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On his first full day in Sumner, Kansas Territory, Ingalls penned a second letter to his father to convey his first impressions of "that Promised Land." The reality Ingalls found and described was quite different than what was depicted in "the lithographic fiction" he had been shown back East. Other than the hotel, the "city" was composed of a "few log huts and miserable cabins . . . None of the premises are fenced," wrote Ingalls, "the whole place being open to the incursions of dogs and pigs which exist in large numbers and seem in fact to constitute the greater amount of the population." Virtually everything about the place distressed Ingalls, who was "quite unable to convey to you any definite idea of the disappointment, not unmingled with anger and mortification, with which I contemplate the State of affairs here."
Creator: Ingalls, John James, 1833-1900
Date: October 5, 1858
Item Number: 2913
Call Number: John James Ingalls Coll. #177 Box 1 Folder 1
KSHS Identifier: DaRT ID: 2913
Agriculture - Family farming
Agriculture - Livestock - Hogs
Built Environment - Function - Domestic
Built Environment - Materials - Wood - Log
Business and Industry - Lodging - Hotels
Business and Industry - Mining and quarrying - Gold
Business and Industry - Railroad - Companies
Collections - Manuscript - Ingalls, John James
Community Life - Town development
Date - 1854-1860 - 1858
Environment - Natural resources - Gold
Home and Family - Daily life - Settlement
Home and Family - Residences - Log cabins
Objects and Artifacts - Communication Artifacts - Documentary Artifact - Letter
People - Notable Kansans - Ingalls, John James, 1833-1900
Places - Cities and towns - Sumner (Atchison)
Places - Counties - Atchison
Places - Other States - Colorado
Thematic Time Period - Bleeding Kansas, 1854 - 1861
Thematic Time Period - Immigration and Settlement, 1854 - 1890
Transportation - Railroads - Companies
Type of Material - Unpublished documents - Letters
http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/2913
