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The History of Topeka, Kansas

As with many of the cities located outside of the Eastern part of the United States, Topeka’s history starts with the Oregon Trail. Making their way west from Independence, Missouri in the 1840s, three half Kansas Indian sisters planted their feet about 60 miles west of Kansas City, Missouri. With their French-Canadian husbands, the sisters started a ferry service across the Kansas River. For almost ten years, the ferry and moonshine were all that could be found in the area.

A new military road from Fort Leavenworth to the newly established Fort Riley supplemented trade and traffic through the small area. In December of 1854, a group of men traveling from Lawrence founded a town on the spot and named it “a good place to grow or find potatoes” or, Topeka. One of the men, Cyrus K. Holliday, would later become Topeka’s mayor, as well as the founder of Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe Railroad.

Topeka and the Oregon Trail

As a crossroads, Topeka became invaluable for the Oregon Trail wagon trains and people began to flock to the little town. Steamboats docked at the Topeka landing to drop off meat, lumber and flour, and pick up potatoes, corn and wheat. By the following spring, hasty buildings cropped up around the town, along with the first two-story masonry building. In 1857, Topeka became an incorporated city and later, that building became the meeting place of the free-state legislature.

As the town was taking its first baby steps, the Lecompton Constitution was being drafted. Opponents of slavery were not allowed to vote against its ratification, and massive vote fraud had pro-South Presidents trying to admit Kansas as a slave state. The two factions erupted into violence and war.

Topeka and the Kansas Territory

For almost a decade, the Kansas Territory was in a state of conflict. An abolitionist was shot by a pro-slavery settler, starting the Wakarusa War, which was followed by the Sacking of Lawrence. Southerner Preston Brooks publicly caned Republican Charles Sumner during a meeting of the Senate for criticizing Brooks’ sympathy of the pro-slavery violence in Kansas. In retaliation of the Lawrence sacking, abolitionists killed five pro-slavery settlers in the Pottawatomie Massacre. A few days later, they attacked a pro-slavery encampment in the Battle of Black Jack. The Battle of Osawatomie and the Marais des Cygnes massacre quickly followed. Abolitionists and slavery-state forces fought so strenuously that the New York Tribune coined the term “Bleeding Kansas”, which was later considered the prelude to the Civil War.

In 1859, a new anti-slavery constitution was drafted and approved in a 2-to-1 margin. As far as the people of Kansas were concerned, the matter was settled. The Kansas Territory became the free state of Kansas in 1861, the 34th state in the Union, with Topeka as its capital.

Topeka, Kansas History

Dr. Charles Robinson became the first governor, and Cyrus Holliday donated a tract of land in 1862 so a state capitol could be constructed. Started in 1866, it would take 37 years to build.

Meanwhile, C. K. Holliday was also busy organizing the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, one of the largest in the U.S. Although a drought hit in 1860 and the Civil War started in 1861, Topeka slowly blossomed. Now Washburn University, the Lincoln College was established in 1865. In 1866, the Union Pacific Railroad began operating. By 1869, the railway was moving from Topeka, headed west. In 1878, offices, machine shops and the Sante Fe Railroad system were established, and 1887 brought the Rock Island Railroad.

While railroads, buildings and houses were cropping up, there was vast speculation on town lots. Topeka was passing through a booming period, which almost ended in disaster in the late 1880s. Topeka in 1889 saw the speculation bubble burst, ruining many investors. Due to the railroads and the fact that Topeka had become a major thoroughfare, however, the city’s population had doubled. The booming town of Topeka managed to weather the depressions of the 1890s on the strength of its numbers.

Topeka and Slavery

Although the anti-slavery issue was pretty much settled in the mind of many of Topeka’s inhabitants by the 1870s, segregation was not. The plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education, Linda Brown, was a resident of Topeka. Only the elementary schools were segregated in Topeka at the time the suit was filed, but the landmark decision required racial integration in all American public schools.

Racial discrimination continued to be a struggle even after the Brown decision in Topeka, Kansas. New lawsuits cropped up, trying to force private schools to become integrated. The Task Force to Overcome Racism in Topeka was formed in the late 1980s to address the problems.

In 1966, an F5 tornado destroyed much of the city. Although the total loss was estimated at $100 million, Topeka recovered. A new airport and convention center was built. Topeka's West Ridge Mall opened in 1988. Then 1989 brought the opening of Heartland Park Topeka, making the city a motor sports mecca. The Topeka Performing Arts Center opened, as well as Riser’s Fine Foods, and Santa Fe and Hill’s Pet Nutrition expanded. The somewhat previously unstable city has sustained steady economic growth ever since.

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