Around 1907, Bonner Springs, Kansas, seemed poised to be the next great health resort, rivaling the likes of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Or so some thought. City promoters were busy organizing the Bonner Springs Hotel and Bath House Co. and they hired a young photographer, Urbin Rudell, to help promote the idea. While Rudell sought to showcase the town’s abundance of natural remedies: pure air, healing mineral waters, romantic surroundings, and a wealth of foliage, he also captured the city’s humble beginnings and industrial development.  When a fire ravaged Bonner Springs in 1908 and the proposed bath house was never built, the dreams of a health resort eventually disappeared, but Rudell’s photos did not. The Rudell photograph collection is now available on Kansas Memory.

Urbin Rudell (1878-1966) was born in Lanape, Leavenworth County, Kansas, in 1878 and later moved to Wyandotte County where he attended school. He started taking photographs when he was about 15 years old and was largely self-taught. He moved to Bonner Springs in 1907 and carried mail between the post office and Union Pacific depot for more than twenty years. 

Urbin’s daughters, Mildred Bundy and Ella Mae Mitchell, preserved more than 100 of their father’s glass plate negatives. They donated the collection to the Kansas Historical Society in 2007. While Rudell’s photographic career spanned more than fifty years, the Rudell collection only includes photos taken between 1907-1912.

The Urbin Rudell photo collection is available on Kansas Memory. For more information on Wyandotte County choose the category  Places - Counties - Wyandotte. 

The Kansas Equal Suffrage Association (KESA) helped win voting rights for women in Kansas municipal elections in 1887 and an equal suffrage amendment to the state constitution in 1912, making Kansas the eighth state to allow full suffrage for women.

Between these two victories, a populist movement rose and fell, a progressive reform movement began, and the U.S. declared war on Spain. Meanwhile, KESA continued to organize. From 1896 to 1900, KESA published the Kansas Suffrage Reveille in an effort to improve communication on suffrage issues between the state organization and local suffrage groups.

The fifty-five issues published attempted to unify the efforts of the local auxiliaries by encouraging them to adopt national standards and practices, report their membership and pay dues. It reported on local, state, and national events and organizations. It improved communication between KESA and other state and national organizations. It also organized petitions and letter-writing campaigns, published suffrage poetry and ran a variety of advertisements. 

The State Archives and Library division of the Kansas Historical Society holds fifty-three of the original fifty-five issues published. All fifty-three issues of the Kansas Suffrage Reveille are now available on Kansas Memory. A complete text version of this title is being prepared but is not yet available. 

For additional sources on KESA choose the category Community Life - Clubs and organizations - Reform/Advocacy - Kansas Equal Suffrage Association. For additional sources on woman’s suffrage in Kansas choose the category Government and Politics - Reform and Protest - Suffrage – Women. 

One day in October of 1908, Dr. L. Anton Smith was discussing matters automotive with his friends at the Denver Auto Club in Denver, Colorado. They were debating whether an ascent of Pike’s Peak was possible at that time of the year in such snowy conditions. Though the “road” was barely passable for horse drawn vehicles, Smith surprisingly suggested a Great Smith touring car could make the ascent. As president of the Smith Automobile Company of Topeka, Kansas, Smith knew his vehicles were not just luxurious, they were reliable. But the quality workmanship that allowed the car to conquer Pike’s Peak ultimately became its weakness. Unable to compete with the cheap vehicles produced by Ford, the Smith Auto Co. closed its doors in 1911. A series of rare Smith Auto Co. catalogs are now available on Kansas Memory.

These thirteen illustrated catalogs published in Topeka, Kansas, between 1904-1911 are available in full color. They provide detailed descriptions of different models of vehicles and their component parts, as well as many automobile supplies and accessories.

For more information on the 1908 Pike’s Peak expedition, see Pike’s Peak or Bust.

For photographs and other materials on the Smith Automobile Co., select the categroy Business and Industry - Automotive - Production - Smith

When a flag appeared near the home of Phil Crab of Ada, Kansas, in 1918, it wasn’t in celebration. The flag read SLACKER and meant to shame Mr. Crab into a donation to support the war, a request he had earlier refused. When some residents threatened to paint his house yellow, a series of threats and allegations ensued between Crab and local patriots that ultimately involved Governor Arthur Capper. Though Ada was a small town on the western edge of Ottawa County in north central Kansas, it was not immune to the patriotic fervor and anti-German hysteria sweeping the country. With America’s entry into WWI, many people sought to root out the “anti-American” elements in their midst and in doing so uncovered deep divisions in their communities that may, or may not, have had anything to do with patriotism. Governor Capper’s “slackers” file is now available on Kansas Memory.

In this May 4, 1918, response to J. M. Best of Clyde, Kansas, Governor Capper outlines his approach for dealing with persons suspected of being disloyal to the United States government, an attitude he called “slackerism.” Best wrote the governor to inform him of disloyal citizens in his community.

Secretary to the governor, Charles Sessions, of Topeka, writes this July 6, 1917, letter to U.S. District Attorney Fred Robertson at Kansas City to request he send secret service agents to Wilson, Kansas, to investigate suspected German sympathizers.

Oliver Omunhenke of Haigler, Nebraska, writes this May 22, 1918, letter to Governor Capper to complain about threats from persons requesting a wartime donation to the Red Cross. He explains that he cannot afford such a donation and wrote of the group “If I did not write a check in 15 minutes they would attend to me.”

In this May 25, 1918, letter to Governor Capper, Dr. Charles Butcher, a veterinarian in Russell, Kansas, states that accusations against him by another resident were made “maliciously and revengefully” and have nothing to do with his loyalty to the U. S. government. He states “I will give to the Red Cross in due time just as soon as these Parisites [sic] quit trying to sting me.”

The entire “slackers” file from Governor Arthur Capper’s records in the Kansas State Archives is now available on Kansas Memory. For additional materials on WWI select the category Military--Wars--World War I.

For a more detailed analysis of this issue, see James C. Juhnke, “Mob Violence and Kansas Mennonites in 1918.” Kansas Historical Quarterly, Autumn, 1977 (Vol. 43, No. 3), pages 334 to 350.

The mass migration of African Americans from southern states to Kansas at the end of Reconstruction (1877) is commonly known as the Exoduster movement. To many migrants, promoter and organizer Benjamin “Pap” Singleton [1809-1892], of Tennessee, fathered the migration. On March 26, 1889, Singleton donated his scrapbook on the movement to the Kansas Historical Society (KSHS). At that time Singleton was living in Kansas City, Missouri. While this book has been called the “Singleton scrapbook” for more than a century, in its current form the book is not entirely of Singleton’s making. This post will explain why. The complete Singleton scrapbook is now available on Kansas Memory.

According to KSHS accession records, the scrapbook contained fifty-nine pages and was described as the “scrapbook of Benjamin Singleton, the originator of the Negro exodus to Kansas, containing much information relative to the immigration, 1878- .”  In 1950, KSHS microfilmed the scrapbook to ensure its preservation and improve access to it. Sometime between 1889 and 1950, additional materials were added to the scrapbook and the whole was given a new binding. Most of the additional materials did not come from Singleton. Accession numbers written on items at the time of their acquisition provide clues to the origins of these additional items. Eight items included as part of the scrapbook today were donated prior to 1889 by other donors (not Singleton). One additional item came from Singleton earlier in 1883. An acquisitions calendar follows:

1. 1879, April 3. Alonzo De Frantz (also De France) donates seven circulars of the Tennessee Real Estate & Homestead Association. One item from this collection was later included as an insert in the Singleton scrapbook.

The 1880 U. S. census shows that De Frantz was a thirty-five year old mulatto born in Mississippi with a mother from Ohio and a father from France. He was a barber in Topeka with a wife and three children.

2. 1880, March 24. Frank Root donates seventy-eight miscellaneous circulars and handbills. Five items from this collection were later included as inserts in the Singleton scrapbook. 

Frank A. Root was a Kansas newspaper publisher and historian. In 1880 he was living in Topeka. A forty-two year old white, Root was born in New York and lived with a wife and five children. Among the newspapers Root published were the Atchison Daily Free Press, Waterville Telegraph, Seneca Courier, Holton Express, Kansas Farmer, and North Topeka Times.

3. 1880, March 30. Alonzo De Frantz again donates four Tennessee emigration circulars. Two of these circulars were later included as inserts in the Singleton scrapbook. 

4. 1883, July 21. Benjamin Singleton donates two posters advertising a celebration of his seventy-fourth birthday in Hartzell Park, Topeka. One poster was later included in the Singleton scrapbook. Part of that item appears to be missing. 

5. 1889, March 26. Singleton donates his original scrapbook.

For more information on Benjamin Singleton see Exoduster Flier. Additional materials on the Exoduster movement are available on Kansas Memory by selecting the category People -- African Americans -- Exodusters.  

In May of 1912, the famed ex-Populist senator from Kansas, William Peffer, lay on a couch in Christ’s Hospital, Topeka, Kansas, dictating to a stenographer. With only a short time to live (he would die on October 6), Peffer was combating negative portrayals of the Populist movement by recording the “true” history of Populism for posterity. But his attempts to dispel misconceptions of the agrarian revolt stand in contrast to his efforts to preserve caricatures of the movement. Through scrapbooking, Peffer helped to preserve the very political cartoons that misrepresented him and his party in the colorful pages of the satirical Puck (Cleveland-Democrat) and Judge (Republican) magazines. Volume two of Peffer’s scrapbook is now available on Kansas Memory. For additional material on the Populist Party in Kansas, select the category Government and Politics - Reform and Protest – Populism.

Elected to the U.S. Senate by Kansas on a Populist Party ticket, William A. Peffer served only one term from March 1891 to March 1897. Peffer collected at least enough colorful political cartoons to fill three books. The cartoons appeared primarily in satirical weeklies such as Puck and Judge and most of them were published during his term in the senate. William’s son Douglas M. Peffer donated the first volume of Peffer's scrapbook to the Kansas Historical Society in 1921. Douglas donated two additional volumes in 1933 shortly before his February 1934 death in Frezno, California.

Victor Gillam’s “A Mighty Poor Exchange: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous” laments the exchange of political giants like William McKinley and George Edmunds for prairie populists like Peffer and “sockless” Jerry Simpson. Published in Judge, April 25, 1891.

Bernhard Gillam’s “Most Ripe” shows James Campbell, Shelby Cullom, Russell Alger, David Hill, President Cleveland, Arthur Gorman, and William Peffer salivating over the 1892 presidency. Published in Judge August 8, 1891.

C. J. Taylor’s “The ‘Peanut’ Hagenbeck and his ‘Senatorial Courtesy’ Animal Show” depicts Peffer in a circus ring commanded by New York Senator David B. Hill with other Senators who were against President Cleveland’s attempt to lower protective tariffs. Puck centerfold published February 7, 1894.

Volume two of Peffer’s scrapbook is now available on Kansas Memory. For additional materials on William Peffer and Kansas populism, select the category Government and Politics - Reform and Protest - Populism. For more information on the Populist Party in Kansas read An Essay on Populism.

Sources:

Roger Fischer, “Rustic Rasputin: William A. Peffer in Color Cartoon Art, 1891-1899,” Kansas History 11 Winter (1988-1989): 222-239.

“Loses Legs to Write History; Ex-Senator Peffer, Populist, Gains a Few Weeks and Works On,” Special to the New York Times (June 1, 1912): 22.

On September 2, 1911,  A. K. Longren successfully flew an airplane in a field southeast of Topeka, Kansas. Longren built the aircraft himself in Topeka making him the first person to manufacture within Kansas a successfully-flown aircraft. The complete Longren photo album is now available on Kansas Memory. 

Select the category People - Notable Kansans - Longren, Albin K. for additional Longren materials on Kansas Memory. Select the category Business and Industry - Aviation for additional materials on the aviation industry in Kansas. 

Welcome to the Kansas Memory Blog. We'll use the blog to discuss the documents, photographs, and artifacts included on Kansas Memory and the many additional features the site offers. Posts will appear every week or two and will showcase a specific item or feature. Your comments and responses are appreciated.

For this initial post, I’d like to draw your attention to the My Bookbag feature.

All registered users have access to a bookbag and it is very easy to use. When browsing the collections, if you see an item you would like to save or share, just click the Save to Bookbag button on the item page

and add that item to your bookbag. You can write notes to yourself or others about the items in your bookbag. You can create folders to manage multiple items and keep notes on those folders.

You can also mark your folders public or private so you can share them with other users, or keep them to yourself. The Share button on any item page will show you the bookbags holding the item.

Selecting Users from the menu at the top of the screen

allows you to browse the viewing history and bookbags of other users. You can view my bookbag under user mchurch where I feature favorite items I’ve selected for the site (see my “favorites” folder). The Historical Society’s quarterly journal, Kansas History, has a bookbag featuring some of the photographs from each issue. The user name is KansasHistory. If you think of unique or interesting ways to use your bookbag, let us know.

We encourage you to comment on this post. If you have questions about this or other features on the site, please email us at kansasmemory@kshs.org. The next post will provide insight into a specific item from the Kansas Memory collection.

The B-B-Blizzard, a single-issue newspaper out of Kinsley, Kansas, was a collaborative effort of stranded train passengers caught in a blizzard in January 1886. Editor F. Weber Benton, with the help of the local Kinsley Graphic and Kinsley Mercury publishers, hoped "to give immortality to events that might otherwise be lost to history."

Find other unique and interesting newspapers online by visiting the Chronicling America website, a collection of digitized newspapers from across the country that gives you the ability to search for keywords within the text. Be sure to follow the most recent digitization efforts of Kansas newspapers at the Kansas Historical Society.  

You can now search (for free) a few Civil War-era Kansas newspapers online at the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America website, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. The Kansas Historical Society digitized the papers with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). This is the first of 12 batches that will become available by June of 2011.

This batch of 6,829 pages includes the following Kansas newspapers: The Oskaloosa Independent
(issues from July 1860-December 1865); White Cloud Kansas Chief (issues from September 1860-July 1872); Weekly Kansas Chief (published in Troy, issues from July 1872-May 1883); Marysville Big Blue Union (issues from March 1862-May 1866); and Smoky Hill and Republican
Union (published in Junction City, issues from September 1861-November 1864).

These particular newspapers were chosen because of their coverage of state and national events leading up to Kansas’ statehood and ultimately, the Civil War. Kansas will commemorate its 150th anniversary of statehood January 29, 2011. The next group of Kansas newspapers is expected to be uploaded to the Chronicling America website in September. In all, the Historical Society will digitize 100,000 pages of Kansas
 newspapers during this project.

Benjamin "Pap" Singleton was an escaped slave who returned to Tennessee after emancipation and helped promote the migration of African Americans from the south to Kansas after the Civil War. Because of the efforts of Singleton and others like him, Kansas became a mecca in the late 1870s for former slaves who were unable to acquire land and make a living in the South. These migrants were called “Exodusters.” Singleton testified before the U.S. Senate on April 17, 1880, that he had helped organize the migration of nearly 7500 blacks to Kansas, mostly by circulating flyers throughout the south like the one pictured here, which is  preserved in the Singleton scrapbook at the Kansas Historical Society (see our March 20, 2009 Kansas Memory blog for more information). 

After the "Exodus" ended, Singleton lived for many years in Kansas City, Missouri, and was honored for his work to improve the lives of black people. It is unclear why, but over time, 1892 became  accepted as his year of death, though the exact date and place was unknown.  Fortunately, the recent digitization of vital records at the Missouri State Archives has made it much easier to locate early death information for Kansas City for genealogical and historical research. Those records show that Singleton actually lived until February 17, 1900.  A search of the the Kansas City Star newspaper on microfilm at the Kansas Historical Society yielded this notice published on Sunday, February 18th:

"HE WAS ONCE A SLAVE

Death of an Old Negro Who Once Belonged to General Shelby.

 Benjamin Singleton, a former slave, who always boasted that he was once owned by General Jo Shelby's father, died yesterday afternoon at 923 West Eighth street, at the age of 91 years.  When Singleton was a boy he rode horses at country races.  He was never a good slave because he was always running away from his master.  After the war he was instrumental in getting a band of negroes to leave the South for the Northern states.  He is said to have written a book of his slave days which is in the possession of the Kansas Historical society."

 We're assuming that the "book" the newspaper mentions is the scrapbook that Singleton donated.  And we're hoping, now that the date and place of Singleton's death is known, the mystery of where his grave is located can be solved as well.

During the 1930s, Frank Conard and other trick photographers poignantly captured the surreal character of the natural disasters then plaguing the southern Great Plains through a series of humorous, exaggerated postcards. Their giant grasshoppers and other pests dwarfed the human world and underscored the “larger than life” character of such plagues. But when it came to dust storms, they did not need tricks (or humor) to convey the magnitude of the tragedy. Rising what seemed thousands of feet above the ground, monstrous clouds of dust rolled over the Plains between 1932 and 1936, blotting out the sun in midday and earning the nickname “black blizzards.” Conard and others photographed these clouds, leaving us a vivid reminder why the region became known as the Dust Bowl. Selected documents on the Dust Bowl in Kansas are now available on Kansas Memory.

Black Sunday occurred on April 14, 1935, when a ferocious dust storm bowled through western Kansas. Pauline Winkler Grey, of Meade County, describes her preparation for the storm, the sixty miles per hour winds, and standing in her living room in “pitch blackness” at midday in one volume of the Pioneer Stories of Meade County.

Like many people during the Dust Bowl, these Liberal, Seward County, residents wear face masks to help them breath during a dust storm. In an oral interview, John Stadler, of Stevens County, recounts how the masks would get so full of dust that you would have to take them off and beat out the dust.

This article from the Topeka Capital prints excerpts of a letter from teacher Gertrude Fay Doane of Winona, Logan County. Doane describes her experience with a dust storm during a school day. She tells how school closed early during the storm and the very next day school closed early again so the students could attend a rabbit drive.

The Kansas Historical Society holds many materials documenting the Dust Bowl in Kansas. A select number of these sources is now available on Kansas Memory.

Take this off-year Election Day to revisit the history of the women's suffrage movement in Kansas. Suffrage in Kansas had many important supporters, including Stella Stubbs, the wife of Kansas Governor W. R. Stubbs (1909-1913) and Lucy Browne Johnston, the wife of the Chief Justice of the Kansas Supreme Court William Agnew Johnston (1903-1935). As these newspaper clippings illustrate, the activities in Kansas attracted the attention of national figures in the women's suffrage movement, like Susan B. Anthony.

 The official newspaper of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association, founded in 1884, is available on Kansas Memory. To explore women's suffrage on the national level, visit Chronicling America for newspapers from across the country covering the climactic years of the women's suffrage movement. Women in Kansas were granted the right to vote in 1912, making Kansas the eighth state to do so, following Utah, Arizona and California, among others.

Three silent films showing footage of the June 8, 1966 tornado in Topeka, Kansas, and its aftermath are now available on Kansas Memory. The storm cut a swath of ruin through the capital city, destroying hundreds of homes, causing millions of dollars in damage, and killing sixteen residents.

 Footage by Jim Ward, John Coyle, and Al Tebben

 Topeka Bus Company footage by Al Moore

Footage by an unknonwn photographer

Select the category Environment - Weather - Storms - Tornadoes for additional sources on Kansas tornadoes. 

If you are interested in the Civil War, you will want to look at a pristine tintype of Sergeant John P. Mosley.  He was a member of Company D, 13th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Infantry and later assigned to duty with the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry. While serving with the 2nd Kansas Colored, he was wounded, left on the field, and taken prisoner by the Confederates at the Battle of Jenkins Ferry, Arkansas. Mosley died at Princeton, Arkansas, while a prisoner of war on May 9, 1864.  Also, accompanying the tintype is a letter written by John M. Cain, Captain Co. G and formerly 1st Lieutenant Co. B, 83rd US Colored Infantry, late 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry to Charles L. Mosley, McFall, Gentry County, Missouri, reporting the death of Sergeant John P. Mosley.  The original tintype and letter are in the State Archives & Library Division. 

Allen Mosley, Prior Lake, MN, John Mosley’s great great grandson donated the tintype and letter.  The two items were passed down through the family, and Allen Mosley received them from his mother.

I am the acquisitions co-coordinator, and I work with people interested in donating materials to the State Archives & Library.  Everybody has a story to tell, and I want to hear about your family’s materials that relate to Kansas. 

Nancy Sherbert

At noon on August 9, 1870, at the county jail yard in Leavenworth, the State of Kansas hanged convicted murderer William Dickson in a public execution before a large audience, including many children. State law forbid such public displays and the resulting controversy inaugurated a curious thirty-five year episode in Kansas history (1872-1907) in which death sentences were handed down but never ordered. Selected documents on capital punishment in Kansas are now available on Kansas Memory.

Following Dickson’s hanging, the 1871 Kansas legislature passed a bill revising the state’s punishment for murder but it failed to become law. In 1872 the legislature succeeded with Senate Bill 18 which made two major changes. It confined the convict to the state penitentiary for one year pending execution and it transferred the power to order the execution (the signing of a death warrant) from the trial judge to the governor.

But the law did not compel the governor to sign the death warrant, and from 1872-1907 no governor ever did. From governors James Harvey (1869-1873) to Edward Hoch (1905-1909) and the eleven other governors in between (be they Republican, Democrat, or Populist) all chose not to sign death warrants. Although the courts issued many death sentences during this period, the governors’ refusal to sign the warrants effectively banned all state authorized executions.

The law did require the Governor's Office to keep records of all death sentences and copies of all death warrants. The State Archives at the Kansas Historical Society holds these records in two bound volumes: “Death Sentence Warrants, 1872-1908” and “Record of Death Sentences, 1872-1906.” Both books were created by the Governor’s Office.

Dickson’s would be the last state-authorized execution in Kansas for more than seventy years, the next occurring in 1944 (Kansas repealed capital punishment for murder in 1907 but reinstated it in 1935). Although the state’s moratorium on legal executions lasted from 1872-1935, at least ninety illegal hangings or lynchings occurred during that period.

As Kansas continues to struggle with the question of capital punishment, the State Archives & Library at the Kansas Historical Society holds many documents demonstrating the history of the death penalty in the state. Selected documents of the principal changes and events related to capital punishment in Kansas are now available on Kansas Memory.

Our new printing option delivers a pdf document that formats the item and description for easy printing. Now you can print multi-page items, like this rare Populist pamphlet, in its entirety with only a few clicks.

Just choose the print button on the item page, then select the sections you wish to print.

This feature requires the use of Adobe® Reader® software or another pdf viewer.

Occasionally in the media we all hear reports of someone discovering a lost copy of a founding document at a flea market, an unknown manuscript of a famous author at an estate sale, or a priceless painting set out with the garbage. Movies like National Treasure heighten our interest in the possible existence of such undiscovered treasures. So while browsing shelves of tattered volumes at a used bookstore or thrift shop, who can help but let their imagination run a little wild?

The Kansas Historical Society has made a few chance discoveries of its own. A particularly interesting one dates back to 1886. One day, John Speer, a director of the Historical Society, passed a used bookshop in Lawrence, Kansas, and saw a stack of large, old books piled up on the sidewalk. Looking over the volumes, he immediately recognized their importance: they were the ledger books of William Clark (of Lewis and Clark, “Voyage of Discovery,” fame) while Clark was Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis, Missouri (1810s-1830s).

Without speaking to the shopkeeper, Speer caught the first train to Topeka to see Judge Franklin G. Adams, secretary of the Historical Society, and tell him of the discovery.

Adams and Speer took the next train back to Lawrence. At the bookstore, Adams casually reviewed the volumes. He then approached the bookseller and, in an indifferent way, inquired about the price. The bookseller indicated he was planning to sell the books to the paper mill and thought he should get at least as much as the mill would give him. The two settled on a price of $33.00 (about one dollar per volume). Adams and Speer packed up the books and shipped them to Topeka to be added to the Historical Society’s collections.

The twenty-nine bound folio volumes discovered that day include the records of William Clark and other Superintendents of Indian Affairs, including field notes and plats of Indian lands, 1830-1836; treaties and other agreements between the U.S. and various tribes, 1831-1838; and other records of the Missouri (1807-1821), Central (1822-1851), and St. Louis (1851-1855) Superintendencies of Indian Affairs. The collection also includes records of the Missouri Fur Co., 1812-1817, of which Clark served as a director. See William Clark for more selections from these volumes in Kansas Memory. For a more detailed description of the collection see the William Clark Papers.

How the books came to be at the Lawrence bookstore is still a mystery. After Clark’s death in 1838, the St. Louis office relocated several times before settling in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1869. When the office finally closed in 1878, General John Henry Hammond was assigned to inventory the papers and send them to Washington, D.C. Were the books purchased earlier in St. Louis as some sources suggest? Or did they follow the office to Lawrence in 1869 but fail to be shipped to Washington, D.C. in 1878?

Sources:

William Connelly, “Indian Office Manuscripts,” August 26, 1929

Kansas City Times, “Kansas Owns a Missouri Historical Treasure,” March 17, 1947

Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, v3 (1886) 49-51

Ernest Staples Osgood, ed., “Introduction,” The Field Notes of Captain William Clark, 1803-1805 (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1964) xxxii-xxxv

When 10,000 or more youth converged on a farmer’s field in southeast Kansas in 1970, they came to enjoy live rock music and protest the ongoing war in Vietnam.

The three-day event near Pittsburg, Kansas, may have been the only successful grassroots rockfest in the Midwest that year as similar events in larger Midwestern cities were cancelled. But the blatant use of illicit drugs at the festival spawned a political backlash against Kansas state and local officials accused of tolerating drug use. The issue would play an important role in upcoming elections. Rare film footage of the Pittsburg Peace Festival is now available on Kansas Memory.

Inspired by the Woodstock Music and Art Fair held in Woodstock, New York, the previous year, locals Kenny Ossana and Fulton Wilhelm organized the festival, which had many names including the Ken-Ton Festival, the Peace at Pittsburg Festival, Cornstalk, the Arma-Pitt Festival, and the Happening. Initially, the organizers sought permission to hold the festival at various locations without success. They solved this problem by literally settling on a 160-acre field located three miles west of the Kansas-Missouri state line southeast of Pittsburg in Cherokee County. The owner, farmer Florn Meyers, gave tacit permission against the wishes of his neighbors by refusing to ask the youth to leave. The event took place over Labor Day weekend, September 4-7.

Organizers expected as many as twenty-five bands to participate, including Impulse Federation (Kansas City), Rock Sanctuary (Fort Scott), Man Alive (Pittsburg), the Chessmen (Kansas City), Grit (Kansas City), Kansas (Topeka), and Caurosel [sic] (unknown), Morning Star (unknown), and Fatty Lumplin (unknown). A surprise appearance by Jerry Hahn and the Brotherhood, Columbia recording artists from San Francisco, marked the highpoint of the festival.  The event ended abruptly early Monday morning when a car ran over two sleeping teenagers, leaving one eighteen-year-old girl in critical condition with extensive head injuries. Authorities later arrested two sixteen-year-old boys.

The Pittsburg Headlight-Sun reported, “Marijuana dealers abound everywhere. Shouts of ‘Black Hash over here,’ ‘Get your organic mescaline in the grey van, only $1.50 a hit (tablet),’ are common.”  Vern Miller, Sedgwick County sheriff and Democratic candidate for state attorney general, emerged as the most vocal critic. Miller berated state and local authorities for not enforcing the law saying, “Such an attitude gives dope suppliers and pushers free rein to deal and distribute dope.” He said the festival should have been “saturated with undercover agents and enough law enforcement personnel… to arrest law violators.” Under attack, then state attorney general and Republican candidate for governor, Kent Frizzell cited several arrests made as part of KBI investigations. The event helped bolster Miller’s campaign for attorney general, which he won, and undermined Frizzell’s law-and-order campaign for governor, which he lost to Democratic incumbent Robert Docking.

Kansas State College at Pittsburg professor Robert Blunk Jr. filmed the event. Blunk’s film includes psychedelic imagery and camera work, and focuses primarily on the crowd. For more information on the festival see the numerous articles published in the Pittsburg Headlight-Sun from September 3 to September 11, 1970. See also Randall Thies, “Hippie Archaeology: In Search of the Kansas Woodstock," Journal of the Iowa Archaeological Society 50:69-77 (2003).