July 1

1844 — J. M. Armstrong opened the first free school in the Territory, in the present Wyandotte County.

1862 - The Pacific Railway Act was passed. It provided Federal subsidies in land and loans for the construction of a transcontinental railroad across the United States. 

 

July 2

1855 - Governor Andrew Reeder and the territorial legislature met at the town of Pawnee adjacent to  Fort Riley, the first Territorial Capital of Kansas. This legislature is known as the "bogus legislature" and the laws passed by this legislature are known as "bogus laws". They only met for four days. "After overruling a veto by the governor, both houses of the territorial legislature voted to adjourn in Pawnee and meet July 16 at Shawnee Mission."

1862 - The Morrill Act is passed. This act "made it possible for states to establish public colleges funded by the development or sale of associated federal land grants. Over 10 million acres provided by these grants were expropriated from tribal lands of Native communities. The new land-grant institutions, which emphasized agriculture and mechanic arts, opened opportunities to thousands of farmers and working people previously excluded from higher education."

July 3

1874 - Two buffalo hunters came into Pierceville, Kansas to warn its residents about a band of Cheyenne Indians who had been defeated in a fight at Adobe Walls, Texas.  These Indians were still on the warpath and were heading north. This band of Cheyenne Indians sought to raid settlements along the Santa Fe Railroad.  

 

July 4

1804 – At present-day Atchison, Lewis and Clark celebrated the first Independence Day in Kansas by firing a swivel gun. Later they named Independence Creek and closed the day with another cannon blast.

1856 – Under direct orders from President Franklin Pierce, Edwin Vose Sumner leads 200 infantrymen into Topeka, Kansas, unlimbers his artillery, and informs the Free-Staters they may not hold a convention.

1884 – The first Spanish Bull Fight in the United States is held at Dodge City.

 

July 5

1859 – Women’s rights included in discussions of the Wyandotte Constitution. This was the first of several steps that would eventually give women full voting rights and the right to own property. (Moneka Woman’s Rights Association preamble – Women’s rights included in discussions of Wyandotte Constitution.)

 

 

July 6

 

 

July 7

 

 

July 8

 

 

July 9

 

 

July 10

 

 

July 11

 

 

July 12

 

 

July 13

 

 

July 14

 

 

July 15

1805 — Lieut. Zebulon M. Pike leaves Belle Fontaine, four miles above the mouth of the Missouri River, with twenty-two white men and fifty-one Indians. They went up the Missouri and Osage rivers, and thence to the mouth of the Saline. On the 15th of November, he first saw the mountain now called Pike's Peak. The account of his expedition was published in 1810. He labels Kansas “the Great American Desert” on his maps.

 

 

July 16

1855 – The capital, after pro-slavery delegates to the Territorial Legislature voted to depart the first Territorial Capitol of Kansas at Pawnee, was moved to the Shawnee Methodist Mission in present-day Fairway, Kansas. It served as the territorial capital until August 8, when the seat of government became Lecompton.

 

July 17

1863 - The First Regiment Kansas Colored Infantry distinguished itself as a fighting unit at Honey Springs, Indian Territory. 

 

July 18

 

 

July 19

 

 

July 20

 

 

July 21

1836 — The office of the St. Louis Observer, an Anti-Slavery paper, edited by Elijah P. Lovejoy, broken into in the night. The presses were overthrown, and the type scattered into the street. Mr. Lovejoy moved to Alton, Illinois, where he was killed, on November 8, 1837. The press moved from St. Louis had been destroyed at Alton, and Lovejoy was murdered while defending another press, lately brought to Alton. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois, was his brother. 

 

July 22

 

 

July 23

 

 

July 24

 

 

July 25

1868 — Treaty of peace with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. (Medicine Lodge Treaty) 

 

July 26

 

 

July 27

 

 

July 28

1853 - The Wyandotte Indians met in the council house in Wyandotte, organized Kansas-Nebraska into a Provisional Territory, and elected a delegate to the Thirty-third Congress. This act was not recognized, nor was the delegate admitted to Congress, but their action precipitated the long debate that resulted in the passage of the Douglas Bill, signed by President Franklin Pierce on May 30, 1854. By this bill, the Missouri Compromise was repealed and the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska were organized with the right to determine the question of slavery for themselves.

1853 — In 1855, a correspondent of the Chicago Press made the statement that a convention was held at Wyandotte on July 28, 1853, a Territorial government was organized, and a Delegate to Congress was 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." In the New York Tribune of August 9, 1856, Mr. Guthrie gives his account of this "provisional government."

1854 – The first members of the New England Emigrant Aid Society arrive in Kansas to help her become a “Free-State.”

1864 – The Seventeenth Kansas regiment is the last to be raised during the Civil War. 

 

July 29

1855 - Governor Reeder refused to recognize the acts of the "Bogus Legislature", contending that the Shawnee mission was not the authorized seat of government. The body answered with an appeal to President Pierce, who responded by removing Reeder from office on July 29. With Daniel Woodson as Acting Governor, the legislature proceeded to adopt the Missouri statutes virtually in toto, merely instructing the clerk to strike out "Missouri" and insert the name of the Territory. 

 

July 30

 

 

July 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 of the post" 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 the post proposed. A military camp, called Camp Center, was made at this place in the fall.