Pawnee: Kansas's Five-Day Capital

In July of eighteen fifty-five, the brand-new Kansas Territory held its first legislative session here in Pawnee. It lasted five days. The territorial governor, Andrew Reeder, had personally invested in the town site and pushed to make it the capital.

The proslavery legislature wanted nothing to do with his scheme or his remote location, more than a hundred miles from Missouri. They voted to adjourn and reconvene in Shawnee Mission. The military moved in that September and ordered the settlers out.

Within months, almost nothing remained. Today a single stone building, the territorial capitol, still stands on the Fort Riley grounds, possibly the shortest-lived official capital in American history. The whole episode, corruption, political fury, and a capital that vanished in weeks, was a preview of the chaos that would define Bleeding Kansas.