The article ties that history to Kansas through figures whose careers included the state. It says James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickock became a lawman in Kansas, specifically in Hays and Abilene. It also notes that George Armstrong Custer’s assignments included Fort Riley in Kansas and Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory before he led the Seventh Cavalry during the 1876 campaign that ended at the Little Bighorn.
In the background, the piece describes major 1876 events often discussed in American history: the James-Younger Gang’s robbery of the First National Bank of Northfield on Sept. 7, 1876, and Hickock’s death at Deadwood, alongside the June 25 battle in the Little Bighorn valley, where Custer and about 270 of his men were killed. The Far West later sank near St. Charles, Missouri, in 1883, after being sold for other work on the Missouri River.
The essay frames the period as a turbulent era of rapid change, then argues that any modern understanding of 1876 should account for what it means beyond the heroic portrayals.