In 1866 the Legislature provided for the erection of what is now the east wing of our state house. As the State grew in wealth and population, more money was appropriated from time to time for the construction of other wings, the great central portion, and lastly the high dome that reaches nearly three hundred feet into the air. The building was completed in 1903, having been thirty-seven years in the making. It grew as the State grew, costing altogether between three and four millions of dollars. It is fitting that the great State of Kansas should now have one of the finest capitols in the United States.
=The Floods.= The people of Kansas had withstood a number of drouths, but beginning in 1903 they were, for the first time, visited by a series of floods. The first one was probably the most destructive. Most of the water came down the Kansas River from the tributaries draining central and western Kansas, where there had been heavy rainfall. Farms and towns along these streams were flooded, property was swept away, and a number of lives were lost. Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City, where portions of the cities were inundated for days, suffered heavy losses. The following year nearly every stream in the State poured a flood of water down its valley, and many people had to flee to the hills for safety. In 1908, for the third time in five years, Kansas was again visited by high water. The loss occasioned by these floods amounted to many millions of dollars, but help poured in to the sufferers from many sources and they straightway began the work of repairing and rebuilding. In a short time all traces of the calamity had disappeared.
[Illustration: STATE GOVERNORS, 1893-1914. JOHN W. LEEDY EDMUND N. MORRILL WILLIAM E. STANLEY WILLIS J. BAILEY EDWARD W. HOCH GEORGE H. HODGES WALTER R. STUBBS]
Stories of floods in Kansas have been handed down from far-off Indian days, but the earliest flood of which there is any account was in 1844. The Indians told the white men about it and advised against building close to the rivers, but no attention was paid to the warning. Since the recent floods, however, a number of people have moved back from the streams. A few of the cities, including Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City, have built dikes, bridges have been lengthened to give streams more room, and several railroad grades have been raised above the danger line.