When Kansas Territory opened for white settlement on May 30, 1854, a bitter contest arose over slavery. Established the following December, Topeka favored the Free-State cause although the territorial government was initially pro-slavery. In 1856, rebelling Free Staters tried to create a rival legislature there, but President Franklin Pierce sent Col. E. V. Sumner with five companies of U.S. dragoons and two cannon specially loaded for legislators, and the lawmakers adjourned reluctantly. Topeka later slighted Pierce by leaving his name off its first streets named for early presidents. The Free Staters eventually prevailed, and Kansas entered the Union as a state on January 29, 1861, with Topeka as capital. The Statehouse, begun in 1866, was completed in 1903. Topeka also became known for the Menninger Foundation's contribution to mental health. South of the city, the Topeka Army Air Field, later Forbes Air Force Base, served in World War II as a processing center for B-17, B-24, and B-29 aircraft and crews. From a few miles west of Topeka to Lawrence, I-70 generally follows a main route of the Oregon-California Trail, used from the late 1830s to 1860 by thousands of emigrants in hundreds of wagon trains.
