This Day in Kansas History - July

These entries are taken from The Annals of Kansas, 1541-1885 by D.W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas, 1886-1925 edited by Kirke Mechem, and contributed by staff members of the Kansas State Historical Society (these entries are marked with an *). Other sources used will be noted. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of events in Kansas history.

July

1 - [1844] - J.M. Armstrong opens the first free school in the Territory, in the present Wyandotte. [1870] - Salina ships beef to New York, in refrigerator cars.

2 - [1961] - The Topeka Reds, a Three-I League baseball team, beat the Cedar Rapids Braves in a double-header at Community Park.*

3 - [1925] - A three-day raid in northwest Kansas by federal and local prohibition officers resulted in 35 arrests and confiscation of six automobiles, 16 stills and 7,000 gallons of mash.

4 - [1876] - Mr. Eugene Ware discourses at Fort Scott:

"He who has lived in Kansas, though he roam,
Can find no other spot and call it Home;
As Ingalls says, a Kansas man may stray--
May leave--perchance depart or go away--
In short may roam--but, be it anywhere,
He must return, if he can raise the fare
On July Fourth, we always float the flag
And push the old bald eagle from the crag,
Fly him the length and breadth of this fair land,
From the Penobscot to the Rio Grande;
Then without rest we quickly start him on
A trip from Florida to Oregon;
Then bring him back, and boost him to the sky,
And let him stay there till the next July.
Oh, grand old bird! o'er many a weary mile
They've made you sail in oratoric style,
While fledgling speakers, in refulgent prose,
Capped many a gorgeous climax as you rose.
To-day, our choicest colors are unfurled:
Soar up, proud bird, and circle round the world,
And we predict that nowhere will you find
A place like Kansas, that you left behind."

The day is universally celebrated in Kansas, and usually a county history is prepared. Seventy-five newspapers in the State publish local histories.

Jack Downing says that on the Fourth, the proprietor of the Manning House, at Ellis, "treated his customers to a Centennial dinner, consisting of thirteen flags, thirty-eight regiments of flies, some red, white and blue coffee, and a chicken just one hundred years old."

5 - [1965] - The Kansas Supreme Court building cornerstone was dedicated while the new court was under construction.*

6 - [1900] - The Belgian hare craze struck Kansas. Already 20 persons owned over 1,000 hares valued at $15,000.

7 - [1915] - Rocks which marked the southeast corner of Kansas were replaced by markers. Originally the rocks marked the dividing line between Osages and Cherokees at the time of the Missouri Compromise, and later the intersection of the Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri boundaries.

8 - [1858] - The Fort Scott Democrat says that Sheriff Roberts has recovered nearly all the horses stolen by the Rev. John E. Stewart. This Stewart sometimes took the name of Captain "Plum," and sometimes of Captain Montgomery, and looked upon all horses as Pro-Slavery.

9 - [1867] - First meeting of the commissioners of Ellsworth county. The county is named after Fort Ellsworth; General Samuel R. Curtis, in 1864, named the Fort for Lieutenant Allen Ellsworth, of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry, who was then stationed there.

10 - [1918] - Three persons were shot and wounded by 13 bandits who held up an M.K. & T. train near Paola.

11 - [1866] - Senator James Lane died on Wednesday, July 11th, at 11:55 a.m., following a suicide attempt on July 1. James Henry Lane was the son of Amos Lane, and was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, June 22, 1814. In 1846, he became Colonel of a regiment raised to engage in the Mexican war; in 1847, he become Colonel of another Indiana regiment; in 1849, he was elected Lieutenant Governor; in 1852, he was a Democratic Presidential Elector, and was elected to Congress; in April, 1855, he came to Kansas. In this State, in politics, he was the King.

12 - [1912] - Harvest hands at Hutchinson were offered "high wages, short hours, five meals a day, joy rides, chicken three times a day and pretty girls." A Meade county man who offered "no milkin' or chores" lost to a Pawnee county farmer with the "best looking girls in Kansas." Pay ranged from $2.50 to $4 a day; threshers charged 11 and 12 cents a bushel.

Robert W. Hazlett, nationally-known Hereford breeder of Butler county, let a contract for cutting and baling 4, 000 acres of prairie hay from his pastures. The hay would be stored in barns built for the purpose. Twenty-five men were employed for the job. An estimated 2,000 tons would be cut from the acreage.

13 - [1922] - Federal road aid amounting to $600,000 was granted to 12 counties by the State Highway Commission.

14 - [1870] - Jewell county organized, with Jewell City as the county seat. It is named for Lt. Col. Lewis R. Jewell, of the Sixth Kansas.

15 - [1867] - The Eighteenth Kansas mustered into the United States service. The report of Adjutant General McAfee says:

"During the month of July a battalion of four companies was organized by authority from Lieutenant General Sherman, to protect the western settlements; to guard the employees of the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, and the travel on the great highways leading to the west and southwest. The Battalion consisted of 358 offices and enlisted men.

16 - [1934] - Drought brings a total of 26, 000 head of cattle to Kansas City stock yards. [Ives, Footprints on the Sands of Time]

17 - [1905] - Wichita set automobile speed limits at eight to 14 miles an hour.

18 - [1925] - The oldest person discovered by the current census-takers was Nah-Ne-Muck-Skuk, an Indian on the Pottawatomie reservation at Mayetta. She was listed as 110 years old.

19 - [1936] - Four naval vessels and 1,500 weary men who sought to find Amelia Earhart and her navigator for sixteen days, gave them up for dead and sailed for home. [Ives, Footprints on the Sands of Time]

20 - [1866] - After several attacks, W.F. Cloud, Major General of the Militia, calls for a cavalry regiment to protect the frontier against Indians.

21 - [1855] - Message from Gov. Reeder, in which he says: "It seems, then, to be plain that the Legislature are now in session, so far as the place is concerned, in contravention of the act of Congress, and where they have no right to sit, and can make no valid legislation. Entertaining these views are not satisfactory to the Legislative Assembly, it follows that we must act independently of each other."

A resolution was passed by the Council asking the President to remove Gov. Reeder. On the 23d the House concurred in the resolution.

22 - [1868] -Dr. Wm. H. Saunders sends the Lawrence Republican the following analysis of our upland prairie soil:

• Organic matter - 11.00
• Alumina - 8.66
• Potassa - 1.15
• Lime - 3.23
• Chlorine - 0.00
• Phosphoric acid - 2.08
• Silica - 69.83
• Sesquioxide of iron - 2.05
• Soda - a trace
• Magnesia - 2.00
• Sulphuric acid - a trace

"The lower or bottom prairie contains more organic matter. We have a soil rich in all the chemical elements necessary for a vigorous growth of vegetation.

23 - [1936] - Gov. Alf M. Landon formally accepted the Republican nomination for President of the United States at Topeka and pledges an end to fumbling with recovery and if elected to install in Washington a government conservative in all matters financial, but liberal as to the "unsolved social problems." Parade two hours long before a record crowd honors Gov. Alf M. Landon at Topeka. [Ives, Footprints on the Sands of Time]

24 - [1867] - Cholera at Ellsworth. Fifteen Kansas soldiers have died at Fort Larned, of cholera. The Eighteenth Battalion is at Larned.

25 - [1883] - Publication of the History of Kansas, by A.T. Andreas, Chicago; pp. 1616; price $12. F.G. Adams writes to D.W. Wilder that the main work on the book, during the past ten months, has been done by Wm. G. Cutler, Mrs. Cutler, S.S. Prouty, and J.C. Hebbard; that Mr. Andreas has expended over $90,000. The edition is said to be 15,000 copies. It is floated by its biographies and portraits; some of these are of insignificant persons, and the book soon comes to be called the "Herd Book," and the "Stud Book." The completeness of the work is amazing. Without a full index, the true value of the History will be known only by the few who really read it.

26 - [1865] - Escort train of Company H, Eleventh Kansas, burned at Red Buttes by Indians, and several soldiers killed.

27 - [1908] - Dr. S.J. Crumbine of the State Board of Health was appointed inspector of the U.S. Food and Drug Department.

28 - [1853] - In 1855, a correspondent of the Chicago Press made the statement that a convention was held at Wyandotte July 28, 1853, a Territorial government organized, and a Delegate to Congress nominated. Abelard Guthrie was put forward by the friends of Thomas H. Benton, and Rev. Thomas Johnson by the friends of D.R. Atchison. Guthrie received the nomination. Late in the fall, Thomas Johnson was brought out as a candidate, and was elected by Indian votes. He went to Washington, but the Territory was not organized, and he was not received as a Delegate. The Washington Union spoke of him as "the Rev. Thomas Johnson, a noble specimen of a Western man."

29 - [1859] - Wyandotte Constitution adopted.

30 - [1875] - Destructive fire at Parsons; ten buildings destroyed.

31 - [1852] - T.T. Fauntleroy, Colonel of First Dragoons, while in Washington, writes a letter to Major General T.S. Jessup, Quartermaster General, U.S.A. He says: "Some time since," as commanding officer "at Fort Leavenworth, I.T.," he refused to recommend an expenditure for repairs, etc., there, because he "did not consider that post as best suited for the military operations in that quarter." He urges the establishment of a military post "at or near a point on the Kansas river where the Republican fork unites with it"--now Fort Riley. He urges "the discontinuance of the Leavenworth, Scott, Atkinson, Kearny and Laramie posts," and the concentration of troops at he post proposed. A military camp, called Camp Center, was made at this place in the fall.