The city of was Topeka incorporated in 1857, benefitting at first from the Oregon Trail, which crossed the Kansas River there, and later from the railroads when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad system was established in 1878. After a decade of conflict between abolitionist and pro-slavery forces, the Kansas territory was admitted to the Union in 1861 as the 34th state with Topeka as its capital. Read more Topeka and Kansas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
