Kansas include I-470 around Topeka, I-235 around Wichita, and I-670 in downtown Kansas City. I-435 is a beltway around the Kansas City metropolitan area while I-635 bypasses through Kansas City. U.S. Route 69 (US-69) travels south to north, from Oklahoma to Missouri. The highway passes through the eastern section of Kansas, traveling through Baxter Springs, Pittsburg, Frontenac, Fort Scott, Louisburg, and the Kansas City area. Kansas also has the country's third largest state highway system after Texas and California. This is because of the high number of counties and county seats (105) and their intertwining. In January 2004, the Kansas Department
History of Grant County, Kansas claims outside its present state borders. The Territory of Kansas was organized in 1854, including this area, along with all of Colorado to the Rocky Mountains, and reaching north along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska. The city of Denver, Colorado was founded in what was then Arapahoe county, Kansas, and was named for the territorial governor. Incredible as it now seems, when state boundaries were fixed in 1861, a total of 44,509 square miles of land, including the gold fields in the Rockies, was rejected as unfit to be part of the state of Kansas. Only because