| The Kansas Frontier |  |
| Coronado, in his search to find gold for Spain,
Was the first European on the green Kansas plane.
Explorers and traders were arriving from France.
They saw the buffalo and the Indians who danced.
At the mouth of the Kaw were campfires in the dark;
Two men by the river named Lewis and Clark.
Large numbers of Indians, forced out from the East,
Resettled to Kansas where the buffalo feast.
So, many a cowboy decided to stay,
It wasn't very long and most Indians were forced away.
When Missouri joined the Union; the slave states equaled the free.
Which way would Kansas vote, congress was anxious to see?
The Heart-Landers were bleeding; their towns were on fire;
As raiders from the slave states tried to force their desire.
The settlement of Lawrence was sacked by a mob,
In revenge came John Brown, who would murder and rob.
Kansas joined the Union as the Civil War began.
After four long years of tragedy, many women lost their man.
Cattle trails met the railroads as they pushed across the state.
Farmers planted corn and wheat as the buffalo awaited their fate.
Those frontier days have long since gone, though the sunflower is still here;
My childhood home of Kansas where the buffalo roam with the deer. | By Tom Zart
Copyright 2005
Listed April 27, 2007
Tom Zart's site |
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