Kansas State Historical Society

The Kansas State Historical Society (KSHS or KHS) was formally organized on 13 December 1875, though previous attempts had been made to found such a society. The Kansas Editors' and Publishers' Association were the driving force for this latest version, and the committee created to form the society appointed Franklin G. Adams as its secretary. The Society soon outgrew its space in the State Capitol and after several successive moves within the building, its collections were moved to the new Memorial Building built near the Capitol in downtown Topeka, at the intersection of Tenth and Jackson Streets. In 1984 the Kansas Museum of History (KMH) moved to a new building located on SW 6th Avenue on over eighty acres of land. Ten years later in 1995 the Center for Historical Research (CHR, or History Center) followed, and now all operations of the Historical Society, bar those taking place at historic sites throughout the state, function out of the Sixth Street location. The Kansas State Historical Society holds object and documentary collections documenting the history of the state of Kansas, its environment, and its people. The private organization and the Society's current six divisions--Administration, Cultural Resources, Education and Outreach, Historic Sites and Facilities, Museum, and Library and Archives--conduct all activities and programs in order to fulfill its mission to identify, collect, preserve, interpret, and disseminate materials and information pertaining to Kansas history in order to assist the public in understanding, appreciating, and caring for the heritage of Kansas. [Hunt, Mark A., "The Kansas Museum of History: A Functional Design for the Future," Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 7, no. 1 (Spring 1984): 34-39.] [Kansas Historical Society, "Kansas Historical Society," http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/kansas-historical-society/12118 (accessed 13 December 2010).] [Langsdorf, Edgar, "The First Hundred Years of the Kansas State Historical Society," The Kansas Historical Quarterly XLI, no. 3 (Autumn 1975): 265-425.]