Good Evening Fellow Bloggers Everywhere'
Today is the 22 day of February, 2014. Today has been a long day and if you have been car shopping before you totally understand. I got a beautiful 2012 Ford Focus, pearl white and I love it. I will certainly try to  take very good care of it and drive it with my full attention on my driving.
For my blog tonight I want to share a few facts about William Greiffenstein. I'm so glad that's not my name!
He's an interesting person and one of the founding fathers of Wichita, Ks.
Mr. Greiffenstein was born in Germany in 1829 where he lived with his family who were prominent members of the Lutheran Church, and very well educated and refined. He lived with his family in the suburbs of Frankfort-on-the-Main. When William was 14 years of age, he was sent to a Darmstadt College for three years, where he received his education. After school, he worked in a commission house, but when the Revolution broke out in Germany, William moved to the Western World, he was only 19 years old at the time. He located in Hermann, Mo. and worked as a clerk for a while until he moved to St. Louis, Mo. and worked in a store as a clerk. William wasn't content working for other men and wanted very much to open his own store. In 1850 he left Missouri  for the Shawnee Reservation, close to Lawrence Ks.. Here he partnered with a "halfbreed" and opened a mercantile and traded with the Indians.
To transport his wares around the country, he had to use pack animals, because there were no roads to use.
After a while he left his trading business and went to New Mexico and on the way back, bought some land near Topeka, Ks.. Col. Levenworth had heard about some white children that were being held by the Indians. Mr. Greiffenstein was able to get them released and returned them to their families. On another occasion there was word of a white women and her child who were being held captive by Indians and again Mr. Greiffenstein went to rescue them from the Cheyenne. During the battle with General Custer on the Washita river, the women and her child were killed by an Indian women as revenge for a her family member that was killed. So Mr. Greiffenstein went back to his home.
At one point Mr. G. went to Texas to buy breaking plows, twenty of them, so he could break-up the ground at the Kiowa reservation. He was on his way home when he happened to camp for the night at White Beat Hill. General Sheridan was also camping there and the General has been told some bad things about Mr. Greiffenstein and a ruckus broke out between General Sheridan and Mr. Greiffenstein. General Sheridan ordered Greiffenstein out of the country. Mr Greiffenstein went to Washington to try to get some help, but none was forthcoming. A few years later General Sheridan found out that the things he'd been told about Mr. Greiffenstein were untrue and he made amends with Mr. Greiffenstein and they became good friends.
In 1869, William moved back to Topeka where he had done a trading business, and married Miss Catherine Burnett. The were blessed with three children.
In 1870 the first land that was platted in the Wichita area by Mr. Greiffenstein. It was eighty acres of land and some of the plats he gave to people who would improve them. Mr. G. had a large ranch with a lot of horses, cattle and pigs. This ranch was near or perhaps on the Pottawatomie Reservation. He acquired 680 acres of land in what is now Wichita, and build a huge, beautiful house on part of the land.
It is reported that "the costing with improvements cost a cool $75,000."  Mr. G. was a stockholder in the street railway, (I wonder if that was Wichita's trolley system) and a watch factory. He also did a lot of
work on Douglas street.
Mr. Greiffenstein was the mayor of Wichita for eight years and in 1877-1878 he represented his district in the State Legislature. That's a wrap for tonight's news, my friends,
Until next we meet,
Cheri
The KSGenWeb Project and Home Page for the Kansas State Library.