KANSAS

KANSAS. The geographic center of the 48 contiguous states of the United States is in Kansas, one mile north of the city of Lebanon. The geodetic center (which takes into account the curvature of the earth) of North America is in Osborne County in north-central Kansas. The state is rectangular, approximately 408 miles east to west, and 206 miles north to south. Kansas is bordered to the east by Missouri, to the south by Oklahoma, to the west by Colorado, and to the north by Nebraska. Because of its geographic center and because of its agricultural prominence, Kansas is often referred to as "the heartland of America."

The state is customarily divided into four different geologic regions. The northeastern part of Kansas is the Dissected Till Plains, so-called because the retreating glaciers of the last ice age left the land looking as though it had been divided and plowed. It has forests and an abundance of water. The southeastern part of Kansas, known as the Southeastern Plains, is marked by limestone hills, the Osage Plains, and grass. To the west of these two regions is the Plains Border, so called because its western edge borders the eastern edge of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. This region is plagued by severe droughts and tornadoes. Also prone to drought are the High Plains, which occupy the western part of Kansas and rise westward up into the Rockies. It is a dry area whose people rely on an underground aquifer for irrigation of their crops.

The most historically important of Kansas's rivers are the Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Cimarron. The Missouri River forms part of the northeastern border and has been important for shipping. The Kansas River begins in north central Kansas at the confluence of the Republican and Smoky Hill Rivers and flows eastward to the Missouri. It formed a natural boundary between the Native American tribes, in the northeast, and the rest of the state. The Arkansas River enters Kansas a third of the way north on Kansas's western border, meanders east, then northeast, then crosses the border into Oklahoma. The Santa Fe Trail, used by hundreds of thousands of migrants and traders, followed the Kansas River, then turned southwest to the Arkansas River and followed it to the west. Some people chose a quicker but more hazardous route by crossing south over the Arkansas River and heading southwest to cross the Cimarron River, which originates in the High Plains and flows southeastward to Oklahoma.

Prehistory

It is not known when humans first arrived in what is now Kansas. Archaeologists and paleoanthropologists have continued to push backward in time the era when the first people arrived in North America, probably more than 100,000 years ago. During the last ice age, a glacier extended southward into northeastern Kansas and would have obliterated evidence of habitation earlier than 11,000 b.c.

There is much evidence of humans south of the glacier in 11,000 b.c., including long sharpened stone points for spears. These Paleo-Indians, a term meaning people who predate the Native American cultures that existed after 7000 b.c., were nomads who hunted mammoths and giant bison, as well as other big game. By 7000 b.c., the glacier had retreated far to the north, leaving the gouged landscape of the Dissected Till Plains; as the climate of Kansas warmed, new cultures were introduced. The archaic Indians of 7000 b.c. were not the wanderers their predecessors had been. With the extermination of large game, they became focused on small animals and on plants as sources for food. During the period between 5000 b.c. and 3500 b.c., people formed small settlements, and they often hunted with atlatls, slotted spear throwers that added greater power than was possible when throwing a spear by hand alone. These people also developed techniques for making ceramics.

By a.d. 1, the people in Kansas lived off of the wildlife of Kansas's forest. They still used stone tools, but they were making great strides in their pottery making. During this era, bows and arrows began to supplant spears and atlatls, with spear points becoming smaller and sharper. Maize, first grown in Mexico and Central America, appeared in Kansas, perhaps between a.d. 800 and 1000, probably coming from an ancient trade route that extended southwestward into what is now Mexico. Settlements became larger, and in eastern Kansas large burial mounds were built, suggesting evolution of complex societies.

After a.d. 1000, Native Americans in Kansas grew not only maize, but squash and beans as well. They used the bow and arrow to hunt bison and small game. The

Native Americans of northern Kansas and southern Nebraska lived in large communal lodges built of sod. Those to the south made thatched-roofed, plaster-covered houses. These people likely traded with the Pueblo Indians to the southwest, and at least one habitation within what is now Kansas was built by the Pueblo.

By the time of the arrival of the first European explorers in 1541, the settled cultures probably had already been driven out by numerous invasions of warlike nomadic cultures such as the Apache. The Pawnees inhabited northwestern Kansas, the Kiowas the high western plains, the Comanches the central part of Kansas, and the Wichita the southern plains. The Kansas, "the people of the south wind," for whom the state is named, and the Osages had yet to migrate into eastern Kansas; they would arrive in the 1650s. There were frequent wars among these tribes, and they often fought the nomadic Apaches, who tended to follow the herds of bison.

Exploration

The first recorded European explorer of the Kansas region was Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and his followers, who were looking for riches. In Kansas, he found a land rich in farms and diverse Native American cultures. Some of the tribes he encountered resented Roman Catholic priests for trying to convert them, and one priest was killed. Pieces of Spanish chain mail have been uncovered in central Kansas, indicating that a few Spanish soldiers also may have died there.

France claimed the region of Kansas in 1682, but it was not until 1724 that explorers from Europe and European American colonies began coming to Kansas on a regular basis. The first was Étienne Veniard de Bourgmont, who traveled through Kansas as a trader, while exploring the land for the French government. In 1739, Paul and Pierre Mallet led several traders through Kansas to the southwest, blazing a trail for other traders. The French built Fort Cavagnial, near what would become Leavenworth, to aid French travelers and to provide a meeting place for Native Americans and French traders; the fort was closed in 1764. In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana territory, which included Kansas, from France.

Kansas was still a frontier when the Lewis and Clark expedition passed through it in 1804. In 1806, Zebulon M. Pike led an expedition through Kansas, helping to blaze trails from east to west that Americans would follow. In 1819, Major Stephen H. Long explored part of Kansas and the Great Plains, calling the region the Great American Desert, probably because of a drought and the seemingly endless dry, brown grass. Perhaps he missed or dismissed the large forest that still covered much of Kansas.

Early Settlements

Irrigation had been introduced to Kansas along Beaver Creek in western Kansas in 1650 by the Taos Indians, setting the stage for year-round settlements in the dry High Plains. The explorer William Becknell established the Santa Fe Trail in 1821, beginning the busy travel of traders through Kansas to the American southwest. In 1827, Fort Leavenworth was established by Colonel Henry Leavenworth to provide a place for settling disputes among the Native American tribal factions. That same year, Daniel Morgan Boone, son of Daniel Boone, became the first American farmer in Kansas. In 1839, Native Americans imported wheat from the east and became the first wheat farmers in Kansas, clearing and farming plots of land along rivers. Treaties with the American government supposedly protected the Native American farmers in what was called "Indian Country." In 1852, the Native American Mathias Splitlog established Kansas's first flour mill just west of the Missouri River in what is now Wyandotte County.

Bleeding Kansas

In 1854, in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the U.S. Congress established Kansas as an official territory, but in so doing, Congress violated a compromise between slave states and free states that was supposed to make both Kansas and Nebraska free states. Instead, Congress said that the people of Kansas and Nebraska would vote on whether to make the territories free or slave states when they applied for statehood.

In 1855, Kansas tried to elect a legislature that would write a state constitution to present to Congress as part of its application for statehood. Most of the settlers in Kansas, such as Mennonites and Quakers, were antislavery (known as "free staters"), but proslavery men from outside Kansas were imported to vote in the election, and through intimidation of antislavery voters and ballot-box stuffing, they "won" the election. The new legislature quickly wrote a proslavery constitution, which Congress rejected because the state legislature was not recognized as legitimate. In 1855, the Topeka Movement favoring a free state was begun, and its followers wrote their own state constitution; this, too, was rejected by Congress because the authors had not been properly elected.

By 1856, proslavery terrorists were killing free-state farmers. On 21 August 1856, an out-of-state proslavery gang invaded Lawrence, Kansas, an overwhelmingly free-state community, and murdered over 150 people and burned down most of the town. The antislavery fanatic John Brown gathered some of his followers and invaded farms along Pottawatomie Creek, south of Kansas City, Kansas, murdering five proslavery men; this became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre. A proslavery militia later attacked John Brown and some of his followers, only to be captured by those they tried to kill. This made John Brown a hero among many antislavery people. These events inspired the nickname "Bleeding Kansas," and the violence and murders continued even after the conclusion of the Civil War (1861–1865).

Statehood

Beginning in 1860 and lasting until telegraph lines were established between America's West and East, the Pony Express passed through Kansas. By 1861, Kansas had managed to have an election that Congress recognized as valid, and the resulting territorial legislature wrote a state constitution forbidding slavery that Congress also recognized as valid. On 29 January 1861, Kansas was admitted as the thirty-fourth state in the Union, although a large chunk of its western territory was ceded to what eventually would become the state of Colorado. Topeka was declared the state capital. On 12 April 1861, the Civil War began, pitting proslavery Southern states, the Confederacy, against the rest of the country, the Union.

Over 20,000 Kansans, out of only 30,000 eligible men, enlisted in the Union army; at the war's end, 8,500 (28.33 percent) of the Kansas soldiers had been killed, the highest mortality rate of any Union state. The first skirmishes against Confederate regulars occurred in 1861 along the Missouri River, with the first significant combat for Kansan troops occurring near Springfield, Missouri, in the Battle of Wilson's Creek, with the First Kansas Volunteer Infantry suffering heavy losses. Kansan historians claim that the first African Americans to see significant combat in the Civil War were the First Kansas Colored Infantry, who were formed into a regiment in August 1862, and who fought Confederate troops at Butler, Missouri, on 29 October 1862 in the Battle of Toothman's Mound. Under Colonel James M. Williams, white and black Union troops fought together as a unit for the first time in a battle at Cabin Creek on 2 July 1863 in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), against Confederate troops who had raided a train.

The most significant battle in Kansas during the Civil War occurred when Union forces under the command of Major General James G. Blunt and Confederate forces under General Douglas Cooper met in a series of clashes involving more than 25,000 troops, concluding in the Battle of Mine Creek, in which 10,000 troops fought. The First Kansas Colored Infantry underwent a forced march northeastward through Kansas to the battle and was stationed in the Union line's center. The regiment advanced to within thirty yards of the Confederate center, enduring heavy losses until the Confederate line broke and fled, ending the major Confederate threat to Kansas.

During the war, Confederate guerrilla units raided Kansan settlements. Under the command of Captain William Clarke Quantrill, "Quantrill's Raiders" executed farm families and burned villages and towns. On 21 August 1863, Quantrill led 450 of his troops into Lawrence, Kansas; with most of the men of Lawrence off to war, Quantrill's Raiders killed nearly 200, few of them men. Quantrill remains despised in Kansas.

Building a State

From 1867 to 1869, a fierce war between the United States and Native Americans was fought in western Kansas. The Pawnees and others had objected to violations of treaties that guaranteed them the right of ownership of some of the land in Kansas. In 1868, General Phil Sheridan led an offensive against the warring tribes, and in 1869 the tribes were forced to settle in the Indian Territory, southwest of Kansas.

The 1870s and 1880s saw an influx of over 300,000 people into Kansas. Many were guided there by the New England Emigrant Aid Society (NEEAS) of Massachusetts. Among the people the NEEAS guided to Kansas were Mennonites from Russia, who in 1874 brought with them a hardy, drought-resistant, cold-resistant strain of dwarf wheat called "Turkey red wheat." This soon became the favorite winter wheat of Kansas, and it helped advance the growing of wheat throughout the United States.

One of the first actions of the new state legislature in 1861 was to grant women the right to vote in school board elections. It was a small advance for voting rights, but it was considered progressive at the time. Even so, some women activists scorned it, making enemies where they once had friends. During the 1870s and 1880s (known as the sodbuster decades for the sod houses that were built), many women activists were sidetracked by the prohibitionist movement, which was seen as a woman's issue because of the severe social problem of drunken husbands beating their wives. In 1880, Kansas voters approved the prohibition of sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages in the state. The law was ignored throughout Kansas; saloons operated openly in many towns.

In 1874, locusts invaded Kansas and much of the Midwest, denuding farmlands. It was an era of drought, and an adequate irrigation system did not yet exist. Over 30,000 people fled the drought. Once the rains returned in the late 1870s, the influx of settlers renewed. During 1879–1880, 30,000 "Exodusters" (a play on "sodbuster" and "exodus"), African Americans fleeing Southern states, migrated into Kansas.

Kansas was proud of its progressive image, and in 1887, women at last received the right to vote in municipal elections. Within a few weeks, the first female mayor elected in America, Susanna Madora Salter, became mayor of the town of Argonia. The next year, five towns had female mayors and city councils consisting entirely of women. The Populist Party (a.k.a. the People's Party) was founded in Topeka in 1890, and Populist Kansas governors, beginning with Lorenzo Lewelling in 1892, were supported by women. By 1911, over 2,000 women held public office in Kansas. In 1912, Kansas voted to give women full suffrage, the same voting rights as men had. In 1932, Kansas elected its first female member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kathryn O'Loughlin McCarthy.

In 1900, Kansas had an official population of 1,470,495 people. Before 1907, maize was the state's principal crop, but it was replaced in 1907 by wheat, much of it descended from the Turkey red wheat brought by Russian immigrants. The land still suffered from drought, about once every twenty years, but it was not until 1920 that farmers began to extensively irrigate their farmland. The irrigation system created a boom that made Kansas the world's leader in wheat production. In 1923, a motorized combine was introduced to Kansas, allowing a couple of men to do what had been the work of several horses and a score of men in 1900. In 1930, portable irrigation sprinkler systems were introduced, and the state became an example of prosperity.

Dust Bowl

Drought hit Kansas again during the 1930s. Most of the state's forest had been converted to farmland; its native grasses and other plants had been supplanted by sweeping farms, rich in wheat, maize, sorghum, and other cultivated grains. When streams dried up, and when the irrigation system could not find enough water for the central and western parts of the state, the soil dried. The topsoil had become powder. Kansas had always had high winds, and in the 1930s, the winds blew the powdery soil high into the air, often making day as dark as night. During 1934, the region became known as the "dust bowl."

Many farmers abandoned their farms. Some found work in Kansas's factories. Oil and natural gas strikes in southern Kansas and zinc mining in the western hills helped provide Kansas with income. By 1937, the prohibition law was seen as oppressive. Kansas changed the law to allow 3.2 percent beer to be produced and taxed; it also instituted a sales tax.

World War II and the 1950s

During World War II, Fort Riley, established in 1853 to protect travelers on the Santa Fe Trail, became a major military training base. In 1942, a prisoner of war camp was built near Concordia. The factories of Kansas became important parts of the production for war, and the oil and natural gas suppliers gained in importance. In 1943, Dwight David Eisenhower, who had been raised in Abilene, became Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, and he helped the growth of the military industry in Kansas.

The "progressive" state of Kansas had long had a dirty secret: racial segregation. On 28 February 1951, the father of eleven-year-old Linda Brown, an African American, filed suit in the United States District Court against Topeka's Board of Education, asking that she be allowed to attend a whites-only school and alleging that segregation violated Amendment XIV of the U.S. Constitution. On 17 May 1954, a team of attorneys led by Thurgood Marshall won a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that racial segregation was inherently unequal and therefore a violation of the Constitution. Brown v. Board of Education became the landmark court decision that would change the course of American society during the next fifty years.

The Modern Era

By 1960, the population of Kansas had increased to over 2,000,000 people. In 1969, part of the Kansas National Guard was called to duty and sent to serve in Vietnam. In 1970, the student union at Kansas University was set afire, probably as part of protests against the war.

In 1972, the state's constitution was amended, reducing the number of elected officials in the executive branch and extending to four years from two the terms of the elected officials of the executive branch. During that year, the Kansas legislature ratified the ill-fated Equal Rights Amendment that would have added a statement to the United States Constitution that women and men were to have the same civil rights. In 1973, the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant was begun; it would not come on line until 1985. In 1978, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, daughter of Alf Landon, Republican nominee for president in 1936, was elected to the United States Senate. She was the first woman who was not a widow of a senator to be elected to the Senate.

In 1980, Kansas established and funded programs to prevent child abuse. In 1986, Kansas changed its alcoholic beverage laws to allow serving liquor "by the drink." It also approved a state lottery. Its population was just under 2,500,000 in 1990. In 1991, Joan Finney became Kansas's first woman governor. Former Governor Mike Hayden was placed in charge of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. During the 1990s, the elaborate irrigation system for the High Plains and Plains Border regions became severely strained because the underground aquifer, consisting of sand mixed with water, was being seriously diminished, creating sinkholes and threatening an end to the underground water supply. In 2000, nearly 3,000,000 people lived in Kansas, mostly in cities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, George L., Terry H. Harmon, and Virgil W. Dean, eds. History of Kansas: Selected Readings. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987.

Bader, Robert Smith. Hayseeds, Moralizers, and Methodists: The Twentieth-Century Image of Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988.

Davis, Kenneth S. Kansas: A Bicentennial History. New York: Norton, 1976.

Masters, Nancy Robinson. Kansas. New York: Grolier, 1998.

Napier, Rita, ed. A History of the Peoples of Kansas. Lawrence: Independent Study, Division of Continuing Education, University of Kansas, 1985.

Shortridge, James R. Peopling the Plains: Who Settled Where in Frontier Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

Wedel, Waldo R. Central Plains Prehistory: Holocene Environments and Culture Change in the Republican River Basin. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.

Kirk H.Beetz

See alsoMidwest ; Tribes: Great Plains .

Kansas , midwestern state occupying the center of the coterminous United States. It is bordered by Missouri (E), Oklahoma (S), Colorado (W), and Nebraska (N).

Facts and Figures

Area, 82,264 sq mi (213,064 sq km). Pop. (2000) 2,688,418, an 8.5% increase since the 1990 census. Capital, Topeka. Largest city, Wichita. Statehood, Jan. 29, 1861 (34th state). Highest pt., Mt. Sunflower, 4,039 ft (1,232 m); lowest pt., Verdigris River, 680 ft (207 m). Nickname, Sunflower State. Motto,Ad Astra per Aspera [To the stars through difficulties]. State bird, Western meadowlark. State flower, native sunflower. State tree, cottonwood. Abbr., Kans.; KS

Geography

Almost rectangular in shape and mostly part of the Great Plains , Kansas is famous for its seemingly endless fields of ripe golden wheat. The land rises more than 3,000 ft (914 m) from the eastern alluvial prairies of Kansas to its western semiarid high plains, which stretch toward the foothills of the Rocky Mts. The rise is so gradual, however, that it is imperceptible, although the terrains of the east and the west are markedly different. The state is drained by the Kansas and Arkansas rivers, both of which generally run from west to east.

The average annual rainfall of 27 in. (69 cm) is not evenly distributed: the eastern prairies receive up to 40 in. (102 cm) of rain, while the western plains average 17 in. (43 cm). Occasional dust storms plague farmers and ranchers in the west. The climate is continental, with wide extremes—cold winters with blizzards and hot summers with tornadoes. Floods also wreak havoc in the state; hence, flood-control projects, such as dams, reservoirs, and levees, are a major undertaking.

Topeka is the capital; other important cities are Wichita (the state's largest city), Lawrence , and Kansas City (adjoining Kansas City, Mo.). Points of historical interest include the boyhood home of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Eisenhower Library in Abilene. Medicine Lodge has the home of Carry Nation , who, at the turn of the 20th cent., waged war on the saloons. Fort Leavenworth is the site of a large federal penitentiary. The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve is one of the few large tracts of virgin prairie in the United States.

Economy

Kansas is historically an agricultural state. Manufacturing and services have surpassed agriculture as income producers, but farming is still important to the state's economy, and Kansas follows only Texas and Montana in total agricultural acreage. The nation's top wheat grower, Kansas is also a leading producer of grain sorghum and corn. Hay, soybeans, and sunflowers are also major crops. Cattle and calves, however, constitute the single most valuable agricultural item. Meatpacking and dairy industries are major economic activities, and the Kansas City stockyards are among the nation's largest. Food processing ranked as the state's third largest industry in the 1990s.

The two leading industries are the manufacture of transportation equipment and industrial and computer machinery. Wichita is a center of the aircraft industry, producing chiefly private planes. Other important manufactures are petroleum and coal products and nonelectrical machinery. The state is a major producer of crude petroleum and has large reserves of natural gas and helium. Kansas was once part of a great shallow sea and has commercially valuable salt deposits.

Government and Higher Education

Government in Kansas is based on the constitution of 1859, adopted just before Kansas attained statehood. An elected governor serves a term of four years. The legislature has a senate with 40 members and a house of representatives with 125 members. Kansas is represented in the U.S. Congress by four representatives and two senators and has six electoral votes in presidential elections. The state has long been a Republican stronghold but has had some Democratic governors. Republican Bill P. Graves, elected in 1994 and reelected in 1998, was succeeded by Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, who also won (2002, 2006) two terms. Sebelius resigned in 2009 to become U.S. secretary of health and human services and was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Mark Parkinson, also a Democrat. Republican Sam Brownback was elected to the post in 2010.

Institutions of higher learning include the Univ. of Kansas, at Lawrence; Kansas State Univ., at Manhattan; Wichita State Univ., at Wichita; and Washburn Univ. of Topeka, at Topeka.

History

Early Inhabitants, Exploration, and Relocations

When the Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado visited (1541) the Kansas area in his search for Quivira, a fabled kingdom of riches, the area was occupied by various Native American groups of the Plains descent, notably the Kansa, the Wichita and the Pawnee. Another Spanish explorer, Juan de Oñate, penetrated the region in 1601. A result of Spanish entry into the region was the introduction of the horse, which revolutionized the life of the Native Americans. While not actually exploring the Kansas area, Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, claimed (c.1682) for France all territory drained by the Mississippi River, including Kansas.

French traders and Native Americans had a great deal of contact during most of the 18th cent. By the Treaty of Paris of 1763 ending the French and Indian Wars , France ceded the territory of W Louisiana (including Kansas) to Spain. In 1800, Spain secretly retroceded the territory to France, from whom the United States acquired it in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The region was little known, however, and subsequent explorations to include Kansas were the Lewis and Clark expedition (1803–6), the Arkansas River journey of Zebulon M. Pike in 1806, and the scientific expedition of Stephen H. Long in 1819.

Most of the territory that eventually became Kansas was in an area known as the "Great American Desert," considered unsuitable for U.S. settlement because of its apparent barrenness. In the 1830s the region was designated a permanent home for Native Americans, and northern and eastern tribes were relocated there. Forts were constructed for frontier defense and for the protection of the growing trade along the Santa Fe Trail , which crossed Kansas. Fort Leavenworth was established in 1827, Fort Scott in 1842, and Fort Riley in 1853.

Pro- and Antislavery Factions

Kansas, at this time mainly a region to be crossed on the way to California and Oregon, was organized as a territory in 1854. Its settlement, however, was spurred not so much by natural westward expansion as by the determination of both proslavery and antislavery factions to achieve a majority population in the territory. The struggle between the factions was further complicated by conflict over the location of a transcontinental railroad, with proponents of a central route (rather than a southern route) eager to resolve the slavery issue in the area and promote settlement.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), an attempted compromise on the extension of slavery, repealed the Missouri Compromise and reopened the issue of extending slavery north of lat. 36°30′ by providing for popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska, allowing settlers of territories to decide the matter themselves. Meanwhile, the Emigrant Aid Company was organized in Massachusetts to foster antislavery immigration to Kansas, and proslavery interests in Missouri and throughout the South took counteraction. Towns were established by each faction—Lawrence and Topeka by the free-staters and Leavenworth and Atchison by the proslavery settlers.

Soon all the problems attendant upon organizing a territory for statehood became subsidiary to the single issue of slavery. The first elections in 1854 and 1855 were won by the proslavery group; armed Missourians intimidated voters and election officials and stuffed the ballot boxes. Andrew H. Reeder was appointed the first territorial governor in 1854. The first territorial legislature ousted (1855) all free-state members, secured the removal of Gov. Reeder, established the capital in Lecompton, and adopted proslavery statutes. In retaliation the abolitionists set up a rival government at Topeka in Oct., 1855.

The Wakarusa War and Bleeding Kansas

Violence soon came to the territory. The murder of a free-state man in Nov., 1855, led to the so-called Wakarusa War, a bloodless series of encounters along the Wakarusa River. The intervention of the new governor, Wilson Shannon, kept proslavery men from attacking Lawrence. However, civil war ultimately turned the territory into "bleeding Kansas." On May 21, 1856, proslavery groups and armed Missourians known as "Border Ruffians" raided Lawrence. A few days later a band led by the abolitionist crusader John Brown murdered five proslavery men in the Pottawatamie massacre. Guerrilla warfare between free-state men called Jayhawkers and proslavery bands—both sides abetted by desperadoes and opportunists—terrorized the land. After a new governor, John W. Geary, persuaded a large group of "Border Ruffians" to return to Missouri, the violence subsided.

The Lecompton legislature met in 1857 to make preparations for convening a constitutional convention. Gov. Geary resigned after it became clear that free elections would not be held to approve a new constitution. Robert J. Walker was appointed governor, and a convention held at Lecompton drafted a constitution. Only that part of the resulting proslavery constitution dealing with slavery was submitted to the electorate, and the question was drafted to favor the proslavery group. Free-state men refused to participate in the election with the result that the constitution was overwhelmingly approved.

Despite the dubious validity of the Lecompton constitution, President James Buchanan recommended (1858) that Congress accept it and approve statehood for the territory. Instead, Congress returned it for another territorial vote. The proslavery group boycotted the election, and the constitution was rejected. Lawrence became de facto capital of the troubled territory until after the Wyandotte constitution (framed in 1859 and totally forbidding slavery) was accepted by Congress. The Kansas conflict and the question of statehood for the territory became a national issue and figured in the 1860 Republican party platform.

Kansas became a state in 1861, with the capital at Topeka. Charles Robinson was the first governor and James H. Lane, an active free-stater during the 1850s, one of the U.S. Senators. In the Civil War, Kansas fought with the North and suffered the highest rate of fatal casualties of any state in the Union. Confederate William C. Quantrill and his guerrilla band burned Lawrence in 1863.

Life on the Prairie

With peace came the development of the prairie lands. The construction of railroads made cow towns such as Abilene and Dodge City , with their cowboys, saloons, and frontier marshals, the shipping point for large herds of cattle driven overland from Texas. The buffalo herds disappeared (some buffalo still roam in state parks and game preserves), and cattle took their place. Pioneer homesteaders, adjusting to life on the timberless prairie and living in sod houses, suffered privation. In 1874, Mennonite emigrants from Russia brought the Turkey Red variety of winter wheat to Kansas. This wheat was instrumental in making Kansas the Wheat State as winter wheat replaced spring wheat on an ever-increasing scale. Corn, too, soon became a major cash crop.

Agricultural production was periodically disrupted by national depressions and natural disasters. Repeated and prolonged droughts accompanied by dust storms, occasional grasshopper invasions, and floods all caused severe economic dislocation. Mortgages often weighed heavily on farmers, and discontent was expressed in farmer support of radical farm organizations and third-party movements, such as the Granger movement , Greenback party , and Populist party . Tax relief, better regulation of interest rates, and curbs on the power of railroads were sought by these organizations. Twice in the 1890s, Populist-Democrats were elected to the governorship.

As conditions improved, Kansas returned largely to its allegiance to the Republican party and gained a reputation as a conservative stronghold with a bent for moral reform, indicated in the state's strong support of prohibition; laws against the sale of liquor remained on the books in Kansas from 1880 to 1949. Over the years the use of improved agricultural methods and machines increased crop yield. Irrigation proved practicable in some areas, and winter wheat and alfalfa could be cultivated in dry regions.

Wars and Depression

Wheat production greatly expanded during World War I, but the end of the war brought financial difficulties. During the 1920s and 30s, Kansas was faced with labor unrest and the economic hardships of the depression. As part of the Dust Bowl, Kansas sustained serious land erosion during the long drought of the 1930s. Erosion led to the implementation of conservation and reclamation projects, particularly in the northern and western parts of the state. In 1924 an effort of the Ku Klux Klan to gain political control was fought by William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette, who supported many liberal causes. Alfred M. Landon, elected governor in 1932, was one of the few Republican candidates in the country to win election in the midst of the sweeping Democratic victory that year. He was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in 1936.

During World War II agriculture thrived and industry expanded rapidly. The food-processing industry grew substantially, the cement industry enjoyed a major revival, and the aircraft industry boomed. After the war agricultural prosperity once again declined when the state was hit by a severe drought and grasshopper invasion in 1948. Prosperity returned briefly during the Korean War, but afterward farm surpluses and insufficient world markets combined to make the state's tremendous agricultural ability part of the national "farm problem."

Modern Kansas

Kansas has become increasingly industrialized and urbanized, and industrial production has surpassed farm production in economic importance. Flood damage in the state, especially after a major flood in 1951, spurred the construction of dams (such as the Tuttle Creek, Milford, and Wilson dams) on major Kansas rivers, and their reservoirs have vastly increased water recreational facilities for Kansans. Since the 1970s, Kansas has become increasingly more urban and suburban. Accordingly, the economy has shifted its emphasis to finance and service industries located in and around the major urban centers.

Bibliography

See P. Gates, Fifty Million Acres: Conflicts over Kansas Land Policy, 1854–1890 (1954); R. S. Brownlee, Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy (1960); W. T. Nugent, The Tolerant Populists (1963); J. R. Cook, The Border and the Buffalo (1967); C. C. Howes, This Place Called Kansas (1984); H. E. Socolofsky and H. Self, Historical Atlas of Kansas (2d rev. ed. 1989); R. Richmond, Kansas: A Land of Contrasts (3d ed. 1989).

KANSAS

Native Americans roamed the plains of Kansas at the time French explorers paddled the Mississippi River in the 1700s. The area now known as Kansas was part of the vast French holdings in central North America known as the Louisiana Territory. In 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, needed funds to support his European wars. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809) seized this opportunity and purchased Louisiana land for $15 million, doubling the size of the United States and bringing the region that would become Kansas and several other states under American control.

President Jefferson sent the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the country from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. When the expedition reached Kansas, they described the country as "delightful . . . the whole country exhibits a rich appearance." Although this account was favorable, other explorers reported Kansas to be a dry wasteland, and as a result migration to Kansas started out slowly compared to other parts of the country. However, the rich abundance of furbearing animals lured American trappers and traders to the area.

During the first half of the 1800s settlers started to migrate west to Kansas, at this point still an unorganized territory, in search of adventure and a new life. Missionaries also came to the plains and taught tribes of the region how to work the land. Eventually, the United States government would push all Native Americans westward onto reservations.

When gold was discovered in the 1850s in what is now Colorado, miners rushed across the country to seek their fortune. As mining grew in the west, transportation was needed to carry people and goods. The Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express to Denver made 19 stops in Kansas along the route. Federal land grants were awarded to other companies to encourage more railroad building and settlement along the railroads. Over the next several decades about 200 companies built railroads across Kansas. Many towns sprang up along the track, together with hotels, gambling houses, and saloons.

The 1850s were also a period of political turmoil in Kansas. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 formally organized the territory of Kansas, and allowed for the people who lived there to determine if slavery would be permitted there. Previously, the Missouri Compromise had prevented slavery from spreading into Kansas, and the predominantly anti-slavery North was greatly angered by what they saw as an attempt by the South to expand its power and influence. Pro-slavery southerners and anti-slavery northerners flooded into the region in an effort to gain control. There was frequent conflict between the two sides, the area became known as "Bleeding Kansas." The controversy over Kansas worsened the split between the North and the South, was a major force behind the formation of the Republican Party, and helped drive the nation in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Kansas would eventually be admitted to the Union as a free state in 1861.

After the Civil War thousands migrated to Kansas to take advantage of the government's promise of free land. In a government-backed effort to encourage settlers to move west, the Homestead Act of 1862 allowed any citizen who paid a ten dollar filing fee to claim up to 160 acres of federal land as long as they farmed the land for 5 years. In 1873 the Timber Culture Act made the same promise to those who would plant trees on one-fourth of the land they claimed within four years. By that time new Kansas homesteaders had already claimed about 6 million acres.

After the Civil War the government also encouraged the development of railroads by giving the railroad companies land grants. More than 200 companies laid tracks that zigzagged across Kansas. As the railroads offered land grant acreage at low prices and reduced fares to new settlers, they helped to open the state for commerce and development.

The new settlers in Kansas were known as "sodbusters" because they cut up large squares of sod and, as lumber was scarce, used them to make walls and roofs for their new homes. They planted crops in place of the sod. They soon discovered how harsh life could be on the plains. "Rattlesnakes, bedbugs, fleas, and the 'prairie itch' were what kept us awake at nights and made life miserable," wrote W.H. Russell, a Rush County settler. Also, a grasshopper plague in 1874 destroyed crops on 5,000 square miles of farmland. In addition, the severe weather—blizzards, rainstorms, droughts, and prairie fires—stranded trains and destroyed crops and homes.

After the Civil War cattle was abundant in Texas but scarce in the north. Texas cattle ranchers took advantage of the demand from the north and began driving their cattle to the nearest railroad stations in Kansas. "Cow towns" were established at cattle shipping points. The cow towns played host to cowboys looking to spend their money in hotels, saloons, dance halls, and gambling houses.

During the boom years of the 1870s and 1880s new settlers were attracted to Kansas due to better weather conditions and improved farming methods as well as easy railroad access to outlying areas of the state. Wealthy farmers and land developers bought up land and established towns. At the same time, more than 15,000 former slaves traveled from the south to Kansas to establish a new way of life for themselves. A blizzard in 1886 and a drought in 1887, however, quickly caused the state to fall into a depression. Ranchers were forced to leave because more than 20 percent of the state's cattle herd perished in the blizzard and the farmers lost all their crops in the drought.

Farmers who stayed behind were frustrated by falling wheat prices and the high cost of shipping goods. They formed the Farmers' Alliance and became a major component of the Populist Party in the 1890s. Members of the party were voted into congressional seats of other political office. The Populists were instrumental in implementing laws that helped farmers by regulating banks, stockyards, railroads, telegraph companies, and building-and-loan associations.

The Populist movement gave way to the Progressive administrations of governors from 1905 to 1913. New reforms called for laws that reduced railroad fares and costs for shipping grain. Child labor laws were instituted along with workmen's compensation and further banking regulations. In addition, the use of machines such as tractors and threshers made farming easier and helped increase crop production. New crops such as sorghum, sugar beets, broomcorn, and alfalfa were harvested in the plains.

During World War I (1914–1918) Kansas stepped up production of wheat to feed the troops. After the war more roads were built to accommodate automobiles built by a Kansan Walter P. Chrysler (1875–1940), founder of the Chrysler Motors automobile company. This modest recovery, however, was only temporary. During the Great Depression (1929–1939) Kansas was devastated. The country suffered the worst depression in history; stock markets crashed and Kansas crop prices dropped. In 1932 a severe drought began and turned the area into a "dust bowl. Governor Alfred M. Landon attempted to bring relief to farmers and businessmen by reorganizing state banks, cutting taxes, and halting mortgage foreclosures for six months. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's (1933–1945) New Deal provided jobs building libraries, schools, and post offices. The Agricultural Adjustment Act was also passed in 1933 as part of the New Deal. It sought to raise farm prices by encouraging farmers to reduce production. But true economic relief only came at the start of World War II (1939–1945). During the war plants in Kansas built more than 25,000 aircraft and produced munitions and artillery for the war effort. Wheat and soybean farming also stepped up to provide food for military personnel.

After the war, manufacturing growth steadily increased and people began to move from rural to urban areas. For the first three decades after the war, businesses grew in Kansas and meat packing, mining, flour milling, and petroleum refining became the largest industries in the state. In addition, more aircraft were built in Kansas than anywhere else in the country. Farming remained the most prominent part of the state's economy.

Farmers enjoyed prosperity in the 1960s and 1970s as feeds and improved fertilizers increased production, but they faced a crisis as a recession hit in the 1980s. Many farmers lost their land and were forced into bankruptcy. Kansas sought to expand its market of products and signed a trade agreement with the St. Petersburg region of Russia in 1993.

The 1990s also brought extremes in the weather. Drought and topsoil erosion damaged 865,000 acres, drove up prices, and depleted grain stores. From April through September 1993, floods caused more than $574 million worth of damage. Efforts to restore economic growth included the allocation of government block grants. In 1995 the median household income in Kansas was $30,346 and about 11 percent of all Kansans lived below the federal poverty level.

See also: Bleeding Kansas, Cow Towns ,Dust Bowl, Farmers' Alliance, Homestead Act, Homesteaders, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lewis and Clark Expedition

FURTHER READING

Anderson, George L. Kansas West. San Marino, CA: Golden West Books, 1963.

Aylesworth, Thomas G. South Central: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.

Fredeen, Charles. Kansas. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications, 1992.

Kummer, Patricia K. Kansas. Mankato, MN: Capstone Press, 1999.

Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1998, s.v. "Kansas."

KANSAS

Kansas City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Overland Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Topeka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Wichita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

The State in Brief

Nickname: Sunflower State

Motto: Ad astra per aspera (To the stars through difficulties)

Flower: Native sunflower

Bird: Western meadowlark

Area: 82,276 square miles (2000; U.S. rank: 15th)

Elevation: Ranges from 680 feet to 4,039 feet above sea level

Climate: Temperate, but with seasonal extremes of temperature as well as blizzards, tornadoes, and severe thunderstorms; semi-arid in the west

Admitted to Union: January 29, 1861

Capital: Topeka

Head Official: Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D) (until 2007)

Population

1980: 2,364,000

1990: 2,495,000

2000: 2,688,824

2004 estimate: 2,735,502

Percent change, 1990–2000: 8.5%

U.S. rank in 2004: 33rd

Percent of residents born in state: 59.5% (2000)

Density: 32.9 people per square mile (2000)

2002 FBI Crime Index Total: 110,997

Racial and Ethnic Characteristics (2000)

White: 2,313,944

Black or African American: 154,198

American Indian and Alaska Native: 24,936

Asian: 46,806

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander: 1,313

Hispanic or Latino (may be of any race): 188,252

Other: 90,725

Age Characteristics (2000)

Population under 5 years old: 188,708

Population 5 to 19 years old: 609,710

Percent of population 65 years and over: 13.3%

Median age: 35.2 years (2000)

Vital Statistics

Total number of births (2003): 40,609

Total number of deaths (2003): 24,840 (infant deaths, 261)

AIDS cases reported through 2003: 1,123

Economy

Major industries: Agriculture, oil production, mining, manufacturing

Unemployment rate: 5.4% (March 2005)

Per capita income: $29,545 (2003; U.S. rank: 27th)

Median household income: $43,622 (3-year average, 2001-2003)

Percentage of persons below poverty level: 10.3% (3-year average, 2001-2003)

Income tax rate: Ranges from 3.5% to 6.45%

Sales tax rate: 5.3%

Kansas, USA A state and a river named after a Native American tribe, the Kansa, who lived along the Kansas River. This is a Sioux word meaning ‘People of the South Wind’. The French claimed the region in 1682, but sold it to the USA in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. It became the Territory of Kansas in 1854 and joined the USA as the 34th state in 1861.

Kansas

Rock group

For the Record…

Hoodwinked Label

Turning Point in 1976

Stardom, Predictably Followed by Implosion

Selected discography

Sources

In the 1970s, Kansas emerged as one of the most successful rock acts in America with their fusion of hard-hitting Midwestern power guitars into ornate, violin-and-organ fueled arrangements that borrowed heavily from British progressive rock. In 1977 alone, two of their albums achieved platinum status, and their best-known track,“Carry on Wayward Son,” was the most frequently played song on classic rock radio station play lists in 1997, 20 years after its debut. In 1978, British music writer Ian Birch described Kansas’ signature sound in Melody Maker as full of “monolithic chord structures meshed with complex textures, dramatic harmonies, lengthy improvisations, spiritually swashbuckling lyrics and hard-core instrumental prowess. It will either turn your stomach or hook you from the first note.”

Most of the original members of Kansas, all of whom were born between 1949 and 1951, knew one another from high school in Topeka. They had been playing in a series of bands since the late 1960s, but failed to achieve any real success on the Plains biker-bar circuit in their respective outfits. Kansas itself was formed from the remnants of two other bands led by Kerry Livgren and Phil Ehart. Livgren would become the main songwriter and was also responsible for the

For the Record…

Members include Phil Ehart (born in 1951 in Kansas), drums; Dave Hope (born on October 7, 1949, in Kansas), bass; Kerry Livgren (born on September 18, 1949, in Topeka, KS), guitars, keyboards; Robby Steinhardt (born in 1951 in Michigan), violin, vocals; Steve Walsh (born in 1951 in St. Joseph, MO), keyboards, vocals; Rich Williams (born in 1951 in Kansas), guitar.

Band formed as Kansas in Topeka, KS, 1970; changed name to White Clover, 1971; reformed as Kansas, 1972; signed with Kirshner Records and released self-titled debut, 1974; disbanded in 1983; regrouped, 1986.

Addresses: Record company —Epic Records, 550 Madison Ave., 22nd Fl, New York, NY 10022. Website-The Art of the State—The Kerry Livgren Website: http://www.progrock.org.

band’s intricate guitar sound. Ehart, a drummer, recruited bassist Dave Hope, whom he knew from his days at West Topeka High, and the trio named themselves Kansas in 1970. Their sound drew heavily from Frank Zappa, who was then at the forefront of the American avant-garde rock scene, but it failed to catch on with local audiences. For a time, they played under a different name, White Clover, but had trouble retaining the rest of their lineup. In 1972, a frustrated Ehart moved to England for a few months and tried to break into the music business there. He was only offered country-and-western gigs, and so returned, dismayed, to Topeka. He reunited White Clover, and they soon decided to revert to their original name.

Hoodwinked Label

Other founding members of Kansas were guitarist Rich Williams, keyboard player Steve Walsh—who would write much of its future material with Livgren—and a violinist, Robby Steinhardt, whose father chaired the music department at the University of Kansas. Steinhardt had already spent time playing with orchestras in Europe, but was eager to experiment with his instrument in a rock band. The musicians knew, however, that their unique sound would not likely attract attention from hit-seeking record company executives, so they recorded a demo tape to send out that contained five standard rock songs. At the time, the band was broke and members were living on a dollar a day. “It was very lonely,” Ehart recalled in an interview with Jon Pareles of Rolling Stone a few years later. “We were going to play this style of music and not compromise, even if we had to f***ing starve. We believed in Kansas more than anything—it was our life, our religion, our food. That was it, there was nothing else, zero.”

The demo tape attracted the attention of Don Kirshner, host of a late-night live-music program that aired on NBC called Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. When the phone call came from New York, “It was like, ‘We’ve been saved,’” Ehart recalled in the interview with Pareles. “‘Somebody just threw us a rope.’”

Kirshner sent his assistant, Wally Gold, out to see the band, and to make a good impression, the band rented out Topeka’s old opera house. They advertised a free concert with free beer, and the turnout was appropriately enthusiastic enough to impress Gold. He signed the band to Kirshner’s label and became the producer of its first record, though his sole other credit as a producer had been for a Barbra Streisand album.

Kansas was released in 1974, and sold a modest 100,000 copies. Like all of the band’s subsequent records, it featured lyrics that ventured into the metaphysical, while a heavy guitar sound and complex chord structures placed them firmly in the Jethro Tull/Emerson, Lake and Palmer camp. They began to win fans while working as the opening act for Queen, Bad Company, Foghat, and other mainstream rock bands. Walsh said at the time he was always assured of Kansas’ potential as rock stars in their own right. “That’s not ego, that’s reality. If I wasn’t completely convinced, this business would be much too big a hassle to mess around in,” he told Patrick Snyder in Rolling Stone.

Turning Point in 1976

Kansas released two LPs for Kirshner in 1975, Song for America and Masque, and continued to tour heavily. A distribution deal with CBS Records helped both sell around 250, 000, but it took several tries for their unique sound to emerge on vinyl, for the band members were seasoned professionals on stage but had little experience in the studio. Moreover, the records were usually made during brief breaks between lengthy tours. Finally, they decided to let their sound engineer, Jeff Glixman, serve as producer for Leftoverture, their 1976 release, and the combination of talents finally clicked. Buoyed by the success of its first single, “Carry on Wayward Son,” Leftoverture quickly became their biggest success, reaching number five on the Billboard album charts and achieving platinum status in March of 1977.

Rock critics, however, hated Kansas, and wrote disparagingly of them. “Their music hybridizes cornfed American shuffle riffs with the odd time signatures and quick changes of British progressive rock,” explained Páreles in Rolling Stone, who described them as “a perfect target—too fancy for barroom rockers, too simple for die-hard progressives, too pretentious for most adults and too derivative for the critics.” The British music press was even less kind. “The obvious broadside to fire at Kansas is that of pretension,” wrote Birch in Melody Maker. “The arrangements, and lyrics especially, are knee-deep in layers of… chintzy grandeur. There are key words and themes like eyes, old men, blind men, childhood, the natural elements, endless questioning and a kind of patriotic zeal for the motherland.”

At best, Kansas was faulted for a certain absence of soul in its music. “The band plays a brand of baroque rock in the tradition of King Crimson, Yes and ELO, filled with monumental chord structures overlaid with glittering textures,” wrote Snyder in Rolling Stone. “The moving force here is precision—not emotion.” At worst, Kansas’s music was described as a passing pubescent phase. In the 1979 Rolling Stone article, Pareles quoted a top-secret survey of the band’s fans that found its music “appeals to the twelve-to-fifteen-year-old teenager who finds himself or herself asking questions of universal import as part of his psychological development.” The survey explained that a “Kansas” stage was the natural progression after a teenager’s “Kiss” stage.

Stardom, Predictably Followed by Implosion

The band left Topeka for good when they relocated to Atlanta around 1977. But internal pressures, exacerbated by the slaughter in the press, took their toll. “Even today, we still don’t quite fit in,” Ehart said in the interview with Pareles. “People are behind us and really with us and everything, but some still can’t figure out this group. It’s still, ‘What’s the deal? They’re American, but they don’t play like Americans and don’t act European either.’ Nobody knows why it sounds that way.” Walsh almost quit during the making of Point of Know Return, but the record fared even better than Leftoverture and firmly established the band in the annals of Seventies rock. It reached number four, and two singles, “Point of Know Return” and “Dust in the Wind” did extremely well. The latter, a morbid acoustic number, became one of the most popular youth-culture anthems of the era, perennially voted to serve as the graduation song for high school seniors and even serving as a requiem at funerals for tragic teen fatalities.

In 1978, Kansas released a live LP, Two for the Show, and continued to tour heavily. Live, their sound was impressive, as even Pareles conceded. He described it as “a hurtling steeplechase of grandiose riffs and high-powered choruses leaping past sudden breaks and rapid-fire interpolations.… The set is virtually relentless.” The band’s seventh record, Monolith, was the first one that they produced themselves, but its singles were not as memorable as the previous records’ releases. Walsh made a solo album, Schemer-Dreamer, that came out at the end of that year, and Livgren followed with Seeds of Change in 1980. Walsh left the band in 1981, dissatisfied with the direction it had taken with its 1980 LP, Audio Visions. Like Monolith, Audio Visions went gold, but no hit singles emerged from it. John Elefante replaced Walsh on vocals and keyboards, and Kansas recorded Vinyl Confessions in 1982. One of its tracks, “Play the Game Tonight,” reached the top twenty, but after dismal sales for 1983’s Drastic Measures, the group officially disbanded.

Meanwhile, both Livgren and Hope had become born-again Christians with a band called AD, which, like Walsh’s solo ensemble Streets, failed to lure fans. Ehart, Williams and Walsh reformed Kansas for its third incarnation in 1986, adding Steve Morse, a jazz-fusion guitarist. They recorded Power that same year, which yielded the group’s last top twenty single, “All I Wanted.” A 1988 release, In the Spirit of Things, sank, and seven years separated that record with Freaks of Nature. Livgren, still nominally a Kansas member, appeared on Somewhere to Elsewhere, a 2000 effort for their new Epic/Legacy label home. Greatest-hits compilations on CD have done surprisingly well. Fortune writer Jeff Gordinier reviewed The Best of Kansas in 1999, and noted that while some of the tracks seem “pretty silly—especially those Byzantine violin solos— it’s shocking how many of the songs have aged well.”

Selected discography

Kansas, Kirshner Records, 1974.

Song for America, Kirshner Records, 1975.

Masque, Kirshner Records, 1975.

Leftoverture, Kirshner Records, 1976.

Point of Know Return, Kirshner Records, 1977.

Two for the Show (live), Kirshner Records, 1978.

Monolith, Kirshner Records, 1979.

Audio Visions, Kirshner Records, 1980.

Vinyl Confessions, Kirshner Records, 1982.

Drastic Measures, CBS Associated, 1983.

The Best of Kansas, CBS Associated, 1984.

Poller, CBS Associated, 1986.

In the Spirit of Things, CBS Associated, 1988.

Live at the Whiskey, CBS Associated, 1992.

Freaks of Nature, CBS Associated, 1995.

The Best of Kansas, Epic/Legacy, 1999.

Somewhere to Elsewhere, Epic/Legacy, 2000.

Sources

Amusement Business, January 28, 1989, p. 5.

Fortune, May 24, 1999, p. 72.

Melody Maker, February 25, 1978.

Rolling Stone, March 10, 1977, p. 26; August 23, 1979, p. 9.

—Carol Brennan

Kansas •Malthus •acanthus, agapanthus, clianthus, dianthus, helianthus, polyanthus •Hyacinthus • Aegisthus • traverse •canvas, canvass •Selvas • grievous • mischievous •redivivus • fulvous • nervous •Peleus, rebellious •Kansas • Jesus