Manhattan Kansas History & Facts

Manhattan is a city and county seat of Riley County, Kansas, United States, although the city extends into Pottawatomie County. It is located in northeastern Kansas at the junction of the Kansas River and Big Blue River. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 54,100.

The city was founded by settlers from the New England Emigrant Aid Company as a Free-State town in the 1850s, during the Bleeding Kansas era. Nicknamed "The Little Apple" as a play on New York City's "Big Apple", Manhattan is best known as the home of Kansas State University and has a distinct college town atmosphere.

Before settlement by European-Americans in the 1850s, the land where Manhattan sits was home to Native American tribes. Most recently, from 1780 to 1830 it was home to the Kaw people (also known as the Kansa). The Kaw settlement was called Blue Earth Village (Manyinkatuhuudje). It was named after the river the tribe called the Great Blue Earth River, today known as the Big Blue River, which intersected with the Kansas River by their village. Blue Earth Village was the site of a large battle between the Kaw and the Pawnee in 1812.

The Kaw tribe ceded ownership of this land in a treaty signed at the Shawnee Methodist Mission on January 14, 1846.

1854: Polistra and Canton
The Kansas–Nebraska Act opened the territory to settlement by U.S. citizens in 1854. That fall, George S. Park founded the first Euro-American settlement within the borders of the current Manhattan. Park named it Polistra (some histories refer to it as Poliska or Poleska).

Later that same year, Samuel D. Houston and three other pioneers founded Canton, a neighboring community near the mouth of the Big Blue River. Neither Canton nor Polistra ever grew beyond their original founders.

Manhattan is located at coordinates 39.1836082, -96.5716694 in the scenic Flint Hills and Great Plains of the state of Kansas, or about 50 miles (80 km) west of Topeka on the Kansas River.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 18.79 square miles (48.67 km2), of which, 18.76 square miles (48.59 km2) is land and 0.03 square miles (0.08 km2) is water.

Famous Peoples From Manhattan Kansas

Bridget Everett

Bridget Everett (born April 21, 1972) is an American comedian, actress, singer, writer, and cabaret performer. She has starred in the semi-autobiographical 2022 HBO series Somebody Somewhere, the movie Fun Mom Dinner, and in a one-hour Comedy Central special in 2015. She also had a supporting role in the motion picture Patti Cake$, and performed stand-up on Inside Amy Schumer. Everett has described herself as an alt-cabaret provocateur.

Originally from Manhattan, Kansas, she has been performing in New York City for over a decade.

Everett is the youngest of six children born to Donn James and Frederica 'Freddie' Everett. Her siblings are Brinton, Brad, Alice, Brian and Brock. As Everett stated on the podcast Amy Schumer Presents: 3 Girls, 1 Keith (episode 2: "Moms and Stuff"): “I’m from Manhattan, Kansas - the little apple. And my dad was mayor at one point, and then so was my brother many years later. So we’re kinda like the Kennedys of Manhattan, Kansas." Her father, who also served in the Kansas State House, died in 2007.

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