photo by: Contributed

The Kansas Historical Society's 2024 Staff.

By 1875, the members of the Kansas Editors’ and Publishers’ Association had witnessed more history than many people read in their whole lives.

They’d lived through a bitter conflict between Jayhawkers and border ruffians, and one between the North and the South. They’d seen the bloody birth of a state — and the breakup and reconstruction of a country — with their own eyes.

And they knew this was a story they had to preserve.

Just 14 years after Kansas had achieved statehood, the editors and publishers resolved to create the Kansas Historical Society “for the purpose of saving the present and past records of our twenty-one years of eventful history.” And, fittingly, the society will mark its milestone 150th anniversary this year by looking back at those dramatic stories of Kansas’ early days — and at how the society has kept them alive.

On Sunday, KHS Executive Director Patrick Zollner and Sarah Bell, the society’s museum and education division director, will be kicking off the 2025 Bleeding Kansas Program Series at Lecompton’s Constitution Hall. Their talk, titled “Kansas Day,” will touch not only on the Bleeding Kansas era, but also on the work that KHS has done over the years to establish museums and historic sites.

Zollner said the society owes a lot to its founders and their realization that they were living in historic times. One of the difficulties of doing history, he said, is that it’s not always easy to tell that you’re witnessing it.

“You just step back and ask, ‘Was that really, you know, an architecturally significant building, or was that really a significant event that happened there?'” he said. “And a lot of times, in the moment, you don’t necessarily see that, but you do realize later it happened.”

The founders of KHS didn’t wait until later, he said.

“They realized in the moment — rightly so, they got it right — that this was important, and they needed to start now while it was still available,” he said.

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The series at Constitution Hall — at 2 p.m. every Sunday through March 2, with a suggested donation of $5 — will feature talks about Bleeding Kansas, Quantrill’s Raid and other topics you might expect to hear about at a historic site. But at Sunday afternoon’s program, expect to hear about the craft of history itself and the work that goes into telling those stories.

“The focus will be on our state historic sites and how we acquire them — up to, including and then kind of (focused) on Constitution Hall,” Zollner said. He also said Bell would be talking about “how our new thematic galleries will tell the story of Kansas history, but in detail on the Bleeding Kansas period.”

It turns out that there’s a lot to say about the history of doing history in Kansas — and it’s more complicated than just a list of the historical society’s accomplishments.

Start with the fact that KHS wasn’t even the first historical society in the state. In 1855, Zollner said, the territorial legislature authorized the creation of a “Historical and Philosophical Society of Kansas Territory.” Its purpose was “the collection and preservation of a library, mineralogical and geological specimens, historical matter relating to the history of this territory, Indian curiosities and antiquities and other matters.”

That society isn’t around anymore, and KHS is the longest-standing historical society in the state. But even KHS had some problems in its early days.

Bias was a big one, Zollner said. Some earlier historians with KHS were only interested in preserving the “better” parts of the state’s history, he said, especially in light of so many Kansans’ views of their state as an abolitionist stronghold that fought bravely against slavery.

“Our first long-term director, Franklin Adams, in particular knew they wanted to preserve the Bleeding Kansas-era documents and those of the Free Staters,” Zollner said. “And in fact, you know, there were still people in Kansas that had come from the pro-slavery side, and we didn’t actually get a lot of those collections in because he was wanting to … tell that story about the winning side.”

The society is hoping to shed more light on its own history in this milestone year, in a variety of ways. Zollner said KHS is currently working on a book about that topic that should be finished sometime in 2025. The book doesn’t have a title just yet, he said, but maybe KHS will look to Kansas residents to help come up with one.

Of course, there’s always plenty of other Kansas history to collect and curate, too. You can see some of the society’s work at kansasmemory.gov, where KHS uploads photos and information about the state’s history — but Zollner said there’s much more in the society’s archives than what’s been digitized.

“We have tens of thousands of historic photos, documents, manuscripts that have been digitized … and of course, that’s still just a fraction of our overall collection,” Zollner said.

And KHS is still adding to its offerings, working to acquire and develop new museums and sites even today, Zollner said.

One it’s currently trying to develop would be in Topeka at the home of Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation who became a U.S. senator and later the vice president under Herbert Hoover. (There’s a talk about Curtis in the Constitution Hall series, too, on March 2.) While in the Senate, Curtis sponsored what’s known as the Curtis Act of 1898, which reduced the authority of tribal governments.

“Our goal is to develop some educational exhibits within it, to really dive deeper into the Curtis Act and the ramifications it’s had for the Native American tribes,” Zollner said.

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While the KHS presentation this weekend is called “Kansas Day,” it’s not actually going to be on Kansas Day proper. The actual date of Kansas Day is Jan. 29, the anniversary of Kansas’ admission into the Union in 1861.

That observance has a history almost as long as the historical society’s own history. Zollner said the first Kansas Day celebration was in 1877 in Paola, and it was originally conceived as “Kansas Day for Kansas Schools.” They planned a day of Kansas-related activities to celebrate Kansas life, Zollner said — “history, geography, poems and songs.”

“So it started kind of Kansas state pride, and then that went on to spread,” Zollner said.

It in fact spread far beyond the state’s borders. Zollner said there were once “Kansas societies” throughout the country, where former Kansas residents would celebrate their old home state with songs and activities.

The historical society will be taking part in some festivities on Kansas Day, of course. At the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, KHS will help dedicate the new Kansas Suffragist Memorial Mural, which honors the Kansas activists who fought for women’s right to vote. The dedication of the mural is scheduled for noon on Wednesday in the Statehouse rotunda.

photo by: Contributed

The Kansas Suffragist Memorial Mural