Before the discovery of gold in
California in 1848, few but explorers,
fur-traders, trappers, and hunters, ventured to cross the Missouri River
into the wilderness of the vast West. The discovery of gold, however, on the Pacific
Slope, created the wildest enthusiasm throughout the land, and a tide of
emigration to California set in. Hundreds and thousands of ill-fated
adventurers crossed the Missouri River, the Great Plains and the mountains -- some of them to success, but more to
disappointment, illness, and death. Though few people made
their fortunes in the goldfields, the waves of people heading westward would continue
for the next several decades -- thousands of whom made their way along the
multiple pathways through Kansas.
In 1854, Kansas became a territory when the
Kansas-Nebraska Act was
signed. A provision of the act allowed the settlers of Kansas Territory to
determine by popular sovereignty whether Kansas would be a free state or a
slave state. The differences between the northern states and the southern
states had been broiling for years, and this provision brought people from
near and far flooding into the new territory in order to sway the
decision. For six years, political wars and bloody battles, were fought in
the territory in attempts to sway the state one way or another. During
this time the territory was known as "Bleeding Kansas."
In the meantime, gold was discovered in
Colorado in 1858, creating even greater
excitement throughout the country than did its discovery ten years before
in California. Emigration rolled towards the new Eldorado with unexampled
rapidity. A more motley tide of humanity never set in, north, south, east,
or west. The year 1859 will ever be memorable for the number and
miscellaneous character of travelers to Pike's Peak. Old men and mere
boys, educated and ignorant, saints and sinners, philanthropists and
robbers, professional and lay, -- all defied hunger, cold, nakedness, and
Indians, in their red-hot enthusiasm for gold-digging. The "Great Plains"
swarmed with all sorts of animals and vehicles, conveying men, and some
women, with goods and chattels, to the gold region.