In 1803, most of the land for modern day Kansas was acquired by the United States from France as part of the 828,000 square mile Louisiana Purchase for 2.83 cents per acre.

Pawnee, named after a native tribe that had inhabited its land,[2] was located on the far western frontier of Kansas Territory, between the new settlement of Manhattan and the U.S. Army post at Fort Riley.

[3] Fort Riley's commander, Colonel William R. Montgomery, authorized the acquisition by the Pawnee Town Association investors of 400 acres believed to be part of the military reservation.

[4] In December 1854 or January 1855, the site was selected as capital by recently-commissioned first Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder, after his delayed arrival from Pennsylvania.

[5] Governor Reeder had an economic stake in the site, since he was one of the investors and a new landowner in the settlement,[4] and he was not disappointed: Within six weeks of his announcement, hundreds of people arrived in the town.

The February 1855 census showed 36 residents in Pawnee, but 75 votes were cast there[9] in the March 30 election, held at the home of Robert Klotz.

[13] But many free-staters felt that Reeder had intentionally delayed the spring election until pro-slavery men from neighboring Missouri could arrive and cast votes they should not have been allowed.

They were unhappy that Governor Reeder had put the capital over 100 miles from the Missouri border, feeling that the location favored the free-state advocates in Kansas Territory.

[19] Undiscouraged, the pro-slavery legislators' first action was to unseat all but one of the free-state men, and one who lost his position exclaimed that they were, "lighting the watchfires of war".

[16] The only free-state legislator who remained, Martin Conway, appeared also to be at odds with Reeder, standing during the Governor's opening address to denounce the body and proclaim that he was prepared to dishonor any of its laws.

[17] Despite the Governor and Conway, another quick action the legislators took was a successful vote to move the capital to Shawnee Mission, on the Missouri border.

[b] Soon after Pawnee lost its function as capital, in September 1855, Jefferson Davis, the Secretary of War, surveyed the settlement and showed the results to U.S. President Franklin Pierce.

[32] Union Pacific Railroad lines reached the abandoned town in 1866 – as part of a transcontinental route approved by the Pawnee legislature – passing just yards away from the north side of the capitol.