Editing Eudora, Kansas (section)

== History ==
The Eudora area was home to various [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] tribes for thousands of years. The [[Kaw (tribe)|Kansa]] tribe lived in the Eudora area from the 1600s to the early 1800s. The Kansa lived along the rivers of this region in villages and practiced agriculture. A Kansa village was located at the site of modern day Eudora in the 1790s. In the 1820s the Kansa were forcibly removed from the region by the U.S. government to make room for the [[Shawnee]] tribe. The [[Oregon Trail]] and [[Santa Fe Trail]] passed through the region, just a few miles south of modern Eudora.

In 1854 the [[Kansas–Nebraska Act]] was passed, creating the [[Kansas Territory]] and opening the region to settlement by Americans. As a result of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Americans settlers started to encroach upon Indian lands. In 1856, three members of a [[Germans|German]] Immigrant Settlement Company (called Deutsche-Neusiedlungsverein) from [[Chicago]], sent out a location committee to choose a town site in the new Kansas Territory. Favoring the Eudora area, they drew up contracts with Shawnee Chief Paschal Fish, the original owner of the town site.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iT8yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pOUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6845%2C5701303 |title=Only few of 45 county settlements left |work=Lawrence Journal-World |date=Jun 12, 1961 |access-date=1 November 2015 |author=Cleland, Nora |pages=13A}}</ref> The new town was named Eudora in honor of Chief Fish's daughter.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ |title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States |publisher=Govt. Print. Off. |author=Gannett, Henry |year=1905 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n121 122]}}</ref><ref name="Higgins">{{cite web|last=Higgins|first=Cindy|title=Town Growth 1860-1880|url=http://eudorakshistory.com/by-decade/1860/1860-to-1880.htm|work=The History of Eudora, Kansas|access-date=2011-06-15}}</ref> The first post office in Eudora was established in September, 1857.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kshs.org/geog/geog_postoffices/search/page:1/county:DG/sort:County.county_name/direction:asc |title=Kansas Post Offices, 1828-1961 (archived) |publisher=Kansas Historical Society |access-date=8 June 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130310055433/http://www.kshs.org/geog/geog_postoffices/search/page%3A1/county%3ADG/sort%3ACounty.county_name/direction%3Aasc |archive-date=March 10, 2013 }}</ref> Eudora was incorporated in 1859.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_o8X5krq3fP8C |title=Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, Etc. |publisher=Standard Publishing Company |author=Blackmar, Frank Wilson |year=1912 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_o8X5krq3fP8C/page/n594 598]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=History of the State of Kansas: Containing a Full Account of Its Growth from an Uninhabited Territory to a Wealthy and Important State|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofstateof00andr|year=1883|publisher=A. T. Andreas|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofstateof00andr/page/353 353]}}</ref>

Eudora was the site of conflict during the [[Bleeding Kansas]] Era and the [[American Civil War]]. Eudora strongly supported the Union during the Civil War, many of its men enlisted to defeat the Confederacy. [[William Quantrill]] passed through the Eudora area in 1863 on his way to [[Lawrence, Kansas|Lawrence]] to commit his infamous and deadly raid on the unsuspecting town. Several Eudora residents attempted to warn Lawrence of Quantrill's proximity, but two men were thrown from their horses, one of them dying as a result of his injuries. After the raid, Eudorans were quick to aid the citizens of Lawrence as they started their recovery.<ref name="Higgins" />

After the Civil War, relative stability finally arrived in the region. Eudora grew rapidly in the late 19th century. In the 1860s, a small Jewish community was based in Eudora. In the late 1800s, a sizeable African American community was based in Eudora; as much as 25% of the Eudora community was Black in 1870. Growth in Eudora leveled in the early 20th century. In  recent decades, Eudora has again grown tremendously, as a result of its proximity to Lawrence and [[Kansas City, Kansas|Kansas City]] and its location along [[K-10 (Kansas highway)|Kansas Highway 10]].