We have often wondered why there is no state college in southwest Kansas, since there is one in every other quadrant of the state. Of course, the locations of our state universities (hardly anyone goes to a “college” anymore) were not according to any plan. Their genesis depended as much on local support and effort as anything. The story begins in 1863 when the Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science formed in Manhattan as the nation’s first land-grant college. The University of Kansas came along three years later, and the state was set to grow two great universities. Both would be served by the state’s first rail line and near the population centers of the state’s northeast.
Source: The Iola Register
