When did Kansas become a state?

The origins of the university date back to 1861, when Kansas became a state. The Kansas Constitution provided for a state university, and from 1861 to 1863 the question of where the university would be locatedLawrence, Manhattan or Emporiawas debated. In February 1863, Manhattan was selected as the site for the state's land-grant college, authorized by the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act–what evolved into Kansas State University. Lawrence and Emporia were therefore left as the only candidates for a state university. The fact that Amos Adams Lawrence had donated $10,000 (plus interest), as well as 40 acres (160,000 m) to the city of Lawrence had great weight with the Kansas Legislature, and Lawrence was selected by one vote over Emporia as the location of the University of Kansas. On March 7, 1863, the Kansas Legislature passed the enabling act to establish the Kansas State Normal School, which would one day become Emporia State University; it did not open until February 15, 1865. The first class graduated two and a half years later; it consisted of two women, Mary Jane Watson and Ellen Plumb. Ellen was the sister of US Senator Preston B. Plumb.

Emporia State University

Emporia State University, often referred to as Emporia State or ESU, is a public university in Emporia, Kansas. Established in March 1863 as the Kansas State Normal School, Emporia State is the third-oldest public university in the state of Kansas. Emporia State is one of six public universities governed by the Kansas Board of Regents.

The university offers degrees in more than 80 courses of study through four colleges and/or schools: the School of Business, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, School of Library and Information Management, and The Teachers College.

Emporia State's intercollegiate athletic teams are known as the Hornets, with the exception of the women's teams, which are known as the Lady Hornets. Emporia State competes in NCAA Division II and has been a member of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) since 1991. Since joining the NCAA Division II in 1991, the Lady Hornets basketball team is the only team to win a NCAA championship.

In 1876, the Kansas Legislature passed the "Miscellaneous appropriations bill of 1876". As a result, Leavenworth Normal and Concordia Normal were closed so the state funding for normal schools could be directed to Emporia. Then, in the early 20th century, KSN branched out with locations in Pittsburg and Hays, Kansas. The western branch in Hays opened June 3, 1902. It has since developed into Fort Hays State University. The Pittsburg branch was opened as the Manual Training Auxiliary School in 1904; it became a four-year school named Kansas State Teachers College of Pittsburg in 1913. Today it is Pittsburg State University.

In February 1923, the name of the school was changed to the Kansas State Teachers College. In July 1974, the name was changed to Emporia Kansas State College. On April 21, 1977, the college became Emporia State University.

Dr. Michael Shonrock became Emporia State's 16th president on January 3, 2012. On April 9, 2015, it was announced that he was stepping down to become president at Lindenwood University, effective June 1. Former Butler Community College president Jackie Vietti became interim president. On October 22, 2015, Allison Garrett was selected as Emporia State University's 17th president, effective January 4, 2016.

In 2017, Emporia State University was ranked by "U.S. News & World Report" as the 122nd best regional university, and the 37th best public regional university in the Midwest. That same year, Emporia's Business Program was ranked as the 425th best. In 2017, "Washington Monthly" ranked the school as the 317th best regional university in the United States that awards master's degrees.

According to the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education's official framework for categorizing universities, Emporia State University is classified as a "Master's College and University: Larger programs (M1)", meaning that its programs awarded at least 200 master's-level degrees. Its graduate instructional program is designated as "Research Doctoral: Single program-Other", due to the school offering a PhD in Library Science.

In 2013 and 2014, "The Chronicle of Higher Education" reviewed Emporia State as a "Great College to Work For" and the "Princeton Review" included Emporia State among its "Best of the Midwest" higher education institutions.

By enrollment, Emporia State is the seventh-largest university in Kansas. In the fall 2014 semester, it set a record enrollment with 6,114 students.

Emporia State University comprises four colleges: the School of Business, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, School of Library and Information Management, and the Teachers College.

Emporia State is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. The university offers degrees in more than 80 courses of study. Emporia State has a satellite campus in Kansas City, which is mostly online classes, but some classes are held in the building.

Founded in 1868, the School of Business is located on the main campus. It has more than 30 faculty members and approximately 300 students.

The School is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International). The programs have been thoroughly reviewed and found to be of the highest quality. This distinction is found with less than 5% of business schools worldwide.

The School of Business opened the Koch Center for Leadership and Ethics, which is a center made up of classes that focuses on entrepreneurial management. The Center was funded through grants of $750,000 from the Fred Koch Foundation, as well as Koch Industries.

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in numerous fields, with an emphasis on health professions and related programs, biological and biomedical sciences, and social sciences. Courses are offered at the main campus, online, and at satellite campuses.

The School of Library and Information Management (SLIM), which was founded in 1902, is the "oldest school of library and information studies in the western half of the United States" and has branches in six different states. SLIM is the only accredited American Library Association program in Kansas, and the School Library Media Licensure program is also accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). The School of Library and Information Management also offers Emporia State University's only PhD: a doctorate in Library and Information Management.

The Emporia State University's Teachers College is an "Exemplary Model Teacher Education" program as named by Arthur Levine in 2006. In 2011, the Teachers College was featured in a video produced by the U.S. Department of Education highlighting the use of professional development schools.

The Jones Institute for Educational Excellence is a non-profit organization provided by the Jones Trust in Lyon County. In August 1982, the office was established as part of the Teachers College for research to better education in the state of Kansas.

The National Teachers Hall of Fame (NTHF) is a non-profit organization that honors exceptional school teachers and was established in 1989 by Emporia State University, the City of Emporia, the local school district, and the Chamber of Commerce. The NTHF has a museum on Emporia State's campus that honors the inducted teachers. It also has a teacher resource center and a program which recognizes five of the nation's best educators each June.

The Hall of Fame annually honors five teachers who have demonstrated commitment and dedication to teaching children. The first induction was held in June 1992, and, 115 teachers have since been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Inductees cover more than three-quarters of the United States and Washington D.C.
On June 13, 2013, NTHF executive director, along with former university officials, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran's staff, and local government leaders broke ground by the one-room schoolhouse located on the campus to build a memorial for teachers who have fallen in the "line of duty". The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was the main inspiration for the memorial. On June 6, 2014, the granite memorial markers were placed along with granite benches. The official dedication was held on June 12, 2014.

On September 21, 2015, United States Senator Moran of Kansas introduced a bill to the United States Congress to designate the memorial as the "National Memorial to Fallen Educators". Should the bill pass by both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, the memorial would then need to be signed by the President of the United States. The memorial would not become a part of the National Park Service, nor would it receive Federal funding.

Emporia State University–Kansas City is the branch campus of Emporia State, located in Overland Park. The campus offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

On August 29, 2014, Emporia State announced that it had received $1 million additional funding from the Governor's office for the school's first-ever Honors College.

Most academic buildings at Emporia State University are dedicated to someone or are an important part of the school's history.

Beach Music Hall, named in honor of former professor Frank A. Beach, houses the Music Department. It was built in 1926, and hcontainsas classrooms, a recital hall, and practice studios.

Within the science building, Bruekelman Science Hall houses the Biological Sciences department and mathematics and economics departments, while Cram Science Hall houses the Physical Sciences department and classrooms for chemistry, physics, and earth science. Inside the science building are two museums – Johnston Geology Museum and the Richard H. Schmidt Museum of Natural History, along with the Peterson Planetarium.

Named after former president Thomas W. Butcher, the Butcher Education Center houses the Sociology, Anthropology, and Crime & Delinquency Studies Department on the north side. On the south side of the building is the ESU Center for Early Childhood Education, a daycare center which also serves as a preschool. In the basement is home to the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Cremer Hall contains the School of Business. The building opened in 1964 and is also home to the Kansas Business Hall of Fame and the Koch Center for Leadership Studies.

The HPER Building, officially known as the Health, Physical Education and Recreation building, is home to the Athletics and physical education department. Inside the building are five gyms, locker rooms, classrooms, administrative offices, and a swimming pool.

Inside John E. King Hall, named after the 11th president of ESU, are the Theatre Department, and the Arts and Communication Departments. Also inside is the Karl C. Bruder Theatre.
Plumb Hall serves as the administration building, and houses President's office, Academic Affairs, Fiscal Affairs, Financial Aid services, Human Resources, some classrooms, Social Sciences and English departments, and the Graduate School. The building is named after Senator Preston B. Plumb. Also inside is Albert Taylor Hall, an auditorium named after the 5th president of ESU.

Roosevelt Hall, previously a high school in Emporia, once served as the home of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences dean's office. Inside are classrooms primarily for English, Modern Languages, and Journalism classes, as well as a theatre.

John E. Visser Hall, named after ESU's 12th president, is home to the Teachers College. It also houses the Teachers Hall of Fame.

The William Allen White Library is home to the School of Library and Information Management. Inside are a computer lab, the University Archives, and the Academic Center for Excellence and Success.

The Emporia State University Memorial Union is the student activity center. It opened on Founder's Day in 1925 as a memorial to the KSN students who died in World War I. It was the first student union west of the Mississippi River. Inside the Union are the bookstore, admissions office, Sodexo dining services, and Division of Student Affairs office.

The Sauder Alumni Center houses the Emporia State University Foundation and Alumni Association. Cora Miller Hall houses the School of Nursing, and is located next to Newman Regional Hospital.

At ESU, all incoming freshmen students must live in the Towers Complex (North & South Towers, Singular, and Trusler), unless they already live within a radius of the campus. Upperclassmen have the choice to live in Morse Hall Complex.

Morse Hall Complex consists of four wings: Northeast Morse, Central Morse, South Morse and Abigail Morse. Northeast, Central and South are all upperclassmen residence halls. South Morse is used for office purposes such as the TRIO Program and Student Wellness Center are located in South.

The Towers Complex is made up into four residence halls: North and South Towers, and Singular and Trusler Towers. Trusler went under renovation in the fall of 2013, with Singular going under renovation in the spring of 2014.

In November 2017, construction started on a new residence hall which will be named after Emporia State's 14th president, Kay Schallenkamp. Set to open in August 2019, it will replace Central and Northeast Morse Halls, and is the first new building on campus since 2002.

ESU has eight fraternities and six sororities.

The school newspaper of Emporia State University is "ESU Bulletin", established in 1901. It is published once a week on Thursdays, and is distributed free of charge in all campus buildings. Supported by student fees and advertising, "The Bulletin" is written and operated by student staff members.

"Sunflower", the university's yearbook, is published each spring as a chronicle of the year's events and activities. It is funded by student fees and distributed during finals week of the spring semester. Students who choose to be included in the yearbook are photographed at no charge during the fall semester.

Emporia State University's intercollegiate athletic teams are known as the Hornets, with the exception of the women's teams, which are known as the Lady Hornets. Emporia State competes in the NCAA Division II, where it is a member of the MIAA. Since 1893, Emporia State has belonged to six conferences: the Kansas Conference, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, the Great Plains Athletic Conference, the Central States Intercollegiate Conference, and the MIAA.

Of its varsity sports, only Emporia States' women's basketball team has claimed a national title for the school. The Lady Hornets, led by former head coach Brandon Schneider, won the 2010 NCAA Division II Women's Basketball Championship, defeating the Fort Lewis College Skyhawks. The men's basketball team was previously coached by Shaun Vandiver, a former NBA first round draft pick, from 2011 to 2018.

Since 1940, home basketball games have been played at William L. White Auditorium, a 5,000-seat arena named after William Lindsay White, son of William Allen White. In addition to serving as home to the men's and women's basketball teams, the arena is used by the Lady Hornets volleyball team. In 2008, the auditorium received an upgrade throughout the entire building.

The Hornets football team is currently coached by former Hornets quarterback Garin Higgins. Since joining the MIAA in 1991, the Hornets have gone 123–118 in conference play. The Hornets have also participated in five post-season bowls, winning three.

Francis G. Welch Stadium serves as home to the Hornets football team. The stadium, named after long-time Emporia State football coach and athletic director Fran Welch, opened in 1947 and has since undergone a few renovations. In 1994, the east and west side concession areas, restroom facilities, and entrances were renovated, a new scoreboard was hoisted into place at the south end of the stadium, and a new landscaped fence was erected. The Hutchinson Family Pavilion, a three-tiered facility which has enclosed theatre seating on the first floor, a president's box and four sky-boxes on the second floor, and a game-day management and media center on the third floor, was built in 1997. The current seating capacity is 7,000. In 2005, an artificial football field was placed down, with that one being replaced in 2016, as well as a new track.

The Hornets baseball team played its first game in 1949. The team has four conference championships, three conference tournament champions, and two College World Series appearances, with a 2009 runner-up. The team also made five appearances in the NAIA World Series, winning the 1978 World Series. Currently the team is coached by Bob Fornelli, who is 377–153 () at Emporia State and 683–266 () overall.

The Lady Hornets softball team played its first game by 1971, seven years before the baseball team. The team is currently coached by April Rosales, who took over the program on October 19, 2015. The softball team appeared in three Women's College World Series, in 1971, 1972, and 1979, and also won the first AIAW Division II national championship in 1980. Emporia State also played for the national championship in 2006 and 2008.

Trusler Sports Complex is home to the baseball and softball teams. The baseball team competes on Glennen Field, named after Dr. Robert E. Glennen, 13th president of Emporia State. In 2009, the field was renovated with a new artificial turf that replaced the infield. The Lady Hornets compete on Turnbull Field named after J. Michael Turnbull, a trustee of the Trusler Foundation.

Emporia State also has a men/women's cross country/track and field team, women's soccer team, men/women's tennis, and women's soccer.
Emporia State's official school colors are black and gold. These have been the colors since the school was founded in 1863. Until recently, the gold was "old gold".

In 1923, the teams were known as the "Yaps", but it was not a popular name. Men's basketball coach Vic Trusler recommended to a reporter of the "Emporia Gazette" that the name should be changed to "Yellow Jackets". Due to the lack of newspaper space, the reporter changed it to "Hornets".

In 1933, the Teachers College held a contest in which students and staff could design a mascot for the college. Sophomore Paul Edwards, who graduated in 1937, designed Corky. Although hundreds of drawings were submitted, Edwards' Corky, a "human-like" hornet, was selected and published in "The Bulletin", the student newspaper for Emporia State University.

Established in 1952, the Emporia State University Foundation is an independent, nonprofit corporation that helps support Emporia State by fundraising.

In February 2013, when the University turned 150, it announced a campaign to raise $45 million in five to seven years. The campaign's slogan is "Silent no more." After the announcement of a donation, big or small, the university rings a bell called Silent Joe. The bell, which is located just south of Francis G. Welch Stadium, was originally rung only after a football team won at home. The campaign ended in February 2017, having raised $58.03 million, the largest in the university's history.

ESU Police and Safety is the campus police department. Besides enforcing the law, the department also provides other assistance for the students and faculty/staff members such as escorts and vehicle problems. The department has ten full-time commissioned officers (one chief, one lieutenant, three sergeants, two corporals, and three officers), one full-time dispatcher, and several student dispatchers. The Kansas Highway Patrol also has an office in the building.

The Parking Department is a division of Police and Safety, and issues permits for students, faculty/staff, and visitors.

Kansas was first settled by European Americans in 1827 with the establishment of Fort Leavenworth. The pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery debate. When it was officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854 with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, abolitionist Free-Staters from New England and pro-slavery settlers from neighboring Missouri rushed to the territory to determine whether Kansas would become a free state or a slave state. Thus, the area was a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided, and was known as Bleeding Kansas. The abolitionists prevailed, and on January 29, 1861, Kansas entered the Union as a free state.

Kansas

Kansas is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita, with its most populated county being Johnson County. Kansas is named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name (natively "") is often said to mean "people of the (south) wind" although this was probably not the term's original meaning. For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the western part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison.

By 2015, Kansas was one of the most productive agricultural states, producing high yields of wheat, corn, sorghum, and soybeans. Kansas, which has an area of is the 15th-largest state by area and is the 34th most-populous of the 50 states with a population of 2,911,641. Residents of Kansas are called "Kansans". Mount Sunflower is Kansas's highest point at.

For a millennium, the land that is currently Kansas was inhabited by Native Americans. The first European to set foot in present-day Kansas was the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, who explored the area in 1541. In 1803, most of modern Kansas was acquired by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Southwest Kansas, however, was still a part of Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas until the conclusion of the Mexican–American War in 1848, when these lands were ceded to the United States. From 1812 to 1821, Kansas was part of the Missouri Territory. The Santa Fe Trail traversed Kansas from 1821 to 1880, transporting manufactured goods from Missouri and silver and furs from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Wagon ruts from the trail are still visible in the prairie today.

In 1827, Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent settlement of white Americans in the future state. The Kansas–Nebraska Act became law on May 30, 1854, establishing Nebraska Territory and Kansas Territory, and opening the area to broader settlement by whites. Kansas Territory stretched all the way to the Continental Divide and included the sites of present-day Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo.

Missouri and Arkansas sent settlers into Kansas all along its eastern border. These settlers attempted to sway votes in favor of slavery. The secondary settlement of Americans in Kansas Territory were abolitionists from Massachusetts and other Free-Staters, who attempted to stop the spread of slavery from neighboring Missouri. Directly presaging the American Civil War, these forces collided, entering into skirmishes that earned the territory the name of Bleeding Kansas.

Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state on January 29, 1861, making it the 34th state to join the United States. By that time the violence in Kansas had largely subsided, but during the Civil War, on August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led several hundred men on a raid into Lawrence, destroying much of the city and killing nearly 200 people. He was roundly condemned by both the conventional Confederate military and the partisan rangers commissioned by the Missouri legislature. His application to that body for a commission was flatly rejected due to his pre-war criminal record.

After the Civil War, many veterans constructed homesteads in Kansas. Many African Americans also looked to Kansas as the land of "John Brown" and, led by freedmen like Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, began establishing black colonies in the state. Leaving southern states in the late 1870s because of increasing discrimination, they became known as Exodusters.

At the same time, the Chisholm Trail was opened and the Wild West-era commenced in Kansas. Wild Bill Hickok was a deputy marshal at Fort Riley and a marshal at Hays and Abilene. Dodge City was another wild cowboy town, and both Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp worked as lawmen in the town. In one year alone, eight million head of cattle from Texas boarded trains in Dodge City bound for the East, earning Dodge the nickname "Queen of the Cowtowns."

In response to demands of Methodists and other evangelical Protestants, in 1881 Kansas became the first U.S. state to adopt a constitutional amendment prohibiting all alcoholic beverages, which was only repealed in 1948.

Kansas is bordered by Nebraska on the north; Missouri on the east; Oklahoma on the south; and Colorado on the west. The state is divided into 105 counties with 628 cities, and is located equidistant from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The geographic center of the 48 contiguous states is in Smith County near Lebanon. Until 1989, the Meades Ranch Triangulation Station in Osborne County was the geodetic center of North America: the central reference point for all maps of North America. The geographic center of Kansas is in Barton County.

Kansas is underlain by a sequence of horizontal to gently westward dipping sedimentary rocks. A sequence of Mississippian, Pennsylvanian and Permian rocks outcrop in the eastern and southern part of the state. The state's western half has exposures of Cretaceous through Tertiary sediments, the latter derived from the erosion of the uplifted Rocky Mountains to the west. These are underlain by older Paleozoic and Mesozoic sediments which correlate well with the outcrops to the east. The state's northeastern corner was subjected to glaciation in the Pleistocene and is covered by glacial drift and loess.

The western two-thirds of the state, lying in the great central plain of the United States, has a generally flat or undulating surface, while the eastern third has many hills and forests. The land gradually rises from east to west; its altitude ranges from along the Verdigris River at Coffeyville in Montgomery County, to at Mount Sunflower, from the Colorado border, in Wallace County. It is a common misconception that Kansas is the flattest state in the nation — in 2003, a tongue-in-cheek study famously declared the state "flatter than a pancake". In fact, Kansas has a maximum topographic relief of, making it the 23rd flattest U.S. state measured by maximum relief.

Nearly of the state's northeastern boundary is defined by the Missouri River. The Kansas River (locally known as the Kaw), formed by the junction of the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers at appropriately-named Junction City, joins the Missouri River at Kansas City, after a course of across the northeastern part of the state.

The Arkansas River (pronunciation varies), rising in Colorado, flows with a bending course for nearly across the western and southern parts of the state. With its tributaries, (the Little Arkansas, Ninnescah, Walnut, Cow Creek, Cimarron, Verdigris, and the Neosho), it forms the southern drainage system of the state.

Kansas's other rivers are the Saline and Solomon Rivers, tributaries of the Smoky Hill River; the Big Blue, Delaware, and Wakarusa, which flow into the Kansas River; and the Marais des Cygnes, a tributary of the Missouri River. Spring River is located between Riverton and Baxter Springs.

Areas under the protection of the National Park Service include:

According to the Köppen climate classification, Kansas's climate can be characterized in terms of three types: it has humid continental, semi-arid steppe, and humid subtropical. The eastern two-thirds of the state (especially the northeastern portion) has a humid continental climate, with cool to cold winters and hot, often humid summers. Most of the precipitation falls during both the summer and the spring.

The western third of the state – from roughly the U.S. Route 83 corridor westward – has a semiarid steppe climate. Summers are hot, often very hot, and generally less humid. Winters are highly changeable between warm and very cold. The western region receives an average of about of precipitation per year. Chinook winds in the winter can warm western Kansas all the way into the range.

The far south-central and southeastern portions of the state, including the Wichita area, have a humid subtropical climate with hot and humid summers, milder winters, and more precipitation than elsewhere in Kansas. Some features of all three climates can be found in most of the state, with droughts and changeable weather between dry and humid not uncommon, and both warm and cold spells in the winter.

Temperatures in areas between U.S. Routes 83 and 81, as well as the southwestern portion of the state along and south of U.S. 50, reach or above on most days of June, July, and August. High humidity added to the high temperatures sends the heat index into life-threatening territory, especially in Wichita, Hutchinson, Salina, Russell, Hays, and Great Bend. Temperatures are often higher in Dodge City, Garden City, and Liberal, but the heat index in those three cities is usually lower than the actual air temperature.

Although temperatures of or higher are not as common in areas east of U.S. 81, higher humidity and the urban heat island effect lead most summer days to heat indices between and in Topeka, Lawrence, and the Kansas City metropolitan area. During the summer, nightly low temperatures in the northeastern part of the state, especially in the aforementioned large cities, struggle to fall below. Also, combined with humidity between 85 and 95 percent, dangerous heat indices can be experienced at every hour of the day.

Precipitation ranges from about annually in the state's southeast corner to about in the southwest. Snowfall ranges from around in the fringes of the south, to in the far northwest. Frost-free days range from more than 200 days in the south, to 130 days in the northwest. Thus, Kansas is the country's ninth or tenth sunniest state, depending on the source. Western Kansas is as sunny as California and Arizona.

Kansas is prone to severe weather, especially in the spring and the early-summer. Despite the frequent sunshine throughout much of the state, due to its location at a climatic boundary prone to intrusions of multiple air masses, the state is vulnerable to strong and severe thunderstorms. Some of these storms become supercell thunderstorms; these can produce some tornadoes, occasionally those of EF3 strength or higher. Kansas averages over 50 tornadoes annually. Severe thunderstorms sometimes drop some very large hail over Kansas as well. Furthermore, these storms can even bring in flash flooding and damaging straight line winds.

According to NOAA, the all-time highest temperature recorded in Kansas is () on July 24, 1936, near Alton in Osborne County, and the all-time low is on February 13, 1905, near Lebanon in Smith County. Alton and Lebanon are approximately apart.

Kansas's record high of ties with North Dakota for the fifth-highest record high in an American state, behind California (), Arizona (), Nevada (), and New Mexico ().

The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Kansas was 2,907,289 on July 1, 2016, a 1.9% increase since the 2010 United States Census and an increase of 58,523, or 2.05%, since the year 2010. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 93,899 people (that is 246,484 births minus 152,585 deaths) and a decrease due to net migration of 20,742 people out of the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 44,847 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of 65,589 people.

The population density of Kansas is 52.9 people per square mile. The center of population of Kansas is located in Chase County, at, approximately north of the community of Strong City.

The focus on labor-efficient grain-based agriculture - such as large wheat farm that requires only one or a few people with large farm machinery to operate, rather than a vegetable farm that requires many people during planting and harvest or a non-agricultural facility that requires many employees – is causing the de-population of rural areas across Kansas.

According to the 2010 Census, the racial makeup of the population was:

Ethnically 10.5% of the total population was of Hispanic or Latino origin (they may be of any race).

As of 2004, the population included 149,800 foreign-born (5.5% of the state population). The ten largest reported ancestry groups, which account for over 85% of the population, in the state are: German (33.75%), Irish (14.4%), English (14.1%), American (7.5%), French (4.4%), Scottish (4.2%), Dutch (2.5%), Swedish (2.4%), Italian (1.8%), and Polish (1.5%). German descendants are especially present in the northwest, while those of descendants of English and of white Americans from other states are especially present in the southeast.

Mexicans are present in the southwest and make up nearly half the population in certain counties. Many African Americans in Kansas are descended from the Exodusters, newly freed blacks who fled the South for land in Kansas following the Civil War.

As of 2011, 35.0% of Kansas's population younger than one year of age belonged to minority groups (i.e., did not have two parents of non-Hispanic white ancestry).

Spanish is the second-most-spoken language in Kansas, after English.

The 2014 Pew Religious Landscape Survey showed the religious makeup of adults in Kansas was as follows:

As of 2010, the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) reported that the Catholic Church has the highest number of adherents in Kansas (at 426,611), followed by the United Methodist Church with 202,989 members, and the Southern Baptist Convention, reporting 99,329 adherents.

Kansas's capital Topeka is sometimes cited as the home of Pentecostalism as it was the site of Charles Fox Parham's Bethel Bible College, where glossolalia was first claimed as the evidence of a spiritual experience referred to as the baptism of the Holy Spirit in 1901. It is also the home of Reverend Charles Sheldon, author of "In His Steps", and was the site where the question "What would Jesus do?" originated in a sermon of Sheldon's at Central Congregational Church.

Topeka is also home of the Westboro Baptist Church, a hate group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The church has garnered worldwide media attention for picketing the funerals of U.S. servicemen and women for what church members claim as "necessary to combat the fight for equality for gays and lesbians." They have sometimes successfully raised lawsuits against the city of Topeka.

Known as rural flight, the last few decades have been marked by a migratory pattern out of the countryside into cities. Out of all the cities in these Midwestern states, 89% have fewer than 3,000 people, and hundreds of those have fewer than 1,000. In Kansas alone, there are more than 6,000 ghost towns and dwindling communities, according to one Kansas historian, Daniel C. Fitzgerald. At the same time, some of the communities in Johnson County (metropolitan Kansas City) are among the fastest-growing in the country.

Kansas has 627 incorporated cities. By state statute, cities are divided into three classes as determined by the population obtained "by any census of enumeration." A city of the third class has a population of less than 5,000, but cities reaching a population of more than 2,000 may be certified as a city of the second class. The second class is limited to cities with a population of less than 25,000, and upon reaching a population of more than 15,000, they may be certified as a city of the first class. First and second class cities are independent of any township and are not included within the township's territory.

"Note: Births in table don't add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number."The northeastern portion of the state, extending from the eastern border to Junction City and from the Nebraska border to south of Johnson County is home to more than 1.5 million people in the Kansas City (Kansas portion), Manhattan, Lawrence, and Topeka metropolitan areas. Overland Park, a young city incorporated in 1960, has the largest population and the largest land area in the county. It is home to Johnson County Community College and the corporate campus of Sprint Nextel, the largest private employer in the metro area. In 2006, the city was ranked as the sixth best place to live in America; the neighboring city of Olathe was 13th.

Olathe is the county seat and home to Johnson County Executive Airport. The cities of Olathe, Shawnee, De Soto and Gardner have some of the state's fastest growing populations. The cities of Overland Park, Lenexa, Olathe, De Soto, and Gardner are also notable because they lie along the former route of the Santa Fe Trail. Among cities with at least one thousand residents, Mission Hills has the highest median income in the state.

Several institutions of higher education are located in Northeast Kansas including Baker University (the oldest university in the state, founded in 1858 and affiliated with the United Methodist Church) in Baldwin City, Benedictine College (sponsored by St. Benedict's Abbey and Mount St. Scholastica Monastery and formed from the merger of St. Benedict's College (1858) and Mount St. Scholastica College (1923)) in Atchison, MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Ottawa University in Ottawa and Overland Park, Kansas City Kansas Community College and KU Medical Center in Kansas City, and KU Edwards Campus in Overland Park. Less than an hour's drive to the west, Lawrence is home to the University of Kansas, the largest public university in the state, and Haskell Indian Nations University.

To the north, Kansas City, with the second largest land area in the state, contains a number of diverse ethnic neighborhoods. Its attractions include the Kansas Speedway, Sporting Kansas City, Kansas City T-Bones, Schlitterbahn, and The Legends at Village West retail and entertainment center. Nearby, Kansas's first settlement Bonner Springs is home to several national and regional attractions including the Providence Medical Center Amphitheather, the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame, and the annual Kansas City Renaissance Festival. Further up the Missouri River, the city of Lansing is the home of the state's first maximum-security prison. Historic Leavenworth, founded in 1854, was the first incorporated city in Kansas. North of the city, Fort Leavenworth is the oldest active Army post west of the Mississippi River. The city of Atchison was an early commercial center in the state and is well known as the birthplace of Amelia Earhart.

To the west, nearly a quarter million people reside in the Topeka metropolitan area. Topeka is the state capital and home to Washburn University and Washburn Institute of Technology. Built at a Kansas River crossing along the old Oregon Trail, this historic city has several nationally registered historic places. Further westward along Interstate 70 and the Kansas River is Junction City with its historic limestone and brick buildings and nearby Fort Riley, well known as the home to the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division (nicknamed "the Big Red One"). A short distance away, the city of Manhattan is home to Kansas State University, the second-largest public university in the state and the nation's oldest land-grant university, dating back to 1863. South of the campus, Aggieville dates back to 1889 and is the state's oldest shopping district of its kind.

In south-central Kansas, the Wichita metropolitan area is home to over 600,000 people. Wichita is the largest city in the state in terms of both land area and population. 'The Air Capital' is a major manufacturing center for the aircraft industry and the home of Wichita State University. Before Wichita was 'The Air Capital' it was a Cowtown. With a number of nationally registered historic places, museums, and other entertainment destinations, it has a desire to become a cultural mecca in the Midwest. Wichita's population growth has grown by double digits and the surrounding suburbs are among the fastest growing cities in the state. The population of Goddard has grown by more than 11% per year since 2000. Other fast-growing cities include Andover, Maize, Park City, Derby, and Haysville.

Wichita was one of the first cities to add the city commissioner and city manager in their form of government. Wichita is also home of the nationally recognized Sedgwick County Zoo.

Up river (the Arkansas River) from Wichita is the city of Hutchinson. The city was built on one of the world's largest salt deposits, and it has the world's largest and longest wheat elevator. It is also the home of Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, Prairie Dunes Country Club and the Kansas State Fair. North of Wichita along Interstate 135 is the city of Newton, the former western terminal of the Santa Fe Railroad and trailhead for the famed Chisholm Trail. To the southeast of Wichita are the cities of Winfield and Arkansas City with historic architecture and the Cherokee Strip Museum (in Ark City). The city of Udall was the site of the deadliest tornado in Kansas on May 25, 1955; it killed 80 people in and near the city. To the southwest of Wichita is Freeport, the state's smallest incorporated city (population 5).

Located midway between Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita in the heart of the Bluestem Region of the Flint Hills, the city of Emporia has several nationally registered historic places and is the home of Emporia State University, well known for its Teachers College. It was also the home of newspaper man William Allen White.

Southeast Kansas has a unique history with a number of nationally registered historic places in this coal-mining region. Located in Crawford County (dubbed the Fried Chicken Capital of Kansas), Pittsburg is the largest city in the region and the home of Pittsburg State University. The neighboring city of Frontenac in 1888 was the site of the worst mine disaster in the state in which an underground explosion killed 47 miners. "Big Brutus" is located outside the city of West Mineral. Along with the restored fort, historic Fort Scott has a national cemetery designated by President Lincoln in 1862.

Salina is the largest city in central and north-central Kansas. South of Salina is the small city of Lindsborg with its numerous Dala horses. Much of the architecture and decor of this town has a distinctly Swedish style. To the east along Interstate 70, the historic city of Abilene was formerly a trailhead for the Chisholm Trail and was the boyhood home of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and is the site of his Presidential Library and the tombs of the former President, First Lady and son who died in infancy. To the west is Lucas, the Grassroots Art Capital of Kansas.

Westward along the Interstate, the city of Russell, traditionally the beginning of sparsely-populated northwest Kansas, was the base of former U.S. Senator Bob Dole and the boyhood home of U.S. Senator Arlen Specter. The city of Hays is home to Fort Hays State University and the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, and is the largest city in the northwest with a population of around 20,001.

Two other landmarks are located in smaller towns in Ellis County: the "Cathedral of the Plains" is located east of Hays in Victoria, and the boyhood home of Walter Chrysler is west of Hays in Ellis. West of Hays, population drops dramatically, even in areas along I-70, and only two towns containing populations of more than 4,000: Colby and Goodland, which are located apart along I-70.

Dodge City, famously known for the cattle drive days of the late 19th century, was built along the old Santa Fe Trail route. The city of Liberal is located along the southern Santa Fe Trail route. The first wind farm in the state was built east of Montezuma. Garden City has the Lee Richardson Zoo. In 1992, a short-lived secessionist movement advocated the secession of several counties in southwest Kansas.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Kansas's total gross domestic product in 2014 was billion. In 2015, the job growth rate in was.8%, among the lowest rate in America with only "10,900 total nonfarm jobs" added that year. According to the Kansas Department of Labor's 2016 report, the average annual wage was $42,930 in 2015. As of April 2016, the state's unemployment rate was 4.2%.

The State of Kansas had a $350 million budget shortfall in February 2017. In February 2017, S&P downgraded Kansas's credit rating to AA-.

Nearly 90% of Kansas' land is devoted to agriculture. The state's agricultural outputs are cattle, sheep, wheat, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, hogs, corn, and salt. As of 2018, there were 59,600 farms in Kansas, 86 (0.14%) of which are certified organic farms. The average farm in the state is about 770 acres (more than a square mile), and in 2016, the average cost of running the farm was $300,000.

By far, the most significant agricultural crop in the state is wheat. Eastern Kansas is part of the Grain Belt, an area of major grain production in the central United States. Approximately 40% of all winter wheat grown in the US is grown in Kansas. Roughly 95% of the wheat grown in the state is hard red winter wheat. During 2016, farmers of conventionally grown wheat farmed 8.2 million acres and harvested an average of 57 bushels of wheat per acre.

The industrial outputs are transportation equipment, commercial and private aircraft, food processing, publishing, chemical products, machinery, apparel, petroleum, and mining.

Kansas is ranked eighth in US petroleum production. Production has experienced a steady, natural decline as it becomes increasingly difficult to extract oil over time. Since oil prices bottomed in 1999, oil production in Kansas has remained fairly constant, with an average monthly rate of about in 2004. The recent higher prices have made carbon dioxide sequestration and other oil recovery techniques more economical.

Kansas is also ranked eighth in US natural gas production. Production has steadily declined since the mid-1990s with the gradual depletion of the Hugoton Natural Gas Field—the state's largest field which extends into Oklahoma and Texas. In 2004, slower declines in the Hugoton gas fields and increased coalbed methane production contributed to a smaller overall decline. Average monthly production was over.

The state's economy is also heavily influenced by the aerospace industry. Several large aircraft corporations have manufacturing facilities in Wichita and Kansas City, including Spirit AeroSystems, Bombardier Aerospace (LearJet), and Textron Aviation (a merger of the former Cessna, Hawker, and Beechcraft brands). Boeing ended a decades-long history of manufacturing in Kansas between 2012 and 2013.

Major companies headquartered in Kansas include the Sprint Corporation (with world headquarters in Overland Park), YRC Worldwide (Overland Park), Garmin (Olathe), Payless Shoes (national headquarters and major distribution facilities in Topeka), and Koch Industries (with national headquarters in Wichita), and Coleman (headquarters in Wichita). Telephone company Embarq formerly had its national headquarters in Overland Park before its acquisition by CenturyTel in 2009, and still employs several hundred people in Gardner.

Kansas is also home to three major military installations: Fort Leavenworth (Army), Fort Riley (Army), and McConnell Air Force Base (Air Force). Approximately 25,000 active duty soldiers and airmen are stationed at these bases which also employ approximately 8,000 civilian DoD employees. The US Army Reserve also has the 451st Expeditionary Sustainment Command headquartered in Wichita that serves reservists and their units from around the region. The Kansas Air National Guard has units at Forbes Field in Topeka and the 184th Intelligence Wing in Wichita. The Smoky Hill Weapons Range, a detachment of the Intelligence Wing, is one of the largest and busiest bombing ranges in the nation. During WWII, Kansas was home to numerous Army Air Corps training fields for training new pilots and aircrew. Many of those airfields live on today as municipal airports.

Revenue shortfalls resulting from lower than expected tax collections and slower growth in personal income following a 1998 permanent tax reduction have contributed to the substantial growth in the state's debt level as bonded debt increased from $1.16 billion in 1998 to $3.83 billion in 2006. Some increase in debt was expected as the state continues with its 10-year Comprehensive Transportation Program enacted in 1999.

In 2003, Kansas had three income brackets for income tax calculation, ranging from 3.5% to 6.45%.

The state sales tax in Kansas is 6.15%. Various cities and counties in Kansas have an additional local sales tax. Except during the 2001 recession (March–November 2001), when monthly sales tax collections were flat, collections have trended higher as the economy has grown and two rate increases have been enacted. If there had been no change in sales tax rates or in the economy, the total sales tax collections for 2003 whould have been $1,797 million, compared to $805.3 million in 1990. However, they instead amounted to $1,630 million an inflation adjusted reduction of 10%. The state sales tax is a combined destination-based tax, meaning a single tax is applied that includes state, county, and local taxes, and the rate is based on where the consumer takes possession of the goods or services. Thanks to the destination structure and the numerous local special taxing districts, Kansas has 920 separate sales tax rates ranging from 6.5% to 11.5%. This taxing scheme, known as "Streamlined Sales Tax" was adopted on October 1, 2005 under the governorship of Kathleen Sebelius. Groceries are subject to sales tax in the state. All sales tax collected is remitted to the state department of revenue, and local taxes are then distributed to the various taxing agencies.

As of June 2004, Moody's Investors Service ranked the state 14th for net tax-supported debt per capita. As a percentage of personal income, it was at 3.8%—above the median value of 2.5% for all rated states and having risen from a value of less than 1% in 1992. The state has a statutory requirement to maintain cash reserves of at least 7.5% of expenses at the end of each fiscal year, however, lawmakers can vote to override the rule, and did so during the most recent budget agreement.

During his campaign for the 2010 election, Governor Sam Brownback called for a complete "phase out of Kansas's income tax". In May 2012, Governor Brownback signed into law the Kansas Senate Bill Substitute HB 2117. Starting in 2013, the "ambitious tax overhaul" trimmed income tax, eliminated some corporate taxes, and created pass-through income tax exemptions, he raised the sales tax by one percent to offset the loss to state revenues but that was inadequate. He made cuts to education and some state services to offset lost revenue. The tax cut led to years of budget shortfalls, culminating in a $350 million budget shortfall in February 2017. From 2013 to 2017, 300,000 businesses were considered to be pass-through income entities and benefited from the tax exemption. The tax reform "encouraged tens of thousands of Kansans to claim their wages and salaries as income from a business rather than from employment."

The economic growth that Brownback anticipated never materialized. He argued that it was because of "low wheat and oil prices and a downturn in aircraft sales." The state general fund debt load was $83 million in fiscal year 2010 and by fiscal year 2017 the debt load sat at $179 million. In 2016, Governor Brownback earned the title of "most unpopular governor in America". Only 26 percent of Kansas voters approved of his job performance, compared to 65 percent who said they did not. In the summer of 2016 S&P Global Ratings downgraded Kansas's credit rating. In February 2017, S&P lowered it to AA-.

In February 2017, a bi-partisan coalition presented a bill that would repeal the pass-through income exemption, the "most important provisions of Brownback's overhaul", and raise taxes to make up for the budget shortfall. Brownback vetoed the bill but "45 GOP legislators had voted in favor of the increase, while 40 voted to uphold the governor's veto." On June 6, 2017 a "coalition of Democrats and newly-elected Republicans overrode [Brownback's] veto and implemented tax increases to a level that is close to what it was before 2013. Brownback's tax overhaul was described in a June 2017 article in "The Atlantic" as the United States' "most aggressive experiment in conservative economic policy". The drastic tax cuts had "threatened the viability of schools and infrastructure" in Kansas.

Kansas is served by two Interstate highways with one beltway, two spur routes, and three bypasses, with over in all. The first section of Interstate in the nation was opened on Interstate 70 (I-70) just west of Topeka on November 14, 1956.

I-70 is a major east–west route connecting to Denver, Colorado and Kansas City, Missouri. Cities along this route (from west to east) include Colby, Hays, Salina, Junction City, Topeka, Lawrence, Bonner Springs, and Kansas City.

I-35 is a major north–south route connecting to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Des Moines, Iowa. Cities along this route (from south to north) include Wichita, El Dorado, Emporia, Ottawa, and Kansas City (and suburbs).

Spur routes serve as connections between the two major routes. I-135, a north–south route, connects I-35 at Wichita to I-70 at Salina. I-335, a southwest–northeast route, connects I-35 at Emporia to I-70 at Topeka. I-335 and portions of I-35 and I-70 make up the Kansas Turnpike. Bypasses include I-470 around Topeka, I-235 around Wichita, and I-670 in downtown Kansas City. I-435 is a beltway around the Kansas City metropolitan area while I-635 bypasses through Kansas City.

U.S. Route 69 (US-69) travels south to north, from Oklahoma to Missouri. The highway passes through the eastern section of Kansas, traveling through Baxter Springs, Pittsburg, Frontenac, Fort Scott, Louisburg, and the Kansas City area.

Kansas also has the country's third largest state highway system after Texas and California. This is because of the high number of counties and county seats (105) and their intertwining.

In January 2004, the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) announced the new Kansas 511 traveler information service. By dialing 511, callers will get access to information about road conditions, construction, closures, detours and weather conditions for the state highway system. Weather and road condition information is updated every 15 minutes.
The state's only major commercial (Class C) airport is Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport, located along US-54 on the western edge of the city. Manhattan Regional Airport in Manhattan offers daily flights to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, making it the second-largest commercial airport in the state. Most air travelers in northeastern Kansas fly out of Kansas City International Airport, located in Platte County, Missouri, as well as Topeka Regional Airport in the state's capital.

In the state's southeastern part, people often use Tulsa International Airport in Tulsa, Oklahoma or Joplin Regional Airport in Joplin, Missouri. For those in the far western part of the state, Denver International Airport is a popular option. Connecting flights are also available from smaller Kansas airports in Dodge City, Garden City, Hays, Hutchinson, Liberal, or Salina.

Dotted across the state are smaller regional and municipal airports, including the Lawrence Municipal Airport, which houses many aircraft for the city of Lawrence and the University of Kansas, Miami County Airport, Wamego Airport, Osage City Municipal Airport, which is the headquarters of "Skydive Kansas", Garden City Regional Airport, Manhattan Regional Airport, and Dodge City Regional Airport.

The "Southwest Chief" Amtrak route runs through the state on its route from Chicago to Los Angeles. Stops in Kansas include Lawrence, Topeka, Newton, Hutchinson, Dodge City, and Garden City. An Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach connects Newton and Wichita to the Heartland Flyer in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Amtrak is proposing to modify the Southwest Chief from its status as a direct passenger rail operation. Plans call for shortening the route to Los Angeles to Albuquerque. Thruway buses would replace the train on the route between Albuquerque and Dodge City, where train service east to Chicago would resume.

Kansas is served by four Class I railroads, Amtrak, BNSF, Kansas City Southern, and Union Pacific, as well as many shortline railroads.

Executive branch: The executive branch consists of one officer and five elected officers. The governor and lieutenant governor are elected on the same ticket. The attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer, and state insurance commissioner are each elected separately. Five of six top executive offices of Kansas are Republican. Governor Jeff Colyer took office on January 31, 2018 to fill the unexpired term of governor Sam Brownback who resigned to become a U.S. Ambassador. Elected in 2010 were the Attorney General Derek Schmidt of Independence; the Secretary of State Kris Kobach, of Kansas City; the State Treasurer Jacob LaTurner, of Galena; and the Insurance Commissioner Ken Selzer, of Topeka.

Legislative branch: The bicameral Kansas Legislature consists of the Kansas House of Representatives, with 125 members serving two-year terms, and the Kansas Senate, with 40 members serving four-year terms. Currently, 31 of the 40 Senators are Republican and 85 of the 125 Representatives are Republican.

Judicial branch: The judicial branch of the state government is headed by the Kansas Supreme Court. The court has seven judges. A vacancy is filled by the Governor picking one of three nominees selected by the nine-member Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission. The board consists of five Kansas lawyers elected by other Kansas lawyers and four members selected by the governor.

Since the mid-20th century, Kansas has remained one of the most socially conservative states in the nation. The 1990s brought the defeat of prominent Democrats, including Dan Glickman, and the Kansas State Board of Education's 1999 decision to eliminate evolution from the state teaching standards, a decision that was later reversed. In 2005, voters accepted a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. The next year, the state passed a law setting a minimum age for marriage at 15 years. Kansas's path to a solid Republican state has been examined by historian Thomas Frank in his 2004 book "What's the Matter with Kansas?".

Kansas has a history of many firsts in legislative initiatives—it was the first state to institute a system of workers' compensation (1910) and to regulate the securities industry (1911). Kansas also permitted women's suffrage in 1912, almost a decade before the federal constitution was amended to require it. Suffrage in all states would not be guaranteed until ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

The council–manager government model was adopted by many larger Kansas cities in the years following World War I while many American cities were being run by political machines or organized crime, notably the Pendergast Machine in neighboring Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas was also at the center of "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka", a 1954 Supreme Court decision that banned racially segregated schools throughout the U.S.

The state backed Republicans Wendell Willkie and Thomas E. Dewey in 1940 and 1944, respectively. Kansas also supported Dewey in 1948 despite the presence of incumbent president Harry S. Truman, who hailed from Independence, Missouri, approximately east of the Kansas–Missouri state line. Since Roosevelt carried Kansas in 1932 and 1936, only one Democrat has won Kansas's electoral votes, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

In 2008, Governor Kathleen Sebelius vetoed permits for the construction of new coal-fired energy plants in Kansas, saying: "We know that greenhouse gases contribute to climate change. As an agricultural state, Kansas is particularly vulnerable. Therefore, reducing pollutants benefits our state not only in the short term – but also for generations of Kansans to come." However, shortly after Mark Parkinson became governor in 2009 upon Sebelius's resignation to become Secretary of U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Parkinson announced a compromise plan to allow construction of a coal-fired plant.

In 2010, Sam Brownback was elected governor with 63 percent of the state vote. He was sworn in as governor in 2011, Kansas's first Republican governor in eight years. Brownback had established himself as a conservative member of the U.S. Senate in years prior, but since becoming governor has made several controversial decisions, leading to a 23% approval rating among registered voters, the lowest of any governor in the United States. In May 2011, much to the opposition of art leaders and enthusiasts in the state, Brownback eliminated the Kansas Arts Commission, making Kansas the first state without an arts agency. In July 2011, Brownback announced plans to close the Lawrence branch of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services as a cost-saving measure. Hundreds rallied against the decision. Lawrence City Commission later voted to provide the funding needed to keep the branch open.

The state's current delegation to the Congress of the United States includes Republican Senators Pat Roberts of Dodge City and Jerry Moran of Manhattan; and Republican Representatives Roger Marshall of Great Bend (District 1), Steve Watkins (District 2), Sharice Davids (District 3), and Ron Estes of Wichita (District 4).

Historically, Kansas has been strongly Republican, dating from the Antebellum age when the Republican Party was created out of the movement opposing the extension of slavery into Kansas Territory. Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the 1932 election, when Franklin D. Roosevelt won his first term as President in the wake of the Great Depression. This is the longest Senate losing streak for either party in a single state. Senator Sam Brownback was a candidate for the Republican party nomination for President in 2008. Brownback was not a candidate for re-election to a third full term in 2010, but he was elected Governor in that year's general election. Moran defeated Tiahrt for the Republican nomination for Brownback's seat in the August 2010 primary, then won a landslide general election victory over Democrat Lisa Johnston.

The only non-Republican presidential candidates Kansas has given its electoral vote to are Populist James Weaver and Democrats Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt (twice), and Lyndon Johnson. In 2004, George W. Bush won the state's six electoral votes by an overwhelming margin of 25 percentage points with 62% of the vote. The only two counties to support Democrat John Kerry in that election were Wyandotte, which contains Kansas City, and Douglas, home to the University of Kansas, located in Lawrence. The 2008 election brought similar results as John McCain won the state with 57% of the votes. Douglas, Wyandotte, and Crawford County were the only counties in support of President Barack Obama.

Abilene was the boyhood home to Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he maintained lifelong ties to family and friends there. Kansas was the adult home of two losing Republican candidates (Governor Alf Landon in 1936 and Senator Bob Dole in 1996).

The "New York Times" reported in September 2014 that as the Democratic candidate for Senator has tried to drop out of the race, independent Greg Orman has attracted enough bipartisan support to seriously challenge the reelection bid of Republican Pat Roberts:

The legal drinking age in Kansas is 21. In lieu of the state retail sales tax, a 10% Liquor Drink Tax is collected for liquor consumed on the licensed premises and an 8% Liquor Enforcement Tax is collected on retail purchases. Although the sale of cereal malt beverage (also known as 3.2 beer) was legalized in 1937, the first post-Prohibition legalization of alcoholic liquor did not occur until the state's constitution was amended in 1948. The following year the Legislature enacted the Liquor Control Act which created a system of regulating, licensing, and taxing, and the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) was created to enforce the act. The power to regulate cereal malt beverage remains with the cities and counties. Liquor-by-the-drink did not become legal until passage of an amendment to the state's constitution in 1986 and additional legislation the following year. As of November 2006, Kansas still has 29 dry counties and only 17 counties have passed liquor-by-the-drink with no food sales requirement. Today there are more than 2,600 liquor and 4,000 cereal malt beverage licensees in the state.

Education in Kansas is governed at the primary and secondary school level by the Kansas State Board of Education. The state's public colleges and universities are supervised by the Kansas Board of Regents.

Twice since 1999 the Board of Education has approved changes in the state science curriculum standards that encouraged the teaching of intelligent design. Both times, the standards were reversed after changes in the composition of the board in the next election.

The rock band Kansas was formed in the state capital of Topeka, the hometown of several of the band's members.

Joe Walsh, guitarist for the famous rock band the Eagles, was born in Wichita.

Singers from Kansas include Leavenworth native Melissa Etheridge, Sharon native Martina McBride, Chanute native Jennifer Knapp (whose first album was titled "Kansas"), Kansas City native Janelle Monáe, and Liberal native Jerrod Niemann.

The state anthem is the American classic Home on the Range, written by Kansan Brewster Higley. Another song, the official state march adopted by the Kansas Legislature in 1935 is called "The Kansas March", which features the lyrics, "Blue sky above us, silken strands of heat, Rim of the far horizon, where earth and heaven meet, Kansas as a temple, stands in velvet sod, Shrine which the sunshine, sanctifies to God."

The state's most famous appearance in literature was as the home of Dorothy Gale, the main character in the novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (1900). Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie", published in 1935, is another well-known tale about Kansas.

Kansas was also the setting of the 1965 best-seller "In Cold Blood", described by its author Truman Capote as a "nonfiction novel." Mixing fact and fiction, the book chronicles the events and aftermath of the 1959 murder of a wealthy farmer and his family who lived in the small West Kansas town of Holcomb in Finney County.

The winner of the 2011 Newbery Medal for excellence in children's literature, "Moon Over Manifest", tells the story of a young and adventurous girl named Abilene who is sent to the fictional town of Manifest, Kansas, by her father in the summer of 1936. It was written by Kansan Clare Vanderpool.

Lawrence is the setting for a number of science fiction writer James Gunn's novels.
Sporting Kansas City, who have played their home games at Village West in Kansas City, since 2008, are the first top-tier professional sports league and first Major League Soccer team to be located within Kansas. In 2011 the team moved to their new home, a $165m soccer specific stadium now known as Children's Mercy Park.

Historically, Kansans have supported the major league sports teams of Kansas City, Missouri, including the Kansas City Royals (MLB), the Kansas City Chiefs (NFL) and the Kansas City Brigade (AFL) – in part because the home stadiums for these teams are a few miles from the Kansas border. The Chiefs and the Royals play at the Truman Sports Complex, located about from the Kansas–Missouri state line. The Kansas City Brigade play in the newly opened Sprint Center, which is even closer to the state line at. FC Kansas City, a charter member of the National Women's Soccer League, played the 2013 season, the first for both the team and the league, on the Kansas side of the metropolitan area, but played on the Missouri side until folding after the 2017 season. From 1973 to 1997 the flagship radio station for the Royals was WIBW in Topeka.

Some Kansans, mostly from the westernmost parts of the state, support the professional sports teams of Denver, particularly the Denver Broncos of the NFL.

Two major auto racing facilities are located in Kansas. The Kansas Speedway located in Kansas City hosts races of the NASCAR, IndyCar, and ARCA circuits. Also, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) holds drag racing events at Heartland Park Topeka. The Sports Car Club of America has its national headquarters in Topeka.

The history of professional sports in Kansas probably dates from the establishment of the minor league baseball Topeka Capitals and Leavenworth Soldiers in 1886 in the Western League. The African-American Bud Fowler played on the Topeka team that season, one year before the "color line" descended on professional baseball.

In 1887, the Western League was dominated by a reorganized Topeka team called the Golden Giants – a high-priced collection of major leaguer players, including Bug Holliday, Jim Conway, Dan Stearns, Perry Werden and Jimmy Macullar, which won the league by 15½ games. On April 10, 1887, the Golden Giants also won an exhibition game from the defending World Series champions, the St. Louis Browns (the present-day Cardinals), by a score of 12–9. However, Topeka was unable to support the team, and it disbanded after one year.

The first night game in the history of professional baseball was played in Independence on April 28, 1930 when the Muscogee (Oklahoma) Indians beat the Independence Producers 13 to 3 in a minor league game sanctioned by the Western League of the Western Baseball Association with 1,500 fans attending the game. The permanent lighting system was first used for an exhibition game on April 17, 1930 between the Independence Producers and House of David semi-professional baseball team of Benton Harbor, Michigan with the Independence team winning with a score of 9 to 1 before a crowd of 1,700 spectators.

The governing body for intercollegiate sports in the United States, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), was headquartered in Johnson County, Kansas from 1952 until moving to Indianapolis in 1999.

While there are no franchises of the four major professional sports within the state, many Kansans are fans of the state's major college sports teams, especially the Jayhawks of the University of Kansas (KU), and the Wildcats of Kansas State University (KSU or "K-State"). The teams are rivals in the Big 12 Conference.

Both KU and K-State have tradition-rich programs in men's basketball. The Jayhawks are a perennial national power, ranking second in all-time victories among NCAA programs, behind Kentucky. The Jayhawks have won five national titles, including NCAA tournament championships in 1952, 1988, and 2008. They also were retroactively awarded national championships by the Helms Foundation for 1922 and 1923. K-State also had a long stretch of success on the hardwood, lasting from the 1940s to the 1980s, making four Final Fours during that stretch. In 1988, KU and K-State met in the Elite Eight, KU taking the game 71–58. After a 12-year absence, the Wildcats returned to the NCAA tournament in 2008, and advanced to the Elite Eight in 2010 and 2018. KU is fifth all-time with 15 Final Four appearances, while K-State's four appearances are tied for 17th.

Conversely, success on the gridiron has been less frequent for both KSU and KU. However, there have been recent breakthroughs for both schools' football teams. The Jayhawks won the Orange Bowl for the first time in three tries in 2008, capping a 12–1 season, the best in school history. And when Bill Snyder arrived to coach at K-State in 1989, he turned the Wildcats from one of the worst college football programs in America into a national force for most of the 1990s and early 2000s. The team won the Fiesta Bowl in 1997, achieved an undefeated (11–0) regular season and No. 1 ranking in 1998, and took the Big 12 Conference championship in 2003. After three seasons in which K-State football languished, Snyder came out of retirement in 2009 and guided them to the top of the college football ranks again, finishing second in the Big 12 in 2011 and earning a berth in the Cotton Bowl, and winning the Big 12 again in 2012.

Wichita State University, which also fields teams (called the Shockers) in Division I of the NCAA, is best known for its baseball and basketball programs. In baseball, the Shockers won the College World Series in 1989. In men's basketball, they appeared in the Final Four in 1965 and 2013, and entered the 2014 NCAA tournament unbeaten. The school also fielded a football team from 1897 to 1986. The Shocker football team is tragically known for a plane crash in 1970 that killed 31 people, including 14 of the team's players.

Notable success has also been achieved by the state's smaller schools in football. Pittsburg State University, a NCAA Division II participant, has claimed four national titles in football, two in the NAIA and most recently the 2011 NCAA Division II national title. Pittsburg State became the winningest NCAA Division II football program in 1995. PSU passed Hillsdale College at the top of the all-time victories list in the 1995 season on its march to the national runner-up finish. The Gorillas, in 96 seasons of intercollegiate competition, have accumulated 579 victories – posting a 579–301–48 overall mark.

Washburn University, in Topeka, won the NAIA Men's Basketball Championship in 1987. The Fort Hays State University men won the 1996 NCAA Division II title with a 34–0 record, and the Washburn women won the 2005 NCAA Division II crown. St. Benedict's College (now Benedictine College), in Atchison, won the 1954 and 1967 Men's NAIA Basketball Championships.

The Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference has its roots as one of the oldest college sport conferences in existence and participates in the NAIA and all ten member schools are in the state of Kansas. Other smaller school conference that have some members in Kansas are the Heartland Conference, the Midlands Collegiate Athletic Conference, the Midwest Christian College Conference, and the Heart of America Athletic Conference. Many junior colleges also have active athletic programs.

Emporia State's women's basketball team, under head coach Brandon Schneider, who is now serving as the women's basketball coach at the University of Kansas, has seen success as well. In 2010 the team won the NCAA Division II National Championship. Emporia State and Washburn in Topeka share a heated rivalry in all sports, mostly due to the close proximity of both cities.

The Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference has been heralded as one of the best conferences in all of NJCAA football, with Garden City Community College, Independence Community College, and Butler County Community College all consistently in contention for national championships.

The Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) is the organization which oversees interscholastic competition in the state of Kansas at the high school level. It oversees both athletic and non-athletic competition, and sponsors championships in several sports and activities. The association is perhaps best known for devising the overtime system now used for almost all football games below the professional level (which has also been adopted at all levels of Canadian football).
Maps

When Kansas was admitted to the United States in 1861, one of the first things the new state Legislature planned to do was to establish a state university. After two years of political wrangling, on February 16, 1863, the state accepted Manhattan's offer to donate the Blue Mont College building and grounds, and established the state's Land-grant university at the site – the institution that would become Kansas State University.

Joseph Denison (pastor)

Joseph J. Denison (October 1, 1815 – February 19, 1900) was a Methodist pastor; the first President of Kansas State University; and a founder of Manhattan, Kansas, having volunteered to go to Kansas Territory with the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1855 to fight against the extension of slavery.

Denison was born in Bernardston, Massachusetts and raised in Colrain, Massachusetts. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1840, and then served as a Methodist pastor in Massachusetts until 1855.

In 1855, Denison was convinced by his brother-in-law, Isaac Goodnow, that he should move to Kansas Territory to help establish a new town for the New England Emigrant Aid Company. On March 13, 1855, Denison joined a party of Company members leaving Boston, and made his way to Kansas Territory, which was soon to boil over with violence. (See Bleeding Kansas.) Over the next several years Denison was part of a small group that settled and built the abolitionist town of Manhattan, Kansas, at the union of the Kansas River and the Big Blue River in the Flint Hills.

By 1857 Denison and Goodnow, along with others, hatched a plan to create a Methodist college in Manhattan. In April 1857, at a meeting of the Methodist Church Conference, a plan for the college was properly inaugurated. The following year, on February 9, 1858, Manhattan's "Blue Mont Central College" was incorporated by act of the Kansas Territorial Legislature and Territorial Governor James Denver. By 1860, a large building was erected and the school was open and operating, with Denison as President. However, the institution was already struggling financially.

At the first meeting of the state Board of Regents on July 23, 1863, Denison was hired as the first President of Kansas State Agricultural College. He served in this position for ten years. During his term, Denison managed a number of important accomplishments, including establishing a faculty and acquiring valuable land that would later become the center of the university. Under his direction, the school attracted Benjamin Franklin Mudge as Chair of the geology department; Mudge led his Kansas State students on fossil-collecting expeditions to Western Kansas as part of the Bone Wars. Despite Denison's accomplishments, the state asked for his resignation in 1873.

After leaving Kansas State, Denison was hired as President of Baker University, a Methodist school in Baldwin City, Kansas. He held this position from 1874 to 1879, before retiring to work with the Methodist church in the town he helped settle, Manhattan. He died on February 19, 1900, in Manhattan, which had by then grown into a thriving college town of 3,500.

After Kansas became a U.S. state in 1861, the directors of Blue Mont Central College offered the school's three-story building and of its property to the State of Kansas to become the state's university. A bill accepting this offer easily passed the Kansas Legislature in 1861, but was controversially vetoed by Governor Charles L. Robinson of Lawrence, and an attempt to override the veto in the legislature failed by two votes. In 1862, another bill to accept the offer failed by one vote. Finally, on the third attempt, on February 16, 1863, the state enacted a law accepting the college building and grounds, and establishing the state's land-grant college at the site – the institution that would become Kansas State University. Blue Mont Central College ceased operations later that year after the school term was completed.

Blue Mont Central College

Blue Mont Central College was a private, Methodist institute of higher learning located in Manhattan, Kansas, in the United States. The college was incorporated in February 1858, and was the forerunner of Kansas State University.

The founding of the college was intertwined with the efforts of the New England Emigrant Aid Company to establish the town of Manhattan, Kansas, in 1855 as part of the effort to keep Kansas Territory from becoming a slave state.

The co-founder of the Emigrant Aid Company, Eli Thayer, wrote that the towns established by the Company should emphasize education: "to go with all our free-labor trophies: churches and schools, printing presses, steam-engines, and mills; and in a peaceful contest convince every poor man from the South of the superiority of free labor." Among the founders of Manhattan was Isaac Goodnow, a professor from Providence, Rhode Island. Goodnow led the New England Emigrant Aid Company's efforts to create a college in Manhattan.

The creation of Blue Mont Central College was formally proposed by Goodnow at a Methodist conference held in Nebraska City, Nebraska, in April 1857. The conference approved the creation of the school and appointed Goodnow and his brother-in-law Joseph Denison agents for the college.

The school was then chartered by an act of the Kansas Territorial legislature, signed by Territorial Governor James W. Denver on February 9, 1858—making it one of the first three institutes of higher education incorporated in Kansas Territory, all of which were incorporated on that date. It would take another two years, however, before the school was ready to open.

The cornerstone for the college's building was laid in a ceremony on May 10, 1859. The building was constructed of limestone, and was three stories tall when completed in 1860. It contained classrooms, offices, a library and a grand hall on the third floor. The building was sufficiently complete for the first classes to begin on January 9, 1860.

The first class consisted of 29 students. The school was open to all denominations and was coeducational from its inception. Like many new colleges in frontier states, Blue Mont College began by offering only preparatory secondary school classes. Reportedly, no students were enrolled in college-level classes before the school ceased operations in 1863.

Instructor Washington Marlatt was appointed principal of the preparatory department for the college in 1860. Joseph Denison was appointed the first President of the college in 1862.

The college was named after a prominent hill in Manhattan, Kansas. The name is sometimes written as "Bluemont" rather than "Blue Mont," but the articles of incorporation use two separate words. The term "Central" was included in the name because the founders believed Manhattan was located very near the geographic center of the United States as it existed in 1858.

Kansas State University moved from the location of old Blue Mont Central College in 1875, and the original college building was torn down in 1883. Nevertheless, Kansas State University has honored its legacy by naming a building on its present campus Bluemont Hall, by featuring an arch from the original Blue Mont Central College building over the central fireplace in the KSU Alumni Center, and by displaying the college's old bell on campus.

In 1859, provisions were written for a state university into the Wyandotte Constitution, under which Kansas became a state in 1861. The first Kansas state legislature, meeting in 1861, passed a bill that would establish the state university in Manhattan, Kansas, using the assets of the existing Blue Mont Central College. But the bill was vetoed by Governor Charles Robinson of Lawrence, and an attempt to override the veto in the Legislature failed by two votes. In 1862, another bill to make Manhattan the site of the state university failed by one vote. Finally, on February 16, 1863, the state accepted Manhattan's offer to donate the Blue Mont College building and grounds and established the state's land-grant college at the site – the institution that would become Kansas State University.

History of the University of Kansas

The history of the University of Kansas can be traced back to 1855, when efforts were begun to establish a "University of the Territory of Kansas." Nine years later in 1864, together with the help of Amos Adams Lawrence, former Kansas Governor Charles L. Robinson, and several other prominent figures, the Kansas Legislature chartered the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. The university was initially funded by a $15,000 endowment on a allotment of land from Charles Robinson and his wife Sara. The university commenced preparatory-level classes in 1866 and college-level classes in 1869.

The establishment of the university was complicated by several issues, including debates over slavery, the location of the university, and financial issues.

The idea for a public university in the Kansas Territory was first publicly raised by Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder on July 3, 1855, when he addressed members of the first territorial legislature, saying: "To enlarge upon the necessity of general education for producing good government," he told the lawmakers, "would be at this day a work of supererogation, and I leave the matter in your hands, confident it will receive the attention it deserves." Following his speech, the session responded by establishing a system of common schools for the territory, and also approved a charter for a "University of the Territory of Kansas," proposed to be located in Douglas, Kansas (near present-day Lecompton). However, this proposed university never came to be. Both Free-Staters and their opposition continued to fight fiercely for the right to control the university.

At the same time, a number of settlements across Kansas Territory were also proposing the creation of private colleges – including Lawrence, Kansas, which eventually became home to the University of Kansas.

Lawrence residents had originally proposed opening a private Free-State college in the town when it was first settled, in the summer of 1854. That fall, one of the agents of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, Charles Robinson, told treasurer Amos Adams Lawrence that the citizens of Lawrence would begin a college as soon as possible, to be located atop Hogback Ridge (later known as Mount Oread). By 1856, no private college for Lawrence was yet established, but town residents were still hoping to do so – and now also began to hope that it could later be converted into the state's university. On Christmas Day of 1856, a group of prominent Lawrence citizens adopted a resolution from a business committee stating that the time had come to establish a college in Lawrence. Fifteen trustees were appointed to govern the institution and immediately appointed a committee to petition congress for land. It was estimated that $100,000 would be necessary to get the college started properly, and that nearly all of this money would have to be raised outside of the Kansas Territory. The territorial legislature chartered a private "University of Lawrence" in January 1859, but in the end, the settlers were never able to create a private college in Lawrence.

However, the legislature distinguished Manhattan's land-grant institution from the "state university," and on February 20, 1863, Kansas Governor Thomas Carney signed into law a bill creating the state university in Lawrence. The law was conditioned upon a gift from Lawrence of a $15,000 endowment fund and a site for the university, in or near the town, of not less than forty acres (160,000 m²) of land. If Lawrence failed to meet these conditions, Emporia instead of Lawrence would get the university.
The site selected for the university was a hill known as Mount Oread or Hogback Ridge, which was owned by former Kansas Governor Charles L. Robinson. Robinson and his wife Sara traded the site to the State of Kansas in exchange for land elsewhere. The philanthropist Amos Adams Lawrence donated $10,000 of the necessary endowment fund, and the citizens of Lawrence raised the remaining cash by issuing notes backed by Governor Carney. On November 2, 1863, Governor Carney announced that Lawrence had met the conditions to get the state university, and on March 1, 1864, the University of Kansas was formally chartered.

The school's Board of Regents held its first meeting in March 1865, which is the event that KU dates its founding from. Work on the first college building (Old North College) began later that year. On July 19, 1866, the Board of Regents elected KU's first three faculty members.

The University of Kansas officially opened on September 12, 1866, with 26 girls and 29 boys registered in the preparatory school. The school began teaching college-level classes in 1869, and the first class (of four students) graduated from the university in 1873. It was one of the earliest public institutions of higher learning to admit women and men equally in the United States.

From these beginnings a rivalry with Kansas State, the oldest public institution of higher learning in the state of Kansas, was born.

A student of the early 1870s was writer and journalist Frank Harris, who describes in Volume 1 of his memoirs ("My Life and Loves", 1922) the intellectual climate he found in the university at that time. According to him, its New England liberal roots were being overtaken by conservatism.

In April 1874, the school's first serious student publication, "Observer of Nature", was issued. In March 1878, former Chancellor James Marvin led the school's first "campus beautification" project, planting over 300 trees, including an area which is now known as the "Marvin Grove".

In May 1886, professor Edgar Henry Summerfield Bailey first proposed the cheer that would evolve into the "Rock Chalk Jayhawk, K.U.” chant. Initially created for the KU science club, Bailey's version was "Rah, Rah, Jayhawk, KU" repeated three times. The rahs were later replaced by "Rock Chalk," a transposition of chalk rock, the name for the limestone outcropping found on Mount Oread, site of the Lawrence campus. Over time, the chant became known worldwide. Former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt declared it the "greatest college chant he'd ever heard." Additionally, in 1920, the King of Belgium asked for a typical American college chant at the Olympic Games. After discussion, the athletes at the Games agreed on the Rock Chalk chant.

In 1893 the Kansas Legislature authorized $50,000 for the construction of a new physics and electrical engineering building, a structure resembling a French chateau now remembered as "old" Blake Hall. The following year, the university's library, Spooner Hall was completed and opened. It is now the oldest free-standing building remaining at KU. In 1895, the first long distance ship-to-shore message using underwater wireless technology was transmitted by physics and engineering professor, Lucien I. Blake.

In March 1898, lightning struck the engineering building and the heating plant, starting major fires and destroying both buildings. As a result, former Kansas City businessman George Fowler donated $18,000 to rebuild, which became known as the Fowler Shops. The building is now Stauffer-Flint Hall, home to the journalism school.

Beginning in 1910, electric trolleys began providing service throughout Lawrence and the KU campus. In the same year, Marvin Hall was dedicated as the School of Engineering and Haworth Hall was dedicated for the departments of geology and mineralogy. One year later, a commencement ceremony was held, marking the completion of Potter Lake. On February 8, 1912, a group of KU women organized the Women's Athletic Association, the first group of its kind in the school's history. Due to the graciousness of William B. Thayer and his wife, the university received their personal art collection, valued at $150,000.

In March 1880, several KU faculty voted to establish a first-year medical course, which was eventually approved by the Board of Regents. This would lead to the creation of the University of Kansas School of Medicine with instruction in medical topics in the undergraduate school. Chemistry professor Edgar Bailey was one of the leading influences behind this course of study. However, the idea was more fully developed when professor Samuel Wendell Williston came to Kansas from Yale in 1890, and advanced the idea that a specific two-year course of study for medicine should be implemented at KU. In 1899, Williston was named the first dean of this two-year "medical school" at KU. The ultimate establishment of the KU Medical School came when the University of Kansas Board of Regents authorized the creation of a full four-year medical school at KU in 1905, accomplished by merging the existing two-year school in Lawrence with three Kansas City-area medical colleges.

The School of Engineering was officially founded in 1891, although engineering degrees were awarded as early as 1873. In 1893, the University of Kansas School of Law was founded, expanding the range of interests of KU students.
The 1890s saw the creation of an organized program of athletics at KU. In 1890, the football team was established. It played games at McCook Field from 1892 to 1921.

In 1898, the University of Kansas men's basketball program began, following the arrival of Dr. James Naismith, just six years after Naismith had invented the sport. Naismith was not initially hired to coach basketball, but rather as a chapel director and physical education instructor. In these early days, the majority of the basketball games were played against nearby YMCA teams, with YMCA's across the nation having played an integral part in the birth of basketball. Other common opponents were Haskell Indian Nations University and William Jewell College. Under Naismith, the team played only two current Big 12 schools: Missouri (twice), and Kansas State (once). Naismith was, ironically, the only coach in the program's history to have a losing record (55–60).

In 1921, Memorial Stadium was built to replace McCook Field. The football team still plays in Memorial Stadium, making it the seventh oldest college football stadium in the nation.

On May 13, 1923, William Allen White became the first KU alumnus to win a Pulitzer Prize, which was awarded to him for his Emporia Gazette editorial “To An Anxious Friend” that defended free speech. The School of Business was founded in 1924. The first campus union was built on in 1926 as a campus community center. On February 18, 1930, future KU alumnus Clyde Tombaugh announced his discovery of the planet Pluto. Later in the year, present-day Snow Hall was completed and dedicated, replacing the old, deteriorated building. Two years later, one of KU's most prolific football and wrestling stars, Pete Mehringer, qualified for the 1932 Olympics.

A major civil rights decision came on August 8, 1938. Under severe pressure from Kansas Governor Walter Huxman and several civil rights leaders, the Kansas Board of Regents voted to prohibit the practices which had prevented African American students from completing their educational careers at the KU School of Medicine. The current chancellor's residence was complete in 1939 and was known as "The Outlook". The residence was possible as a result of former benefactress Elizabeth Watkins. Danforth Chapel was officially dedicated in April 1946.

In January 1946, the University of Kansas Press was inaugurated. The publishing house later joined with other universities in Kansas, and evolved into the statewide University Press of Kansas.

In honor to the 276 KU men and women who died in World War II, the Memorial Carillon and Campanile were formally dedicated on May 27, 1951. On March 26, 1952 the KU men's basketball team won its first NCAA National Championship over St. John's, coached by Forrest Clare "Phog" Allen. Clyde Lovellette of Kansas was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, and is still the only player to lead the nation in scoring and lead his team to a national title in the same year. In 1954, the debate team won their first National Debate Tournament. In one of the most cherished occasions in KU history, Allen Fieldhouse dedicated on March 1, 1955. The KU basketball team would go on to win its only home game of the season on the same night. Supervised by chemical engineering professor Russell Mesler, a 10-kilowatt nuclear reactor became operational on campus in 1961. On February 17, 1962, the Kansas Board of Regents voted to replace the original Fraser Hall, claiming it had "outlived its usefulness." The University of Kansas Graduate School approved establishment of a master's degree in nursing in 1967. In 1968, former senator Robert F. Kennedy held presidential nomination speeches at both KU and K-State.

In one of the worst tragedies in KU history, a firebomb blasted throughout the Kansas Union in early 1970, causing nearly $1 million in damages. In 1972, KU began celebrating "Carrie Watson Day" in honor of the first and longest-serving librarian in the school's history. This same year, the women's rights movement impacted KU in a major way as thirty women, known as the February Sisters, barricaded themselves inside the East Asian Studies building, not leaving until they received an audience with the university administration. They listed a number of demands, such as childcare for students and the implementation of a Women's Studies Program. Many of their demands were met over the next decade. The School of Nursing was established in 1974 as a joint and co-equal unit of the KU Medical Center. The debate team experienced more success throughout the 1970s, winning the National Debate Tournament in 1970 and 1976. On February 21, 1978 former U.S. President Gerald Ford and several dignitaries dedicated the new KU School of Law, Green Hall.

In 1983, the debate team won the National Debate Tournament for the fourth time. KU dedicated its Vietnam Memorial in 1986, the first university in the country to construct such a monument. Led by Danny Manning, the KU men's basketball team won the NCAA championship for the first time in 36 years on April 4, 1988 in Kansas City, Missouri. This team would later become known as "Danny Manning and the Miracles". On June 15, 1991, a second major disaster struck the university. Lightning struck Hoch Auditorium, sparking a fire which destroyed the building in less than an hour.

In 1993, the KU Edwards Campus was established in Overland Park, Kansas in order to provide adults with the opportunity to complete college degrees and to further their education. The Edwards campus began providing programs developmental psychology, public administration, social work, systems analysis, engineering management and design.

In athletics, the men's basketball team made it to the Final Four in 2002 and lost the National Championship in 2003 to the Syracuse Orangemen. Lew Perkins, previously at Connecticut, replaced Al Bohl as the university's athletic director in 2003. Under Perkins's administration, the department's budget increased from $27.2 million in 2003 (10th in the conference) to over $50 million thanks in large part to money raised from a new priority seating policy at Allen Fieldhouse, a new $26.67 million eight-year contract with Adidas replacing an existing contract with Nike, and a new $40.2 million seven-year contract with ESPN Regional Television. In the summer of 2003, the Dole Institute of Politics was officially completed, in honor of former senator and KU alumnus, Bob Dole.

The football team, led by former coach Mark Mangino, won the 2008 Orange Bowl and finished the season 12–1. In 2008, the men's basketball team defeated the Memphis Tigers in San Antonio to win KU's third NCAA Basketball Championship. After rebounding from a late-game deficit, tournament Most Outstanding Player Mario Chalmers made a three-point shot to force overtime. The Jayhawks went on to win with a score of 75–68. Additionally, in 2009, the debate team won the National Debate Tournament for the fifth time in school history. Also in 2009, Bernadette Gray-Little became the first woman and African American to serve as chancellor at the university. Gray-Little retired on June 30, 2017.