Shawnee, Kansas

City: Shawnee

County: Johnson

State: Kansas

Lat/Long: 39.0333, -94.7167

Shawnee, Kansas is a city in Johnson County, Kansas. As the name suggests, the area around Shawnee was home to the Shawnee Nation, who had a reservation in the area. In 1831, Christian missionaries established a Shawnee mission on the site that would become Shawnee. The first Kansas Territorial Legislature met at the Shawnee mission school building in July 1855. The town came into existence in 1857 when several white families located near the mission. In August 1857, the first store was opened, and in 1858, settlers built a saw and grist mill. The U.S. Post Office Department established a post office in the town in July 1858. During the Civil War, guerrillas pillaged the town twice, in 1862 and 1864, burning thirteen homes each time.

William E. Connelley, A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans (Chicago: Lewis, 1918), 1:409; Ed Blair, History of Johnson County Kansas (Lawrence, KS: Standard, 1915), 159-60; Frank W. Blackmar, ed., Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History (Chicago: Standard, 1912), 2:682-83.