Historical program takes 50 teachers on tour of Kansas, Missouri sites

LECOMPTON, Kan. — Fifty teachers from across the nation are touring sites in Kansas and Missouri this week as part of a historical program.

The program, which began Sunday, is sponsored by the University of Missouri-Kansas City. It deals with the history of the region before and after the Civil War.

On Wednesday, the group will travel to Lecompton. A pro-slavery legislature met there in 1857 to draft a state constitution that would have brought Kansas into the union as a slave state.

Congress refused to admit Kansas under that document, and two years later, it adopted an anti-slavery charter.

The teachers will tour Lecompton's Constitution Hall and watch a play about the "Bleeding Kansas" period.