[10] The declaration of a free state added to the tension between the anti-slave abolitionists and pro-slave Confederate guerrillas.

In October 1862, Willam Quantrill ordered an attack on Shawnee, which saw the town pillaged and burned to the ground.

[11] Quantrill and his army of bushwhackers return in the summer of 1863, to raid and look for an escape route from Lawrence, which he was intending to sack.

The raids on Shawnee served as a training exercise before attempting the full scale siege on Lawrence.

Lawrence was established for the political reason of being an anti-slave town and had many clashes with the confederate army started before the American Civil War.

The first documented event of Bleeding Kansas was the Wakarusa War that saw both sides clash and come to a temporary truce.

[17] The 2020 United States census counted 67,311 people, 25,631 households, and 18,131 families in Shawnee.

According to the town's 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report,[29] the top employers in the city are: Shawnee has a council–manager government.

Two branches of the Johnson County Library serves the Shawnee Mission area.

[32][33][34] Shawnee is in the Kansas City metropolitan area's television and radio markets.

The Shawnee Dispatch was a weekly newspaper published by the Lawrence Journal-World and The World Company[35] which ceased operation in November 2018.

Notable individuals who were born in and/or have lived in Shawnee include energy executive Linda Cook,[38] former Attorney General of Kansas Phill Kline,[39] and comedian Chris Porter.