Research and Organizational Work in the Development of a Preservation Plan for the Town of Quindaro, 1991 - 1998

Quindaro, Kansas was first settled in the territorial era of the 1850s in Wyandotte County. The community consisted mostly of freed enslaved African Americans, and oral histories suggest the town served as an Underground Railroad station.

The town suffered in the Civil War, but in 1862 the Quindaro Freedmen's School opened on the bluffs above the abandoned townsite. In 1881, the school changed its name and became Western University, and the new Quindaro prospered around the university, which became known nationally as one of the best African American colleges, particularly for its music department.

The Great Depression and World War II affected both Western University and Quindaro, with Western's final graduating class of 1943 consisting of six women.

In the 1980s, the site was proposed for a sanitary landfill. Community descendants, historians, and archaeologists organized to halt the landfill. In 2002, portions of the townsite were placed on the National Reigster of Historic Places.

[Information retrieved from O’Bryan, Tony. "Quindaro, Kansas" Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865. The Kansas City Public Library. Accessed Wednesday, June 8, 2022. https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/quindaro-kansas]