Given at a Special Session of the Kansas Legislature, this report describes the investigation that stemmed from the fraudulent Harper County census submitted to the state. The census reported that there were over 600 inhabitants in the county, thus reaching the allotted number of people to be recognized as a county and could be awarded bonds to be used to help with infrastructure. The investigation found that Harper County actually had less than forty inhabitants and that the false census submitted had been a scheme by a few men from the Crawford County area to acquire the bonds and then to sell them for their own gain.
Kansas Memory
Kansas Historical Society
Report of the commissioners appointed to investigate the condition of Barbour, Comanche, and Harper Counties - 12