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| Interactive map: The Land | ||
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Interactive
map: Early Growth |
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| 1858 plat map | ||
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| 1869 bird's eye map | ||
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| 1871 railroad map | ||
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| 1880 bird's eye map | ||
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When the territorial borders opened in 1854, the non-Native American population in Kansas consisted of only a few traders, missionaries and Indian agents. There were no towns, no settlements. Abolitionist societies immediately began populating the area, establishing settlements and importing residents along the Kansas River to support the Free-soil agenda. Pro-slavery groups moved with equal dispatch. Along the Missouri River, approximately twenty towns developed in support of their cause. Atchison was among them and to many, the town appeared as “. . . the gateway through which a powerful champion of the Pro-slavery classes expected to advance his forces and finally take possession of the State of Kansas in the name of his institution,” according to Kansas historian William Cutler.3
David Atchison, acting vice-president of the United States and senator from Missouri, was the powerful champion to whom William Cutler referred. Atchison was vehemently pro-slavery, and control of Kansas was a necessity for his agenda. On the Fourth of July, 1854, he founded and dedicated the town named for him. But where Atchison sought political and ideological opportunity, five of the new town's residents emphasized economic opportunity. About two weeks later, these men left Atchison's original site and resituated the town at its current location where they envisioned their settlement as a gateway to tap western trade along the Missouri River. In Atchison, for three
years after its founding, “The currents of feeling and the
strange actions of men, which stirred the whole county during the
pioneer days, eddied and centered around the town. . .”
Pro-slavery principles governed politics and
development until 1857 when “. . . local leaders of the Pro-slavery
party saw how the scales of public sentiment tipped in the outer
world, and concluded to forget politics, invite the immigration
of all respectable classes, and to unite business energy with business
energy, for the good of the community with an evident and eminent
future before it.” 4
Pragmatism ousted a failing ideology. According to Cutler's account of the early battles between pro-slavery and Free-soil forces to control Atchison, “...the brains of the Pro-slavery party [gave] up the fight, and the fortunate possessors thereof fraternized with any one who would come in to help build up the town, now striving against other new and flourishing places around it. And this spirit has been remarkably preserved up to the present day [1883]—the policy of forgetting political differences when the material prosperity of the city is at stake.” 5 The competitive entrepreneurialism of the town's founders directed its subsequent economic and cultural growth. |
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[1] Asher & Adams' Kansas Content Date: 1873 Copyright Date: 1873. Corporate Publisher: Asher & Adams Size: 40 x 57 cm Call Number: 1873-0001. <http://specialcollections.wichita.edu/collections/maps/18701879.asp?offset=20>. (Link current April 6, 2003) [2] John W. Reps, The Forgotten Frontier: Urban Planning in the American West Before 1890. (Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press, 1981), 66. [3] In 1883 Chicago, A. T. Andreas' Western Publishing Company assembled the History of the State of Kansas. This immense volume was compiled during 1882 by William Cutler and devotes an individual chapter to each county in the state. William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas was first published in 1883 by A. T. Andreas, Chicago, Illinois. References to Cutler's History in this report are taken from the electronic version at <http://www.ku.edu/carrie/kancoll/books/cutler/>. (Link current April 6, 2003) [4] Cutler, “First Settlers ”, Atchison County, Part 2. (Link current April 6, 2003) [5] Cutler, “The Border Ruffian Warfare,”Atchison County, Part 3. (Link current April 6, 2003 |
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