National Kansas Day Date in the current year: January 29, 2025

Kansas is one of the twelve Midwestern states, along with Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, its territory was inhabited by Native American tribes, such as the Wichita people and the Kaw Nation, also known as Kanza (hence the toponym “Kansas”).

The first European to set foot in what is now Kansas was Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, a Spanish explorer and conquistador who visited the region in 1541. However, the Spanish decided not to establish settlements there. In 1724, French explorer Étienne de Veniard established a trading post near the mouth of the Kansas River. France treated Kansas as part of Louisiana, but didn’t have any significant activity there.

In 1762, Spain secretly acquired Louisiana from France under the Treaty of Fontainebleau. In 1803, France officially regained Louisiana from Spain, and it was almost immediately acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. The territory of Louisiana included much of what is now Kansas. Southwestern Kansas, however, remained part of Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas until 1848.

In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas—Nebraska Act, which established the Kansas Territory and the Nebraska Territory. Settlers in Kansas Territory were to vote on whether to allow or prohibit slavery, which led to a series of violent confrontations between pro-slavery settlers and abolitionists, commonly referred to as Bleeding Kansas.

Pro-slavery forces had lost control of Kansas by the time the Wyandotte Constitution was adopted in October 1859, declaring Kansas a free state. On January 29, 1861, Kansas was officially admitted to the Union as the 34th state.

Kansas Day was first celebrated in Paola in 1877. It wasn’t even a full-fledged celebration then: just a school project on Kansas history prepared by a group of students with the encouragement of their history teacher, Alexander LeGrande Copley. Two years later, Copley was appointed superintendent of schools in Wichita and brought the tradition with him. He also began telling his colleagues in other counties about Kansas Day and encouraging them to celebrate it in their schools. Eventually, it became a statewide event.

Today, Kansas Day is still celebrated primarily in schools with special projects focusing on Kansas history and heritage, school field trips, pioneer-style meals, special visits to the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka, and special proclamations from members of the Kansas Legislature and the state governor. Another Kansas Day tradition is the Sunflower Showdown basketball game between the state’s two leading NCAA basketball teams, the Kansas Jayhawks and the Kansas State Wildcats; it is played on or around January 29 to celebrate the history of Kansas.

In 2017, National Day Calendar launched its National State Days project to honor all 50 U.S. states in the order in which they joined the Union. As part of this project, National Kansas Day is celebrated on March 15.