Manhattan, Kansas
[6][7] The city was founded by settlers from the New England Emigrant Aid Company as a Free-State town in the 1850s, during the Bleeding Kansas era.[8] The Kaw tribe ceded ownership of this land in a treaty signed at the Shawnee Methodist Mission on January 14, 1846.[10] Later that year, Samuel D. Houston and three other pioneers founded Canton, a neighboring community near the mouth of the Big Blue River.[12] Led by Isaac Goodnow, the first members of the group (with the help of Samuel C. Pomeroy) selected the location of the Polistra and Canton claims for the Aid Company's new settlement.Soon after the New Englanders arrived at the site, in April 1855, they agreed to join Canton and Polistra to make one settlement named Boston.In June 1855, the paddle steamer Hartford, carrying 75 settlers from Ohio, ran aground in the Kansas River near the settlement.The Ohio settlers, who were members of the Cincinnati-Manhattan Company, had been headed 20 miles (32 km) farther upstream to the headwaters of the Kansas River, the location today of Junction City.[13] After realizing they were stranded, the Hartford passengers accepted an invitation to join the new town, but insisted that it be renamed Manhattan, which was done on June 29, 1855.[8] However, nearby Fort Riley protected the settlement from the major violence visited upon other Free-State towns during the "Bleeding Kansas" era.Manhattan was one of the last significant settlements on the route west, and the village's merchants did a brisk business selling supplies to miners.[8][16][17] By the time the Kansas Pacific Railroad laid its tracks west through Manhattan in 1866, the 11-year-old settlement was permanently ensconced in the tallgrass prairie.However, the downtown area – Manhattan's original site – was built on a broad, flat floodplain at the junction of the Kansas and Big Blue rivers.The lake was formed when the Big Blue River was dammed for flood control in the 1960s, and it is now a state park that offers many recreational opportunities.It caused largely minor damage, reports of which were confined to Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri, according to the United States Geological Survey.If an earthquake had occurred along the Nemaha Ridge prior to 2010, it could have destroyed the dam on Tuttle Creek Reservoir, releasing 300,000 feet (91,440 m) of water per second and flooding the nearby area, threatening roughly 13,000 people and 5,900 homes.To address this threat, the Army Corps of Engineers completed a project in July 2010 that replaced the sand with more than 350 concrete walls and equipped the dam with sensors.[27][28] Manhattan was built on a floodplain at the junction of the Kansas and Big Blue rivers, and it has faced recurring problems with flooding from heavy precipitation.However, traditional measures of income and poverty can be misleading when applied to cities with high student populations, such as Manhattan.Kansas State University is the largest employer in town, and its approximately 24,000 students help support the retail and entertainment venues in the city.[54] Finally, most of the 150 employees in the Kansas Department of Agriculture work in a new office building in Manhattan, next to the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF).Large private sector employers in Manhattan include the Ascension Via Christi Hospitals, CivicPlus, and Farm Bureau.The Steel & Pipe Supply Co. began in Manhattan in 1933, with corporate headquarters in the city although it has moved its fabrication and distribution to other locations.The highest vote winner in a general election is established to serve as mayor on the third year of a four-year term.Representative Mike Dodson (R) serves in District 67, which includes portions of south, west, and northern Riley County.The buildings for The Flint Hills Job Corps Training Center west of the city were once used as a nursing home and orphanage operated by the Fraternal Order of Odd Fellows.Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium, Bramlage Coliseum, and McCain Auditorium host national events, including lectures and concerts.In 2009, the Manhattan, Kansas, metropolitan statistical area (MSA) ranked as the fifth highest in the United States for percentage of commuters who walked to work (8.5 percent).Domestic passenger rail service to Manhattan began on August 20, 1866, on the Kansas Pacific Railroad line.Within the City of Manhattan, general public transportation is provided by Riley County's ATA Bus service.[73] In the 1950s, Route 40 was rerouted nine miles south of Manhattan, due to security concerns that originally arose during World War II about the highway passing through neighboring Fort Riley.
County seatRiley CountyKansasCountryUnited StatesCountiesPottawatomieIncorporatedCommission-ManagerTime zoneUTC−6UTC−5ZIP CodesArea codeFIPS codeGNIS IDRiley County, KansasPottawatomie CountyKansas RiverBig Blue River2020 censusNew England Emigrant Aid CompanyFree-StateBleeding KansasNew York CityBig AppleKansas State Universitycollege townHistory of KansasKaw peoplePawneetreatyShawnee Methodist MissionKansas–Nebraska ActGeorge S. ParkFree-StatersKansas TerritoryIsaac GoodnowSamuel C. PomeroyNew EnglandersJoseph Denisonpaddle steamerJunction CityBlue Mont Central CollegeenslavementFort RileyJames W. DenverMethodistgold was discoveredRocky MountainsFifty-NinersRhode IslandKansas State Agricultural Collegeland-grant institutionMorrill Actsecond public institution of higher learning to admit women and men equallyKansas Pacific Railroadtallgrass prairieAll-America City AwardcoordinatesFlint HillsGreat PlainsTopekaUnited States Census BureauFlint Hills Discovery CenterfloodplainTuttle Creek Reservoirstate parkKonza PrairieprairieThe Nature ConservancyNemaha RidgeHumboldt Fault1867 Manhattan earthquakeRichter magnitude scaleepicenterMercalli intensity scaleUnited States Geological SurveyArmy Corps of Engineershumid continental climateKöppenFebruary 12, 1899precipitationJune 2008 tornado outbreak sequenceTornado Alleytornado1966 tornadoBig BluefloodingfloodsGreat Flood of 1951Great Flood of 1993Manhattan metropolitan area2020 United States censusEuropean Americannon-Hispanic whiteAfrican-AmericanNative AmericanAlaska NativePacific IslanderNative Hawaiianother racestwo or more racesHispanicLatinoAmerican Community Surveypoverty lineCaucasianAfrican Americanpublic sectorKansas Department of AgricultureNational Bio and Agro-Defense Facilityprivate sectorAscension Via ChristiCivicPlusFarm BureauParker HannifinUltra ElectronicsTallgrass Brewing CompanyDickinson TheatresList of mayors of Manhattan, Kansascouncil-managerCity CommissionnonpartisanKansas House of RepresentativesMike Dodson