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Kansas Timeline History

Quantrill's 1863 raid burned the town of Lawrence and killed 164 defenders

1541: Explorers, searching for gold, claimed Kansas for Spain

1682: French explorer LaSalle claimed all of the Kansas territory for France

1803: U.S. acquired most of Kansas from France in the Louisiana Purchase

1822: Captain W. H. Becknell pioneered the Santa Fe Trail

1827: Fort Leavenworth established

1830s: Settlers arrived by the thousands

1854: Kansas Territory was organized

1855-1859: The Kansas-Nebraska Act caused bloody fighting over slavery; Kansas was called "Bloody Kansas."

1860: First railroad reached Kansas

1862: Kansas became a state

1867: The railroad arrived in Abilene, and the first cattle were driven up the Chisholm Trail

1887: Susanna Salter elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas; became the first woman mayor in the country

1894-1895: The state's oil and gas fields went into production

1930s: Severe dust storms destroyed acres and acres of crops

1951: Floods struck the state causing wide-spread damage

1952: Dwight David Eisenhower, Kansas' adopted favorite son, became U.S. President

1952: U.S. Supreme Court declared segregation in public school illegal, in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case of Topeka

1961: The world's largest wheat elevator was built in Hutchinson

1969: President Dwight David Eisenhower died

1976: Famed Kansas politician Bob Dole ran for Vice President

1978: Nancy Landon Kassebaum became the first women from Kansas elected U.S. Senator

1988: Kansas Jayhawks won the NCAA Tourney

1996: Bob Dole Russell, Kansas: ran for President
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