As soon as the Kansas Territory was opened for settlement in 1854, towns sprang up like mushrooms--first along the Missouri border, then steadily westward along trail routes, rivers, and railroad lines. Many of them barely got beyond the drawing board and hundreds of them flowered briefly and died, victims of the "boom or bust" economy of the frontier and the vagaries of weather, finance, mining, agriculture, railroad construction, and politics.

Ghost Towns of Kansas is a practical guide to these forsaken settlements and a chronicle of their role in the history of Kansas. It...

Nyle H. Miller and Joseph W. Snell's Why the West Was Wild is the unabridged and unsurpassed collection of material assembled on the famous and infamous personalities of Kansas cowtowns, including legendary figures such as "Wild Bill" Hickok, Bat Masterson, and Doc Holliday, and such locales as Abilene, Wichita, Caldwell, and Dodge City. First published in the Kansas Historical Quarterly, these portraits are based on research in newspapers, legal records, letters, and diaries contemporary to these legendary figures. This anniversary edition is the first complete edition to appear in forty...

Nyle H. Miller and Joseph W. Snell's Why the West Was Wild is the unabridged and unsurpassed collection of material assembled on the famous and infamous personalities of Kansas cowtowns, including legendary figures such as "Wild Bill" Hickok, Bat Masterson, and Doc Holliday, and such locales as Abilene, Wichita, Caldwell, and Dodge City. First published in the Kansas Historical Quarterly, these portraits are based on research in newspapers, legal records, letters, and diaries contemporary to these legendary figures. This anniversary edition is the first complete edition to appear in forty...