Kansas 1860s - 2

---

On February 18, 1863, Kansas State Agriculture College (now known as Kansas State University) became the first land grant college and the second state agricultural college to be founded in the US. This was a result of the Morrill Act signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. It gave every state and territory that had remained in the Union 30,000 acres of public land for agricultural and mechanical arts education. Bluemont College, a private school, donated land, buildings, and library. There were 106 enrolled students the first year.

As settlers poured into an area, the US government would round up the Native Americans and move them. The Native Americans began retaliating in 1864 by attacking frontier settlements. Military forts were established in an effort to maintain peace, but the situation deteriorated and there were many skirmishes.

In 1865, a trading post owner, Jesse Chisholm, mapped a trail from Wichita to Texas following Native American, military and buffalo paths. This path would become known as the Chisholm Trail. Joseph G. McCoy, a cattle buyer in Illinois, saw a golden opportunity, purchased land in Abilene and made a stockyard near the end of the Union Pacific Railroad. From 1867 to 1872 more than three million head of cattle were driven up this trail. Records show that 5,000 cowboys per day were getting paid for the trek to Abilene.

From 1867 to 1930, orphans from New York City were sent west to find families. Of the 150,000 to 400,000 children who traveled west, between 5,000 and 6,000 were placed in Kansas homes. These trains stopped when the depression started and families could no longer feed another mouth. Some of the children sent to Kansas were not adopted, but indentured, a practice that was not banned until 1927.

In 1867, a new record was set when 130 settlers were killed during attacks by Native Americans. Later that year the Indian Peace Treaty was signed at Medicine Lodge, Kansas, between the US and the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche tribes.