Editing Lenexa, Kansas (section)

==History==
{{More citations needed section|date=September 2013}}
{{See also|History of Kansas}}
Twelve years before the town of Lenexa was platted, James Butler Hickok [[Homestead Acts|staked a claim]] on {{convert|160|acre|ha}} at what is now the corner of 83rd St and Clare Road.<ref name="lexhist">{{cite web|url=http://www.ci.lenexa.ks.us/police/history.html |title=The Lenexa Police Department History |access-date=2009-06-24 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090624023800/http://www.ci.lenexa.ks.us/police/history.html |archive-date=2009-06-24 }}.</ref> Filed in 1857, the claim was not far from the Kansas River, and was {{convert|20|mi}} southwest of [[Westport, Kansas City, Missouri|Westport, Missouri]], and the start of the [[Santa Fe Trail]]. The trail meandered through this area on its way to [[Santa Fe, New Mexico]].

On March 22, 1858, Hickok was elected one of the first four constables of nearby Monticello Township. Later, Hickok became a [[Reconnaissance|scout]] for the [[Free-Stater (Kansas)|Free-State]] Army, a [[marksman|sharpshooter]], and eventually, one of the most famous folk heroes of the American West, [[Wild Bill Hickok]].

At about the same time as Hickok filed his claim, a census of the [[Shawnee]] Indians living in the area was being taken, and one of the residents listed was Na-Nex-Se Blackhoof. She was the widow of Chief Blackhoof, the second signer of the 1854 treaty that ceded {{convert|1600000|acre|ha}} of the Kansas Shawnee Indian reservation to the United States government.

In 1865, the Kansas and Neosho Valley Railroad was organized to take advantage of [[Pacific Railroad Acts|favorable new land laws]]. It later changed its name to [[List of predecessors of the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway|Missouri River, Ft. Scott and Gulf Railroad]], and in 1869 purchased a [[right-of-way (transportation)|right-of-way]] from C.A. Bradshaw in the area that is now Lenexa, with the stipulation that a depot be built on the property.

Bradshaw also sold {{convert|10.5|acre|ha}} to [[Octave Chanute]], a railroad [[civil engineer]], who platted the town in 1869. Legend states that the first town name proposed was "Bradshaw", but Bradshaw modestly refused, and the name "Lenexa", a derivation of the name Na-Nex-Se,{{citation needed|date=December 2022}} the name of Shawnee Chief Thomas Blackhoof's wife, was adopted.