LEAVENWORTH, oldest city of Kansas, U.S.A., in the north-eastern part of the State, on bluffs overlooking the Missouri river; the county seat of Leavenworth county and the seat of im portant national institutions. It is on Federal highway 73E, and is served by the Burlington, the Chicago Great Western, the Leaven worth and Topeka, the Missouri Pacific, the Rock Island, the Santa Fe and the Union Pacific railways. The area is 6.5 sq. miles. The population in 193o was 17,466.
Leavenworth has many fine public buildings, a Roman Catholic cathedral and several charitable institutions under religious aus pices. It is a commercial and manufacturing city of importance. The output of the factories in the city was valued at $7,065,141 in 1925. The products include furniture, stoves and ranges, wagons, trailers, truck bodies, mill and mine, and road machinery, steam engines, ice machines, washing machines, farming imple ments, hay presses, bridge and structural iron and steel, brooms, boxes, sash and doors, flour, mattresses, gloves, overalls, and amusement devices. Valuable coal mines are in and near the city. At Ft. Leavenworth, one of the oldest military posts west of the Mississippi, on a reservation of 8,000 ac. N. of the city, are the army service schools, enrolling 400 officers of high rank; the U.S. Federal prison, with nearly 4,00o inmates; and the U.S. disciplinary barracks, with ',coo military prisoners, where every Friday morning a famous "silent drill" is given by the men who are about to be restored to the army. There is an aviation field
on the reservation, and a citizen's military training camp draws an attendance of 3,000 every summer. Just south of the city is the western branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, occupying i,000 ac., where 3,00o veterans of the Civil, Spanish and World Wars are cared for. At Lansing, 3 m. S., is the State penitentiary, with 2,000 prisoners employed in coal mining and other occupations, and the State industrial farm for women, completed in 1922.
Ft. Leavenworth was built in 1827 by Col. Henry Leavenworth (1783-1834), for the protection of the traffic between the Mis souri river and Santa Fe. The city was founded in 1854, by settlers from Missouri, and its early sympathies were pro-slavery. A free-state convention, meeting here on April 3, 1858, adopted a radically anti-slavery constitution, which was nominally approved by popular vote, and was submitted to Congress, but never came into effect. Leavenworth was headquarters of the transportation company which promoted much of the western travel by wagon. During the Civil War it was an important mobilization and supply centre, and until 188o was the largest city of the State. It was in corporated in 1855, secured a new charter in 1881, and in 1908 adopted a commission form of government.