Around Kansas Constitution Hall Lecompton

Описание: Our favorite Kansas historian in exile is with us this morning. Michelle Martin is coming to us from Arizona with a story about one of my favorite places in Kansas and hers too. Good morning, Michelle.
Michelle: Good morning, Deb. From time to time, I want to use my historical adventure segments on this show to introduce our viewers to some of Kansas’ incredible historic sites and structures. Today, we're going to take a trip to the community of Lecompton and Constitution Hall. With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in May 1854, settlers began streaming into Kansas territory. People from all parts of the Northern, Eastern and Southern United States made their way to Kansas to settle and vote in territorial elections to decide the fate of the new territory. Would Kansas be a free or slave state?
Among the settlers who trekked to Kansas was Samuel Jefferson Jones, a Virginia native, and entrepreneur. A pro-slavery advocate, Jones was active in Kansas territorial politics. He was appointed Sheriff of Douglas County by Governor Daniel Woodson in 1855. From 1855 to 1861. The community of Lecompton formerly known as Bald Eagle served as the territorial capital of Kansas territory.
Located near the Coon river, the community was an ideal location for settlers given the rich land, access to river transportation, and its status as the territorial capital. In 1856 the enterprising Jones constructed a multi-storey wood-frame structure in Lecompton and rented its rooms to various organizations. This building would come to be known as Constitution Hall.
During the tumultuous debate of Kansas’ entry into the union, Constitution Hall was one of the busiest places in the territory. The first floor of the hall housed the United States Federal Land Office. Settlers eager to stake their claims to land in the territory registered their claims here. The Territorial Legislature used the second floor of Constitution Hall as its meeting place in 1857.
Here legislators drafted and debated the Lecompton Constitution, which called for Kansas to enter the Union as a slave state. In addition, Constitution Hall's second floor was also home to the district court, which met occasionally to enforce territorial laws and here cases brought before the bench. When Free State forces led by Charles Robinson and James Henry Lane, assumed the legislative control of the territory in the fall of 1857, Constitution Hall once again played host to the legislature.
However, given the building's connection to the pro-slavery faction, the legislature moved its meetings to the Free State stronghold of Lawrence in 1858. With Kansas’ entry into the Union in 1861, Constitution Hall took on new tenants and functions in the community. Freemasons, Odd fellows, the Rebecca Lodge and the Grand Army of the Republic, all used Constitution Hall as a meeting place.
The building also housed a hotel, dry goods store, undertaker's parlor, telephone office, public polling station, and community assembly hall. Sadly, by the 1970s, the oldest wooden structure in Kansas was showing her age. In 1974, Constitution Hall was designated a national landmark and through the tireless efforts of community historians like Paul Bond Meyer, and legislators Wind Winter and Frank Gaines, Constitution Hall was gifted to the Kansas Historical Society.
After extensive restoration, the site opened to the public and as a focal point of community pride. Constitution Hall is a touchdown to the past, where visitors can stand where history was made. The first floor features the Federal Land Office exhibit, and the wooden candle box stuffed with fraudulent election ballots in favor of the Lecompton Constitution is on display. The second floor serves as a meeting space, where educational programs like the Bleeding Kansas Lecture Series are presented for the public.
The Lecompton Reenactors, a volunteer living history organization, help bring the men and women of Lecompton and Constitution Hall also passed to life at the site. Today, Constitution Hall is a state historic site operated by the Kansas Historical Society and Site Administrator Tim Lewis. On occasion, Tim can be found shouting defiance from the front porch of Constitution Hall much like Jim Lane did so many years ago. Thanks for joining me today. I look forward to our next historical adventures somewhere around Kansas.
Deb: Well, happy Wednesday morning. As always, we appreciate you sharing part of your day with us and we'll see you somewhere around Kansas.