Editing Cowley County, Kansas (section)

===19th century===
In 1803, most of [[History of Kansas|modern Kansas]] was secured by the [[United States]] as part of the [[Louisiana Purchase]]. In 1854, the [[Kansas Territory]] was organized, then in 1861 [[Kansas]] became the 34th [[U.S. state]]. Cowley County was officially organized as a county, but reserved for the Osage Indians, by the Kansas Legislature in March 1867, originally named Hunter County for Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (1809–1887), a Virginia Representative and Senator to Congress and Speaker of the House in the twenty-sixth Congress. In 1870, the county was renamed for Matthew Cowley, First Lieutenant in Company I, [[9th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry|9th Kansas Cavalry]], who died at [[Little Rock, Arkansas]], on October 7, 1864. Officially opened for settlement July 15, 1870, there was a lengthy and bitter disagreement between the towns of [[Winfield, Kansas|Winfield]] and Cresswell (the town now named [[Arkansas City, Kansas|Arkansas City]]) over the possession of the county seat of government. Finally settled after two special elections and numerous petitions to the Governor and Legislature, Winfield was determined to be the county seat and a courthouse was constructed in 1873 at a cost of $11,500.<ref>{{Cite web| url=http://www.kancoll.org/cutler/| title=William G. Cutler's, History of the State of Kansas| publisher=A. T. Andreas Press, 1883}}{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>