THE territory of Kansas extended westward from Missouri to the summit of the Rocky Mountain and northward from the thirty-seventh to the fortieth parallel, embracing an area of about one hundred and twenty-six thousand square miles. The history of this vast, mid-continent region belongs mainly to quite recent times. In fact less than fifty years have elapsed since civilization touched it otherwise than casually and fugitively.
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado is reputed to be the first European who visited Kansas. In 1540 he set out from Mexico with a small army of Spaniards and Indians to seize Cibola, a province situated somewhere in New Mexico, and rumored to abound in magnificent cities which the prose of actual investigation discredited into a few wretched hamlets.
