SPRING 1855: BECOMING MANHATTAN

when Issac Goodnow and the other settlers established Boston, Kansas Territory, in April 1855, it was literally on the U.S. frontier. Even though the small settlement was located in the eastern part of Kansas Territory, there was little to be found west of Boston but Fort Riley and vast plains stretching to the Rockies, the bison hunting grounds for Native American tribes.¹ To the south of Boston were camps of Osage traders and, beyond that, Indian territory extending south to the border of Texas.² When the Territorial Legislature established thirty-three original counties in Kansas Territory in August 1855, Boston’s county