The History of our Public Schools
Wyandotte County, Kansas

"The following is a very brief discussion of general types of land records. Land records begin when the government claiming the land (be it crown, colonial, territorial, and, later, federal or state) conveys it to private individuals for, among other reasons, political favors, a fee, military service, or homesteading. These first-grant records are generally kept by the government that issued them.

After the Revolution, land or property was transferred to private individuals either by the federal government in Public-domain (federal-land) states or by the state in state-land states. Kansas is a public-domain state.

Federal land was divided into townships emanating from one or more principal meridians and a base line (rectangular survey). Kansas was surveyed on the rectangular survey system and was first officially opened for white settlement in 1854.

Kansas owes much of its growth to the passage and enactment of the Homestead Law, passed in 1862 and effective 1 January 1863. It offered "free" land to those who would live on and cultivate a tract. In order to make a claim, the individual had to be:

twenty-one years old or head of a family,
a United States citizen or have declared intention to become one,
not already own 320 acres of land,
not abandon land owned by him in the same state or territory, and
intend to use the homestead for himself and his family.

There were four classes of public lands opened for settlement.

Those lands owned by the federal government.
Those lands owned by institutions or higher learning.
The common-school lands.
The railroad lands."

The above information was taken from:
Ancestry's Red Book
American State, County & Town Sources
Edited by Alice Eichholz, Ph.D., C.G.
Published 1989, Revised edition 1992 (ISBN 0-916489-47.7

Online Mapping

School Building Location on Yahoo Maps (online) - Maps are current and updated by Rand McNally. The street names in 2003 or later may be or may not be different from what they were in 1995, 1950, 1908, 1889, 1885 and before. A good example of how the street names changed is the 1889 street map that shows John J. Ingalls School. 8th Street had become 5th street after the 1886 consolidation. 6th Street was formerly 9th Street, etc.

7th Street was formerly Colorado Avenue
42nd Street at Kansas Avenue and Speaker Road was formerly Carlisle Road
55th Street in Turner was formerly Key Road
Elmwood in Argentine - no longer exists - one block south of Ruby Ave.
Freeman Avenue was Wawas Street
Gibbs Road in Turner was Hester Road
Haskell and Waverly switched names after 1950
Orville was formerly Summundowat Street
State Avenue was Kansas in 1885
Valley Street in Argentine was Ash Street
Wyandotte Avenue was a street between 7th and 8th Streets

Mergers caused street names to be changed: 1886 - Cities of Wyandot, Armstrong, Armourdale, and Kansas City became Kansas City, Kansas

"Mergers had many inherent complications and immediate needs for corrective governmental action. This merger forced solutions to problems including the merger of geographic areas with established street systems. They had historically developed independently with different street names and in some cases duplicate names. Numbered streets did not match at the borders of the old cities. As a particular example, the streets going from Wyandott(e) to Armourdale did not even come close to matching up. For instance, if you traveled down 7th Street, when reaching Armourdale, you were on 12th Street, Going down 9th Street, nw 10th Street in Wyandotte, you were on 20th Street in Armourdale. For the next three years the sections of the city were referred to as the "East Side," the "North Side," and the "South Side," to keep addresses and such straight." The Streets and Avenues of Kansas City, Kansas by Donald K. Jones, The Historical Journal of Wyandotte County, Vol 1, No 1, Fall 2000

Another example of changed streets and areas in a city are old (and possibly defunct) areas of Kansas City. Portions of this information are from the web site of Soul of America

Hogstown: Named for its founder, William Hogg.

[Annotation: This was an area of African Americans near what is today 29th and State (Kensington Park). The Grant School was located at 29th and Nebraska. Map of 29th St - Kansas City, KS 66102]

Juniper: An Exoduster settlement located near Jersey Creek and now a part of Kansas City.

[Annotation: It was located within two blocks of the western end of the Intercity Viaduct, east of Third Street and north of Everett. Map of Everett Ave - Kansas City, KS 66101]

Mississippi Town: Settled in 1887 by "Exodusters," the town continued to exist until 1927. Has now been incorporated as part of Kansas City.

[Annotation: "Quindaro is known as a lost city. There was once another city, near the downtown section of old Wyandotte, that today is lost except in the memory of old residents. It was known as Juniper. No one knows why, because there were no juniper trees in this vicinity. Another name for this settlement was Mississippi Town. We may guess that Mississippi was the home state of some of the Exodusters who settled there." History of Kansas City, Kansas by Nellie McGuinn, 1966

Quindaro: Founded in the late 1850's by freed Africans and abolitionists, Quindaro supported a thriving community until the early 20th century. Since that time, "Old Quindaro: has been incorporated into the city of Kansas City proper. The Black Freedman's University, later renamed Western University, was established in 1877 and was jointly operated by the state of Kansas and the AME Church. Many of the original black churches remain, as does the local black community. Today, Quindaro remains a viable community and is being studied as a significant archaeological site by the Kansas State Historical Society.

Rattlebone Hollow: An Exoduster settlement located near Jersey Creek and now a part of Kansas City.

[Annotation: "Many African-American emigrants from the South used the rivers for transportation North, and in the river bottom between what was then the Kansas town of Wyandotte and the Missouri town of Kansas City, a temporary colony was established for these African-American emigrants. Many moved on, but of those who stayed, many moved to the nearby bluff called Juniper. Adjacent to Juniper, in an area known as Rattlebone Hollow, German immigrants had established a settlement. The early integration of these two groups of immigrants in these contiguous geographic areas underwent gradual erosion until it became largely an African-American enclave in the early years of the nineteenth century. White movement out of the area left Juniper and Rattlebone Hollow nearly all African-American communities. This area in the northeast section of Kansas City, Kansas became the second anchor of the African-American population in Kansas City, Kansas." Dennis Lawrence, Teacher, Washington High School Map of Everett Ave - Kansas City, KS 66101

On April 25th, the Wyandotte Commercial Gazette reports that more than 1,000 destitute people, many from Mississippi and Louisiana, have arrived. Some stay on, settling Juniper Town and Rattlebone Hollow.]

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History Site created on December 02, 2002
Page last updated: 02-Jan-2012

The History of our Public Schools Wyandotte County, Kansas

The History of our Public Schools
Wyandotte County, Kansas