The history of Wichita details the history of Wichita, Kansas from its initial settlement in the 1860s to the present day.
Prehistory and exploration
The site at the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers has served as a trading center and meeting place for nomadic hunting people for at least 11,000 years. Human habitation in the Wichita area has been dated, in archeological digs, as far back as 3,000 B.C.
The area was visited by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in 1541, while he was in search of the fabulous "cities of gold". While there, he encountered a group of Native Americans whom he called Quiviras and who have been identified by archaeological and historical studies as the Wichita. By 1719, these people had moved south to Oklahoma, where they met French traders.
The first permanent settlement in Wichita was a collection of grass houses inhabited by the Wichita tribe in 1864. They had moved back to Wichita from Oklahoma during the American Civil War because of their support for the Union.
Pioneer cowtown
Pioneer trader Jesse Chisholm, a half-white, half-Native American who was illiterate but who spoke multiple Native American languages, established a trading post at the site in the 1860s, and Chisholm traded cattle and goods with the Wichita tribe at points south along a trail from Wichita into present-day Oklahoma (and eventually into Texas) that became known as the Chisholm Trail, which soon became legendary in Western lore. Chisholm was soon eclipsed in the area by three astute businessmen: commercial buffalo hunters and traders James R. Mead (of Iowa), William Greiffenstein (a German immigrant merchant), and Buffalo Bill Mathewson (not to be confused with Buffalo Bill Cody); these men led the initial commercial development of the area, becoming key landowners of what became the city of Wichita.
Hunters, farmers and Native Americans in the area all turned to the newborn tiny settlement as a principal trading center for the area, while Wichita's entrepreneurs began an aggressive sales campaign to lure more settlers (their future customers and tenants) to the area, with the "boosterism" typical of successful early prairie settlements. The city, on the east bank of the Arkansas River, was officially incorporated in 1870. Among the signatories on the town charter was a lone woman, the town laundry operator, Catherine "The Widow" McCarty, whose elder teenage son, after leaving Wichita, would become the infamous gunman, Billy the Kid.
Wichita's position on the Chisholm Trail made it a destination for cattle drives headed north to access railroads to eastern markets. The Chisholm Trail ran along the east side of the community from 1867 to 1871. In late 1872 the Wichita and Southwestern Railroad completed a 27-mile branch line from Wichita to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway at Newton. As a result, Wichita became a railhead for cattle drives from Texas and other south-western points, from which it has derived its nickname "Cowtown." Wichita's neighboring town on the opposite (west) bank of the Arkansas River, Delano, a village of saloons and brothels, had a particular reputation for lawlessness, largely accommodating the rough, visiting cattlemen. The Wichita/Delano community gained a wild reputation, however, the east (Wichita) side of the river was kept more civil, thanks to numerous well-known lawmen who passed through, employed to help keep the rowdy cowboys in line. Among those was Wyatt Earp.
Following the incorporation of the city in 1870, rapid immigration resulted in a land boom involving speculation into the late 1880s. Wichita annexed Delano in 1880. By 1890, Wichita had become the third-largest city in the state (behind Kansas City and Topeka), with a population of nearly 24,000. After the boom the city suffered from 15 years of comparative depression and slow growth. The Wichita Eagle, which began publication in 1872, is the city's major daily newspaper. It was founded and edited for forty years by Marshall Murdock (1837-1908), a major player in local and state Republican politics, as well as doubling as postmaster.Captain Henry King, "Marshall M. Murdock" Kansas State History online
Wichita reached national fame in 1900 when Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) member Carrie Nation decided to carry her crusade against alcohol to Wichita. On December 27 of that year she entered the Carey House bar in downtown Wichita and smashed the place with a rock and a pool ball. Although she had visited all the bars in Wichita the night before, demanding that they close their doors, the John Noble painting Cleopatra at the Roman Bath in the Carey House had drawn her particular wrath.
An island in the middle of the Arkansas River, named Ackerman Island, was home to an amusement park and a dance pavilion. The island was connected to the West Bank of the river through a Work Projects Administration (WPA) project in the 1930s.
Oil boom In 1914-1915 oil and gas were first discovered in nearby Butler County. These discoveries form part of the vast Mid-Continent oil province. Several local producers established headquarters, refineries, and retail outlets, in Wichita as it was the nearest large city.
Archibald L. Derby participated in oil booms in Southeast Kansas, Oklahoma, and in 1916 he drilled a successful well in Butler county. He went on to found Derby Oil Company that owned a refinery in Wichita at 21st and Washington Street. and had gas stations throughout the region. In 1955 Derby Oil was acquired by Colorado Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of Colorado Interstate Gas, which became part of Coastal Corporation in 1973.
John (Jack) Vickers (1891-1940) was another Wichita oil mogul who got his start in the Butler oil fields. Founder of Vickers Petroleum, in 1920, he built a refinery in Potwin Kansas about 20 miles northeast of Wichita. In 1934, at 8500 E Central, he built one of the largest mansions (named Vickridge) seen in Kansas up to that time. In 1961 the estate became the new site for the Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School.
By 1917 there were five refineries operating in Wichita. Seven more were built in the 1920s. But only three were still operating at the end of that decade. The Coastal-Derby refinery was the last to close in 1993 with none remaining thru 2010. It was demolished in 2004.
In 1925 Fred C. Koch, a chemical engineer, joined a fellow MIT classmate, P.C. Keith, at Keith-Winkler Engineering in Wichita. Following the departure of Keith in 1925, the firm became Winkler-Koch Engineering Company. In 1927, Koch developed a more efficient thermal cracking process for turning crude oil into gasoline which allowed smaller players in the industry to better compete with the oil majors. The larger oil companies quickly sued in response, filing 44 different lawsuits against Koch, and embroiling him in litigation for years. Koch was to prevail in all but one of the suits (which was later over-turned due to the fact that the judge had been bribed). This extended litigation effectively put Winkler-Koch out of business in the U.S. for several years. Koch turned his focus to foreign markets, including the Soviet Union, where Winkler-Koch built 15 cracking units between 1929 and 1932. Koch and his family would go on to become the wealthiest residents of both Wichita and the state of Kansas.
"Air Capital of the World"
Wichita's principal industry is aircraft manufacturing, as it has been for several decades. The city claims the title "Air Capital of the World" based on having produced more aircraft than any other city, anywhere—an estimated over 250,000 aircraft in the last 100 years. The city produces approximately one-fifth of U.S. civilian aircraft, and has generally been the world leader in the production of light aircraft and business jets, in addition to substantial production of military and commercial aircraft, and their subassemblies, and related products.
In the 20th century, aviation pioneers such as Clyde Cessna and Walter Beech began projects that led to Wichita's establishment as the "Air Capital of the World". The aircraft manufacturers Laird, Swallow, Travel Air, Stearman, Cessna, Mooney, and Beechcraft were all founded in Wichita in the 1920s and early 1930s—leading to the city's rise to the nation's highest-volume producer of aircraft by 1929. Under those companies, and subsequently with added aircraft factories of Boeing, Learjet, Bombardier Aerospace, Raytheon, Culver, Belite, and others, Wichita eventually produced over a quarter-million aircraft, and aircraft manufacturing remains its principal industry today.
In 1914 and 1915, oil was discovered nearby and Wichita became a major oil center. The money derived from oil allowed local entrepreneurs to invest in a nascent airplane industry. In 1917 the Cessna Comet became the first aircraft to be built in Wichita.
In 1920, oilmen Jacob M. "Jake" Mollendick and Billy Burke invited young Chicago barnstormer and aircraft builder Emil Matthew "Matty" Laird to come to Wichita to build his new airplane design, backed by their money. The Laird Swallow became an instant success, the first successful "commercial" airplane manufactured in the United States; Laird built 43 of them between 1920 and 1923. When Matty Laird returned to Chicago, the Wichita enterprise was renamed Swallow Airplane Company. Lloyd Stearman and Walter Beech were both employees of the Swallow Company, but in January 1925 they left Swallow and teamed up with Clyde Cessna to form Travel Air, whose airplanes soon outsold Swallow's. Stearman left Travel Air in 1926 to start Stearman Aircraft in Venice, California, and Cessna quit in January 1927 to start Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita. In 1927, Stearman relocated his factory back to Wichita. By 1929, at least a dozen more Wichita aircraft manufacturers arose (most producing small—even singular—quantities of aircraft).
In 1927, ground on the southeast side of town was purchased to use as the site for the Wichita Municipal Airport. However, the Great Depression interrupted construction. The terminal and runways were finished as WPA projects in the 1930s. In the 1940s the Municipal Airport site also hosted the Wichita Army Airfield and Boeing Airplane Company Plant No. 1. In the 1950s the military took full control of the site and named it McConnell Air Force Base. In 1954, civilian airline service moved to the new Wichita Mid-Continent Airport (now known as the Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport) on the west side of town. Other airports in Wichita include the Colonel James Jabara Airport and Beech Field.
From 1927 to 1929, Travel Air, with Walter Beech at the helm, grew to over 600 employees and operated from a huge factory complex constructed a few miles outside the city. Due to so many employees working at such a large complex, it was dubbed "Travel Air City" by Wichita residents. The company merged with the huge Curtiss-Wright Corporation in the Roaring Twenties' heyday of company buyouts and takeovers just two months before the Stock Market crash in 1929. Workers were laid off by the hundreds during 1930 and 1931 and by the fall of 1932, the remaining Travel Air employees were let go, the equipment was sold, and the entire Travel Air plant sat empty.
By 1928, Wichita's varied aircraft industry was producing the highest volume of aircraft of any city in the United States (927 airplanes that year) and established Wichita as the nation's "Air Capital"—a title officially accorded to Wichita in 1929 (for 1928 production), by the American airplane manufacturers' national trade association, then known as the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce. In sidebar "About Monocoupe Production Numbers".