Shawnee Indian Mission State Hist. Site

Location:  3403 West 53rd, Fairway, KS (Kansas City, KS area)

Contact:  913.262.0867

Fee:  Donations appreciated.

Photos Copyright Harland J. Schuster.  Please do not use without permission.

Three brick buildings on thirteen acres in suburban Kansas City, Kansas are all that are left of one of the largest and most successful of the Indian missions built in Kansas during its pre-territorial period.   The Shawnee Mission was constructed in 1839 and functioned as a school for children of mainly the Shawnee and Delaware Indian tribes who lived in the area at the time.   By 1862, enrollment at the mission had greatly declined due to increased White settlement and the onset of the Civil War, and the Shawnee Mission ceased operations that year. 

The Reverend Johnson, for whom Johnson County is named, founded and ran the mission until it closed in 1862.  Johnson became more and more involved in state politics during the period of Kansas History known as "Bleeding Kansas".  For a short while, one of the buildings actually served as the Territorial Capitol with the Kansas Territorial Legislature meeting on the second floor.  Johnson's involvement in the turbulent politics of the time caused the local Indians to shun the mission school, and enrollment declined dramatically.  In 1865, three years after the closing of the mission, Johnson was found murdered, and the mystery of his killer's identity has never been solved.

Several period rooms are displayed at the museum.  During its peak operation, the Shawnee Mission also served as a supply point for trails heading west, most notably the Oregon and Santa Fe trails.   At the time, it was one of the last outposts of civilization on the Western Frontier.

Agriculture, Domestic Arts, and Trades were taught at the Shawnee Indian Mission.  In one example on display, students were taught how to work leather and make shoes (photo, right).  With the confidence of hindsight, there are many today who consider the efforts of the frontier Indian missionaries to be at best naive and at worst an atrocious attempt to eliminate a people's culture.  From the comfortable perspective of the 21st Century, it is too easy to forget that the notion that "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" was unfortunately a common sentiment during this country's expansion westward with the Red Man only an obstacle in achieving our "Manifest Destiny".  Viewed in the context of their times, the missionaries were in reality making their best efforts to help a people threatened with extinction.

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