Date of Award

8-1934

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

History

Abstract

On May 12, 1887, The Pittsburg Headlight, in eulogizing the future possibilities of Crawford County, printed the following:

"In the new field of manufacturing no state can claim the superior advantages that belong to Kansas. Geographically, she is in the center and in point of railroad access and outlet, she is peer of them all. Her natural resources of coal and mineral wealth are matters of renown and for that reason her destiny is that of the greatest manufacturing empire west of the Mississippi. The richest district of all this wealth is Crawford County and the brightest future of all cities is Pittsburg."

Nearly one half century has passed, and as one rides over the highways of Crawford County and sees skeleton remains of mines that once provided employment for thousands of miners; as he passes through deserted mining camps that are fast assuming the appearance of the ghost towns of the west; as he stops to see mammoth frankensteins destroying the virgin soil of once prosperous farm lands, in order that the last semblance of coal might be stripped from the breast of Mother Nature, a dim understanding of the cruel blow that fate has dealt Crawford County begins to dawn slowly.

Crawford County, once the playground of the Cherokee Indians, came into being on April 13, 1867, by act of the state legislature of Kansas. Prior to that time, the entire county along with Cherokee County and a part of the Bourbon County, constituted the territory known as the Cherokee Neutral lands.

Comments

Copy of typewritten thesis, vi, 60 leaves: ill.; 28 cm.

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