Editing Manhattan, Kansas (section)

==History==

===Indigenous tribes settlement===
[[File:War dance in the interiour of a Konza lodge.jpg|thumb|left|This 1819 illustration of a [[Kaw people|Kansa]] lodge at the current location of Manhattan is the oldest drawing known to be made in Kansas.]]
{{See also|History of Kansas}}

Before settlement by European-Americans in the 1850s, the land around Manhattan was home to Native tribes.<ref name=Frontier>{{cite book | last = Olson | first = Kevin | title = Frontier Manhattan | publisher = University Press of Kansas | year = 2012 | pages = 9–10, 25–27 | isbn = 978-0-7006-1832-3}}</ref> From 1780 to 1830, it was home to the [[Kaw people]], also known as the Kansa.<ref name=Frontier/> The Kaw settlement was called Blue Earth Village (Manyinkatuhuudje),<ref name=Frontier/> named after the river which the tribe had named the Great Blue Earth River, today known as the [[Big Blue River (Kansas)|Big Blue River]], which intersected with the [[Kansas River]] near their village.<ref name=Frontier/> Blue Earth Village was the site of a large battle between the Kaw and the [[Pawnee people|Pawnee]] in 1812.<ref name=Frontier/>

The Kaw tribe ceded ownership of this land in a [[treaty]] signed at the [[Shawnee Methodist Mission]] on January 14, 1846.<ref name=Frontier/><ref>{{Citation | title = Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties | publisher = U.S. Government Printing Office | year = 1904 | url = http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/vol2/treaties/kan0552.htm | access-date = August 28, 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090417085310/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Kappler/Vol2/treaties/kan0552.htm | archive-date = April 17, 2009 | url-status = dead }}</ref>

===1854: Polistra and Canton===
The [[Kansas–Nebraska Act]] opened the territory to settlement by U.S. citizens in 1854. That fall, [[George S. Park]] founded the first Euro-American settlement within the borders of the current Manhattan. Park named it Polistra (some histories refer to it as Poliska or Poleska).<ref name=reference2>{{cite book | last = Parrish | first = Donald | title = This Land is Our Land: The Public Domain in the Vicinity of Riley County and Manhattan, Kansas | year = 2004 |publisher=Riley County Historical Society| isbn = 0-9677686-2-4 |oclc= 54769277}}</ref>

Later that year, Samuel D. Houston and three other pioneers founded Canton, a neighboring community near the mouth of the Big Blue River.<ref>{{cite book |title= The Kaw: The Heart of a Nation|last= Streeter|first= Floyd Benjamin|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=MZEJR647HyIC|author-link= Floyd Benjamin Streeter|year= 1975|publisher=Arno Press|location= New York|isbn= 978-0-405-06889-8|oclc= 2180188}}</ref> Neither Canton nor Polistra ever grew beyond their original founders.<ref name=Frontier/>

===1855: Free-Staters===
In March 1855, a group of New England [[Free-Stater (Kansas)|Free-Staters]] traveled to [[Kansas Territory]] under the auspices of the [[New England Emigrant Aid Company]] to found a Free-State town.<ref name=Olson>{{cite web |title=	When Idealistic New Englanders Moved to Kansas Territory to 'Put an End to Slavery' |url=https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2020/07/08/new-england-anti-slavery-movement-manhattan-kansas-abolition/ideas/essay/ |website=Zocalo |date=July 8, 2020 |publisher=Zocalo Public Square |access-date=January 6, 2021}}</ref> Led by [[Isaac Goodnow]], the first members of the group (with the help of [[Samuel C. Pomeroy]]) selected the location of the Polistra and Canton claims for the Aid Company's new settlement. Soon after the [[New England]]ers arrived at the site, in April 1855, they agreed to join Canton and Polistra to make one settlement named Boston.<ref name=reference2/> They were soon joined by dozens more New Englanders, including Goodnow's brother-in-law [[Joseph Denison (pastor)|Joseph Denison]].

In June 1855, the [[paddle steamer]] ''Hartford'', carrying 75 settlers from [[Ohio]], ran aground in the [[Kansas River]] near the settlement. The Ohio settlers, who were members of the Cincinnati-Manhattan Company, had been headed {{convert|20|miles|km}} farther upstream to the headwaters of the Kansas River, the location today of [[Junction City, Kansas|Junction City]].<ref>[http://www.jcks.com/aboutus/history.html GEARY COUNTY LEGENDS – jcks.com – Retrieved March 9, 2009] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120212141938/http://www.jcks.com/aboutus/history.html |date=February 12, 2012 }}</ref> After realizing they were stranded, the ''Hartford'' passengers accepted an invitation to join the new town, but insisted that it be renamed Manhattan, which was done on June 29, 1855.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Missouri-Kansas Conflict 1854-1865 |url=https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/map/manhattan-kansas |website=Civil War on the Western Border |publisher=The Kansas City Public Library |access-date=October 6, 2020}}</ref> Manhattan was [[Municipal corporation|incorporated]] on May 30, 1857.<ref name=reference2/><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qi9cXyTWt9EC&pg=PA214 | title=Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Volume 2 | publisher=Standard Publishing Company | author=Blackmar, Frank Wilson | year=1912 | pages=214}}</ref>

===Early events===
[[File:Bluemont.jpg|thumb|[[Blue Mont Central College]] building, built in 1859]]
Early Manhattan settlers sometimes conflicted with Native tribes, and the town was threatened by pro-[[History of slavery in the United States|enslavement]] Southerners. Manhattan was staunchly Free-State, and it elected the only two Free-State legislators to the first Territorial Legislature, commonly called the "Bogus Legislature".<ref name=Frontier/> However, nearby [[Fort Riley]] protected the settlement from the major violence visited upon other Free-State towns during the "[[Bleeding Kansas]]" era. This allowed the town to develop relatively quickly. On January 30, 1858, Territorial Governor [[James W. Denver]] signed an act naming Manhattan as [[county seat]] for [[Riley County]].<ref name=Frontier/> Ten days later, on February 9, 1858, Governor Denver chartered a [[Methodist]] college in Manhattan, named [[Blue Mont Central College]].<ref name=Frontier/>

The young city received another boost when [[Pike's Peak Gold Rush|gold was discovered]] in the [[Rocky Mountains]] in 1859 and [[Fifty-Niners]] began to stream through Manhattan on their way to prospect in the mountains. Manhattan was one of the last significant settlements on the route west, and the village's merchants did a brisk business selling supplies to miners. Manhattan's first newspaper, ''The Kansas Express'', began publishing on May 21, 1859.<ref name=Frontier/>

In 1861, when the State of [[Kansas]] entered the Union, Isaac Goodnow, who had been a teacher in [[Rhode Island]], began lobbying the legislature to convert Manhattan's Blue Mont Central College into the state university. The culmination of these efforts came on February 16, 1863, when the Kansas legislature established [[Kansas State Agricultural College]] (now [[Kansas State University]]) in Manhattan. When the college began its first session on September 2, 1863, it was the first public college in Kansas, the nation's first [[land-grant university|land-grant institution]] created under the [[Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act|Morrill Act]], and only the [[List of mixed-sex colleges and universities in the United States|second public institution of higher learning to admit women and men equally]] in the United States.<ref name=Frontier/><ref name=Willard>{{cite book|last=Willard |first=Julius |title=History of Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science |publisher=Kansas State College Press |year=1940 |url=http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=hearth;cc=hearth;rgn=full%20text;idno=5725255;didno=5725255;view=image;seq=0003;node=5725255%3A3 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140720120839/http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=hearth;cc=hearth;rgn=full%20text;idno=5725255;didno=5725255;view=image;seq=0003;node=5725255%3A3 |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 20, 2014 }}</ref><ref name= Nation>{{Cite journal | title = The National Schools of Science | journal = The Nation | page = 409 | date = November 21, 1867 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Mf0xAQAAIAAJ&q=land+grant+kansas+february+16%2C+1863+pennsylvania+April&pg=PA409 }}</ref>

By the time the [[Kansas Pacific Railroad]] laid its tracks west through Manhattan in 1866, the 11-year-old settlement was permanently ensconced in the [[tallgrass prairie]]. Manhattan's population has grown every decade since its founding.

===20th century===
The town received the [[All-America City Award]] in 1952, the first in Kansas.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Past Winners|url=http://www.nationalcivicleague.org/america-city-award/past-winners/|access-date=September 29, 2020|website=National Civic League}}</ref>