Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Between Lawrence and Topeka , the Kansas turnpike passes near the route of the old Oregon-California Trail, traveled in the 1800s by explorers, missionaries, soldiers, emigrants in search of land, and forty-niners in search of gold. Fifteen miles south of here was the Santa Fe Trail, which for more than 50 years served mainly as a trail of trade and commerce. From the Missouri River it was some 2,000 miles to Oregon and California and around 800 to Santa Fe, following trails established centuries earlier by Native Americans. Tribes living in this area during the 1800s included the Delaware, Kaw, Kickapoo, Shawnee, and Wyandot.

Travelers often stopped in Lawrence after its establishment in 1854. The town became famous as a free-state headquarters in the territorial fight over slavery, with some of its more prominent citizens helping to transport slaves to freedom along the underground railroad. Proslavery men responded in 1856 by sacking the town and destroying the newspaper office. Lawrence underwent its greatest trial in 1863 when Confederate guerillas led by William C. Quantrill burned the town and killed more than 150 men and boys. Lawrence soon rebuilt, and today is home to the University of Kansas and the Haskell Indian Nations University.

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