We are in Topeka tonight, home. According to a radio interview I heard today there are 20 attractions in Topeka, ranging from a cemetery with a Vice President and one of the founders of the Atchison,Topeka and Santa Fe railroad to the State Capital, something called Prairie Town and several stops on the Underground Radio.
Tonight we are at the Corner on 5th and Topeka, In 1854 the civil war almost started here , that the west side of the street, on the east, the former home of the US District court, a decision was made on the 2nd floor that was appealed to the Supreme Court as part of the Brown v. Board of Education.
History is made on the lowest margin of error possible. D-Day in 1944 would only have happened if the weather was right, the Germans were totally convinced Patton in Northern England would lead the invasion , the intell the Germans had suggested strong 2 other landing points which may have been better spots , the German command at Normandy has to be on it's way to Paris for a party and several other margins. If any of those happened history would have been very,very different.
The slightest margin of error comes in the fact, if the Federal had followed through when Cannons, had the convention not broken up, the Civil War may well have started out at the corner. The Federal coming into the war on the side of Slavery. Some of idea discussed that day made into the State Constitution and Kansas was admitted to the Union as Free State in January of 1861,Lincoln takes office in March of 1861, the shots at Fort Sumpter were fired in April of 1861 and the rest is history. But the events at 427-429 Kansas Avenue played a central role in what was to come.
Across the street is the current Post Office and former US Federal Court building, the early Brown Cases were argued there. William Allen White spoke the words in the title of this entry before he died in 1944, the words rang true in 1954 with the Brown decision.
I had written this entry about a week ago by me,I thought since the events of Kansas occured on the 4th of July, I'd save the entry for that day.But a suprise opprotunity happened and now is as good as time as any to tell this story.
A history professor from the University of New Mexico ,Durwood Ball was in town. He is working on a biography of Col. Sumner,the man faced with the task of telling the gathering in Topeka to go home that July 4th morning.A reception was held at a Microbrew and we loaded onto a bus for a "Hertiage Tour" sponsored by Ghost Tours of Kansas, a Bank, and a society to restore the hall,with hopes of turning it into a museum. Ball described the actions of that day along with several local historians.Afterwards I sat and had a beer with the group where talk turned to a city councilman and crime and whatever else is going on in the city today, not 152 years ago. It was a great evening.
The picture is of a mural at the site. Some information learned:
-while the troops stood outside the hall ready to level it by Cannon fire if the convention did not break up, John Brown was in the woods waiting to join the action. He left disappointed.
-among the crowd gathered watching was a 10 years boy named William Cody, better known years later as Buffalo Bill Cody.
-In Brown news, It had never occurred to me, the school Brown wanted to attend was named for Charles Sumner , one of the more vocal abolitionist in Congress in the 1850's.An irony exists that a school named after Sumner would be all white and deny an African American attendance,forcing her to attend school on the other side of town.
-I had know this but before but sitting at the corner and having it explained was exciting. President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and as Topeka named the streets after the Presidents, Pierce was skipped in favor naming a street after Henry Clay.The bus stopped on the street not named for Franklin Pierce.
It really was a special evening. There is a small but determined group committed to bringing this history to life.One of the more interesting moments was when someone asked how well known the events of Bleeding Kansas were.Local Author Deb Goodrich said she and her husband were researching at the Library of Congress and came across the London Times in 1856 with the headline "War in Kansas", which lends credence to the William Allen White quote that titles this entry.
This was a chance to see living history, the bus took us to the back of the building where delegates to the convention jumped out of the window and ran into the woods. When the story was first told to me some years ago, the encampment of troops was placed across the river to the North. That story was corrected to the Train tracks and creek near 11th and Kansas. The army of 250 marched west and then North down Kansas Avenue to the Hall.
July 4, 2008 postscript:
We know the troops arrived at 10 am and Col. Sumner gave a 2 hour deadline. We know a couple hundred familys gathered around to celebrate the fourth.I came home from a parade on his July 4th and couldn't resist the temptation to visit the mural, I drove north down Kansas Avenue, which of course is different, shops,businesses, resturants and bars line the street. Being the business district on a holiday morning it was empty, unlike 152 years ago. My ears still ringing from the marching band of the parade,It was easy to imagine a drum and buggle corp accompanying the troops on the 7 block walk they took that day.
The weather was different, It was a cool morning today, hot,sticky humid then.The empty streets of today left the tension of that day too the imagination.But there I was ,looking and hoping to feel the ghosts of that day.Opening this building up and telling the story, this chapter of bleeding Kansas seems to important, though the woods have been replaced with I-70,It possible to imagine John Brown and his blood thristy followers lurking over there NW of the Law enforecement center ready for action.
Had shots been fired, what would have happened. The Nation would have been outraged, the Union would have come into the conflict on the side of Pro Slavery movement, would the North have left the union to the Pro Slavery adminstration of Franklin Pierce.What would Edwin Sumners place in history be ? a man with strong feeling against Slavery,carrying out orders to squash an illegal Free State meeting. Interesting questions to ponder.
The Levee was built as a response to the flood of 51. I was intrigued to see the water marker. It came close to being breeched in 93 but the levee held the water in.
View of South Topeka from bridge,Capital Dome peeking up to the right of the bridge tower.
I love these next two pictures,looking West,you can see the bend of the river and the Omnipresent grain elevators.
View of Downtown and the police impound yard.I always wondered where it was, and knock on wood, glad I have never had a need to know.Again Capital Dome is hiding from this angle.
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