Wichita began as a trading post on the Chisholm Trail in the s and was incorporated as a city in It became a destination for cattle drives traveling north from Texas to Kansas railroads, earning it the nickname "Cowtown". In the s and s, businessmen and aeronautical engineers established aircraft manufacturing companies in Wichita, including Beechcraft , Cessna , and Stearman Aircraft. The city became an aircraft production hub known as "The Air Capital of the World".
Eisenhower National Airport , the largest airport in Kansas. As an industrial hub, Wichita is a regional center of culture, media, and trade. It hosts several universities, large museums, theaters, parks, shopping centers, and entertainment venues, most notably Intrust Bank Arena and Century II.
The city's Old Cowtown Museum maintains historical artifacts and exhibits the city's early history. Archaeological evidence indicates human habitation near the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers , the site of present-day Wichita, as early as BC. Conflict with the Osage in the s drove the Wichita further south.
Claimed first by France as part of Louisiana and later acquired by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in , it became part of Kansas Territory in and then the state of Kansas in The Wichita people returned in , driven from their land in Indian Territory by Confederate forces in the American Civil War , and established a settlement on the banks of the Little Arkansas.
In , trader James R. Mead was among a group of investors who established a town company, and surveyor Darius Munger built a log structure for the company to serve as a hotel, community center, and post office.
