The ABC's of SEK
My friend and I - 2 Nerdy Teachers - have decided to create a series of hides featuring areas in Southeast Kansas. We are hoping each hide will give you some insight on the area or just a fun story from our childhoods/lives.
Our goal is to create 26 hides- from A-Z.
M is for McGee County.
A few years ago “cancel culture” was all the rage and is still prevalent today. But did you know “cancel culture” has been around for centuries? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines cancel culture as “the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure”.
This is a story about Mobillion W. McGee (1818) and how cancel culture bite him in the butt. McGee was what some might call a scoundrel. He was pro-slavery and believed, when established, Kansas should be a slave state. He lived in the Kansas City area on the Missouri side, so he and his brother bought some land in Osage County (Kansas territory). There they opened a tavern and a ferry. He left his brother there to run them and he went back to his home in Kansas City, MO.
He was committed to making Kansas be a pro-slavery state, so he ran for a seat on the territorial legislature. Since he didn’t live in Kansas territory, he and some buddies hiked to Osage county to party and illegal vote McGee onto the legislature. They wanted to make sure those individuals voted onto the legislature were “pro-slavery”. He won. It is said that only 13 of the 597 votes cast were legal. In that same year the territorial legislature named what is now Crawford and Cherokee counties, McGee County in his honor. While on the legislature, he also tried to change the boundaries of Kansas territory. He wanted to create a new town, Town of Kansas and redraw the boundary of Kansas territory to include many more pro-slavery men. That plan never came to fruition.
McGee County was never organized, and in 1860, the free-state legislature made some changes. They divided the area into two counties and named them Crawford and Cherokee. They chose the name Cherokee in honor of the Cherokee Indians. So, intentional or not, Mobillion McGee was “cancelled”.
Information included was gathered from Kansas Historical Society and here: (https://martincitytelegraph.com/2019/01/21/had-mobillion-mcgee-had-his-way-much-of-kansas-city-would-have-been-in-kansas/)
Please don't park on the highway. Plenty of parking nearby. BYOP