Lawrence, Kansas
Prior to Kansas Territory being established in May 1854, most of Douglas County was part of the Shawnee Indian Reservation (created in 1830). During this period, the Oregon Trail ran parallel to the Kansas River, roughly through the area where Lawrence would eventually be situated and a hill known then as "Hogback Ridge" (i.e., Mount Oread, which sits on the water divide separating the Kansas and Wakarusa River). This area was used as a landmark and an outlook by those on the trail. While this territory was technically unopened to settlement prior to 1854, there did exist a few "squatter settlements" in the area, especially just north of the Kansas River.
Kansas one room school
The area which now includes Kansas was home to many Indian tribes for thousands of years. Non-natives visited the area of Kansas as early as Francisco Vásquez de Coronado 1540 - 1542. He encountered Indians he called the Quiverans, probably ancestors of the Pawnee people. Between 1802 and 1804 Merriweather Lewis and William Clark crossed the northeastern portion of Kansas territory on their way to the Pacific meeting the Kansa Indians from whom the state takes its name. Adventurers and hunters later visited the area known as the Great American Desert, an area, at first, considered unfit for human settlement.