When Kansas territory was opened for white settlement on May 30, 1854, a bitter contest developed over the slavery question. Established the following December, Topeka, 25 miles ahead, favored the Free-State cause even though the territorial government was at first Proslavery. Rebelling Free Staters attempted to set up a rival legislature in Topeka in 1856. Acting for President Franklin Pierce came Col. E.V Sumner with five companies of U.S. dragoons and two cannon specially loaded for legislators. Lawmakers understood the message and adjourned reluctantly, but Topeka got even. When the city named its first streets for early Presidents, Pierce was omitted.

Free Staters eventually won out and Kansas became a state January 29, 1861, with Topeka the capital. The Statehouse, started in 1866, was completed in 1903. Topeka is known throughout the world for the contribution of its Menninger Foundation to mental health. South of the city the Topeka Army Air Field (later Forbes Air Force Base) was a processing center in World War II for B-17, B-24, and B-29 aircraft and crews. From a few miles west of Topeka to Lawrence, I-70 generally follows a main route of the Oregon-California trail, traveled from the late 1830s to 1860 by thousands of emigrants, in hundreds of wagon trains.

During the heyday of river steamboating in the '50s Atchison became an outfitting depot for emigrant and freighting trains to Utah and the Pacific Coast, a supply base for the Pike's Peak gold rush, and in the early 1850s a starting point for the Pony Express and the Overland Stage lines. In this pioneer center of transportation, the Santa Fe railway was organized in 1860, modestly named the Atchison & Topeka.

Here, and for the next 300 miles west, Highway 56 roughly follows the old Santa Fe trail , and frequently crosses it. White settlement began in this area in 1854, the year Kansas became a territory, and in 1855 the town of Palmyra was founded. When Baker University was established on the outskirts in 1858 a new town sprang up. It was named for John Baldwin, an Ohio capitalist who in 1857 hauled a steam sawmill in over the trail. By 1863 Palmyra had merged with Baldwin.

Local settlers were "Free-State" in the fight over slavery; several were captured in a Proslavery raid of 1856. Among Free-State leaders was Dr. Andrew T. Still, founder of osteopathy, whose theory of healing was developed here.

Baker University, named for Methodist Bishop Osmon Baker, is the state's oldest four-year college. It houses the famous Bishop Qualye Bible collection, and its first building, the "Old Castle", is now a museum.

At his family's home one-fourth mile west of this marker artist John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) was born and spent his boyhood years. In 1940 he painted his famed murals in the Kansas statehouse at Topeka.

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.

During the Civil War Lawrence was a haven for runaway slaves and was held responsible for Union raids into Missouri. On August 21, 1863, Quantrill and a band of guerrillas ravaged the town and killed nearly 150 men.

Monuments to these victims and other historical markers may be seen in the city. Lawrence is the home of the University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Institute.