Today's cutesy, gingham-pinafore image of KANSAS
, associated with Little House on the Prairie and The Wizard of
Oz , is a far cry indeed from the troubled history that made it
known as "bleeding Kansas." It took three hundred years
after Coronado came in search of gold in 1541 before pioneers
established trails across the region, and Kansas's bid for statehood
in 1861 is often cited as the catalyst for the Civil War. The
1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which gave both territories the right
to self-determination over slavery, led to fierce clashes between
Free Staters and pro-slavery forces. Runaway slaves from the South
were given passage through the area, aided by abolitionist John
Brown, and Kansas eventually joined the Union as a free state.
After the war, the mighty cattle drives from Texas
made towns like Abilene, Wichita and Dodge City centers of the
" Wild West ." The debauched, male
image of the West, spawning such "heroes" as Wyatt Earp
and Wild Bill Hickok, is, however, challenged in Kansas, which
as well as being the first state to give women the vote in municipal
elections, boasts the nation's first female mayor and senator,
as well as aviator Amelia Earhart and the battling Prohibitionist
Carry Nation.
In 1874, Russian Mennonites brought the grain that
was to transform the state into the bountiful "bread basket"
that now harvests most of the nation's wheat. However, only in
the west do miles of golden corn sway in Kansas's infamous gusty
wind. The green and hilly northeast, patterned with woods and
lakes, is home to the unattractive industrial city of Topeka,
liberal college town Lawrence , and the dull
suburbs of Kansas City (though downtown lies across the state
line in Missouri). The wild and sparse northwest is pioneer country,
while the once-wicked cowtown Dodge City is in
the southwest. Wichita , the state's largest
city, lies in the south central area.
