TOPEKA, KS—The Kansas Historical Society announced that 250,000 images of its collections are now uploaded to Kansas Memory, the Historical Society’s online archives of photographs, letters, government records, and objects.

Image number 250,000 is from a letter dated January 1, 1871, from D.H. Bowdoin in Rice County to Governor James M. Harvey in Topeka.  In the letter, Bowdoin asks the governor “for the general distribution of arms among the citizens of Rice Co[unty] necessary for their defence [sic] against any raid or raids by the Cheyenne Indians.”

The letter is part of the Kansas Adjutant General’s correspondence collection in the State Archives, which is now available on Kansas Memory. This collection contains letters and documents from 1861 to 1910 related to the Civil War, Indian wars, the organization of the National Guard, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine-American War.

Kansas Memory, or kansasmemory.org, is the largest online collection of primary sources documenting Kansas history. Visitors can explore photographs, letters, diaries, government records, maps, artifacts, and other historic items.