The following discussion was drafted by its author without significant input from others, and is very incomplete. Discussion is invited, either through the discussion forum mailing list (link given below) or by private e-mail.
As stated in the article about the treatment of Native Americans in the early history of Kansas (link given below), the site of Topeka, proper, was on land ceded to the federal government in trust by the Kansa Indians in the Kansa Treaty of 1846. This land was ceded to the federal government with the understanding that it would be used to resettle other Native American tribes that were then being forcibly relocated from the East and not for white settlement. By 1846 native tribes generally understood well enough that, if white settlement was allowed, the settlers would drive the tribes off of the land they retained.
Nevertheless, on May 30, 1854, Congress enacted the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This statute divided the former unorganized Indian Territory west of Missouri and Iowa into Kansas and Nebraska Territories, made Nebraska a free territory, and left the determination of the slavery issue in Kansas to the voters of that Territory, with the full expectation that Kansas' neighbor Missouri would be able to secure a majority in favor of the ultimate admission of Kansas as a slaveholding state. Thus, the Kansas-Nebraska Act effectively nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1821. Missouri corporations were organized almost immediately upon the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with the declared purpose of settling the only two sites in the new territory that were even arguably lawful locations for white towns at that time, one being on a strip of land associated with the Fort Leavenworth military reservation, the other on a piece of land of questionable title which became Atchison. These were to be pro-slavery communities.
Also almost simultaneously with enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Massachusetts Legislature incorporated the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society to assist free-state emigrants to Kansas and free-state communities in Kansas. Lawrence was founded on August 1, 1854, by free-state people supported by the Emigrant Aid Society, who settled Indian trust land not technically available for white settlement. Tecumseh, in what soon became Shawnee County, was established by pro-slavery people on Indian trust land that fall. A group of free-staters, including Charles Robinson, a business agent of the Emigrant Aid Society, also settled the area around the original Topeka townsite, building shanties and starting to prepare farms so that they could later claim preemption rights. On December 5, 1854, nine of these free-state men met, formed an organization they called the Topeka Town Association, and laid plans to preempt the 320 acres allowed for a townsite plus pieces of individual farms totaling a mile and a half square, which they planned to preempt as soon as the land entered the public domain. It cannot be stressed enough that the Town Association had formed, laid out a town, and started a business selling town lots two years before it was even lawful to settle here. The desire to establish a town full of white men opposed to black slavery joined with the greed of those white men in establishing the town on land held for the Indians (whose rights were never considered).
Topeka has, thus, always been a competitive, profit-minded city. It was thus when it was founded and I see no indication that this has changed. Charles Sheldon tried to address this competitive, laissez-faire attitude in the city, but made little progress outside his own church congregation. Topeka has also always been a retail city. It grew up to service the traffic on the two major transcontinental trails that passed near or through it and the Indian trading posts to the west of it. As the trails, and, later, the railroads grew, Topeka grew. Topeka capitalists and, in several instances, the governments of City of Topeka and Shawnee County, were major investors and moving forces behind many of the railroads which doomed the Indians in this state. But it is noteworthy that, of all of the businesses discussed by F.W. Giles as arising in Topeka in the first 30 years of its existence, all but five were retail, real estate, transportation or financial businesses. Two of these five, a bridge works and a rolling mill, failed within a few years of their founding. Two others, a brickworks and an iron foundry, were necessary to construction in the city and sold most of their products locally. (Indeed, according to Giles, the largest industry in Topeka in 1870 was residential construction.)
The only industrial plant which survived the turn of the 20th Century in Topeka producing anything not intended for local sale and use was the Santa Fe shops, an industry directly connected with a railroad. The Santa Fe shops appear to have remained Topeka's only major production industry in 1915.
This is not to say that there is no industrial activity in Topeka today, other than Santa Fe (now BNSF). Since 1915 there have been three major periods of industrial growth in Topeka, the opportunity for each of them being created by forces outside Topeka which our local leadership was unable to resist. First, the Second World War created a national emergency which led to the creation of the Goodyear plant in Topeka, a cellophane plant in Tecumseh, near Topeka, and several other plants which have since closed. It also led to the creation of the (since closed) Forbes Air Force Base, which caused the south end of Topeka to grow. Similar forces sustained the war emergency industries during the Korean war. Second, between 1957 and about 1970, the City of Topeka used the Federal Urban Renewal law to remove the oldest (and allegedly "blighted") African American residential community in Topeka, that along and north of 4th Street but south of the river—and the entire African American business district—to make room for Interstate 70 and an envisioned new (all white) business and industrial ditrict. (There were numerous, mostly well-founded, charges of racism in the operation of Urban renewal in Topeka, but it went forward anyway). However, the land cleared by Urban Renewal had to be sold, not to local insiders, but by procedures stated in Federal regulations under Federal supervision. This allowed Hallmark Cards to build their plant in Topeka, allowed Hill's Pet Products to expand here, and allowed several other smaller industrial plants to move in (some of which are still in existence, others are not). Finally, roughly coincident with the end of Urban Renewal, Forbes Air Force Base ceased to be an active air base (though it still has an Air National Guard unit and the city's military reserve center). This left several large tracts of former air base land in need of redevelopment. The city ultimately took the land, and converted most of it into two industrial parks (which was one of only a few options the Federal government would allow). Several small industrial plants now operate out of the Forbes industrial parks.
However, Topeka is still not exactly friendly to manufacturing, or anything else that pays ordinary people very well. Manufacturing is proportionately, even when Topeka is compared to other cities its size, a very small proportion of the employment picture in Topeka. What really thrives here is government and related financial businesses, law firms, lobbyists, retail, fast food, health care facilities and insurance businesses. Moreover, as noted above most of what manufacturing industry does exist here was able to come into being here more or less over the heads of local political leaders, either because of an emergency (a war or base closure) or because the opportunity to advance some policy they deemed more important (e.g., the suppression of the African American community and its successful businesses) forced their hands. All of Topeka's current industrial plants had located here by 1970.
During my 20 years in Topeka, I have noted that, while the city and county governments from time to time put on great activity, with a lot of public fanfare, trying to attract new industry to Topeka, they have never yet succeeded at landing one new industrial plant. Indeed, what few industrial plants were present when I first moved here have been gradually reducing their operations or closing entirely. This pattern apparently goes back to the very beginnings of Topeka, which has always been a retail town. This has definite implications for city demographics, since retail and foodservice occupations tend to be poorly paid compared to industrial ones.
This is not to say that there are no prosperous, even wealthy, people in Topeka. There are well-to-do people here. Topeka is a state capital, replete with a large state payroll and many private practice attorneys. Topeka has numerous financial institutions, including main offices of a couple of large insurance companies that pay their officers and managers well. And there are also many physicians in Topeka, which has more psychiatrists per capita than any other city in the world. But most of the rest of the population in Topeka is paid below, in some categories substantially below, national averages.
Unfortunately, the greed, exploitation and competitiveness which attended the founding of the city are also a part of its churches. This is discussed further in the page on "injelitance" linked below.
** This section is very incomplete. I will add more later. Assistance and correction are definitely welcome.**
Past treatment of Native Americans as a demonic stronghold
Areas for repentance (first list)
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