In 1854 the Kansas–Nebraska Act was passed, creating the Kansas Territory and opening the region to settlement by Americans. As a result of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Americans settlers started to encroach upon Indian lands. In 1856, three members of a German Immigrant Settlement Company (called Deutsche-Neusiedlungsverein) from Chicago, sent out a location committee to choose a town site in the new Kansas Territory. Favoring the Eudora area, they drew up contracts with Shawnee Chief Paschal Fish, the original owner of the town site. The new town was named Eudora in honor of Chief Fish's daughter. The first post office in Eudora was established in September, 1857. Eudora was incorporated in 1859.