort of to-day have been purchased, it will stimulate in them a desire to live up to the past.

If the study of Kansas History is to accomplish these results, the subject must be presented in such a way as to arouse the interest of the pupils. They must feel its reality. They must catch its spirit.

With the hope of fulfilling in some measure these requirements, this book has been prepared with the following aims constantly in mind: to make it, as nearly as possible, a narrative; to select from the wealth of material at hand such subject matter as is within the comprehension of children, eliminating such matter as can be fully understood and appreciated only by mature minds; to present the general movement of the State's progress rather than a mass of unrelated facts. Only so much detail has been used as is necessary to a clear understanding of events. The purpose has not been to chronicle a multitude of events, but rather to show forth what manner of men and women were the builders of our State, what motives actuated them, what conditions surrounded them, how they lived, and what they accomplished.

An effort has been made to give the pupils a general view of the State's history as a whole, to give them a framework on which to build their later knowledge, and to leave them with a desire to learn more of Kansas history.

Anna E. Arnold.

Contents

• Chapters:
  1. The Beginning of Kansas History
  2. Kansas Becomes a Part of the United States
  3. Exploration of the Kansas Country by the United States
  4. Kansas as a Pathway
  5. Kansas as an Indian Country
  6. Kansas Organized as a Territory
  7. The Coming of the Settlers
  8. The First Territorial Government
  9. Rival Governments in Kansas
  10. The Period of Violence
  11. The Period of Political Contests
  12. Pioneer Life
  13. Kansas in the Civil War
  14. The Half Century Since the Civil War
  15. The Industries of Kansas
  16. Railroads in Kansas
  17. Education in Kansas
  18. Kansas Memorials
  19. The Kansas Spirit
• Appendix

Quivira—Kansas

In that half-forgotten era,
  With the avarice of old,
  Seeking cities he was told
  Had been paved with yellow gold,
In the kingdom of Quivira—

Came the restless Coronado
  To the open Kansas plain,
  With his knights from sunny Spain;
  In an effort that, though vain,
Thrilled with boldness and bravado.

League by league, in aimless marching,
  Knowing scarcely where or why,
  Crossed they uplands drear and dry,
  That an unprotected sky
Had for centuries been parching.

But their expectations, eager,
  Found, instead of fruitful lands,
  Shallow streams and shifting sands,
  Where the buffalo in bands
Roamed o'er deserts dry and meager.

Back to the scenes more trite, yet tragic,
  Marched the knights with armor'd steeds;
  Not for them the quiet deeds;
  Not for them to sow the seeds
From which empires grow like magic.

Thus Quivira was forsaken;
  And the world forgot the place
  Through the lapse of time and space.
  Then the blue-eyed Saxon race
Came and bade the desert waken.

—Eugene Ware.