Kansas’s central position on migration and cattle trails and railroads during the nineteenth century made it a region through which large numbers of immigrants passed on their way west. Many of them went no farther.
The first European to lead an exploration of the region that would become the state of Kansas was
The first permanent white settlers began dribbling into the territory during the 1830’s. The pace of their settlement accelerated after the passage of the
After the Civil War (1861-1865), many military veterans, along with European immigrant groups, settled and constructed homesteads in Kansas.
More English-speaking immigrants from Ireland,
During the late twentieth century, the Hispanic population had an increasing impact on the demographics of the Great Plains. Meatpacking and construction companies began to recruit and hire
Blouet, Brian W., and Frederick C. Luebke. The Great Plains: Environment and Culture. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. Gjerde, Jon. The Minds of the West: The Ethnocultural Evolution of the Rural Middle West, 1830-1917. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979. Webb, Walter Prescott. The Great Plains. New York: Ginn, 1931. Wishart, David J., ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
Czech and Slovakian immigrants
German immigrants
Iowa
Latin American immigrants
Missouri
Nebraska
Scandinavian immigrants