Karl Eric Kandt, a 1986 Manhattan High School graduate, is a current board member on the Manhattan High School Alumni Association (MHSAA). He played an integral part in his class’ reunions and remains active in the association’s activities. Karl Kandt currently chairs the MHSAA membership committee.
Nicknamed “The Little Apple,” Manhattan, Kansas, was incorporated in 1857 through the efforts of four separate groups to found towns in the area around where the Big Blue River flows into the Kansas River. Three groups had consolidated to form a town they called Boston when a paddle steamer carrying a large group ran aground in the Kansas River in the summer of 1855. These settlers agreed to remain and help build the new community, under the stipulation that it be renamed Manhattan.
Resolutely Free-State, the town was sometimes threatened by pro-slavery southerners, but the proximity of Fort Riley spared Manhattan the suffering visited upon other Free-State towns during the Bleeding Kansas era. It grew into a center for education with the establishment of the Central School, a two-story schoolhouse that evolved into Manhattan High School, and the Kansas State Agricultural College, one of the nation’s first land-grant colleges, which today is Kansas State University.
Although it has a population of about 52,000, nearly half are students at Kansas State University, which is also the city’s largest employer. The school’s 23,000 students are a major component of the economic engine that drives the city. The city’s top three employers are public entities: the university, nearby Fort Riley, and the public school district, Unified School District #383. Consistently ranked high on lists of the best places to live, Manhattan was singled out by Forbes magazine, which named the city number one among its “Best Small Communities for Business and Career.”
Nicknamed “The Little Apple,” Manhattan, Kansas, was incorporated in 1857 through the efforts of four separate groups to found towns in the area around where the Big Blue River flows into the Kansas River. Three groups had consolidated to form a town they called Boston when a paddle steamer carrying a large group ran aground in the Kansas River in the summer of 1855. These settlers agreed to remain and help build the new community, under the stipulation that it be renamed Manhattan.
Resolutely Free-State, the town was sometimes threatened by pro-slavery southerners, but the proximity of Fort Riley spared Manhattan the suffering visited upon other Free-State towns during the Bleeding Kansas era. It grew into a center for education with the establishment of the Central School, a two-story schoolhouse that evolved into Manhattan High School, and the Kansas State Agricultural College, one of the nation’s first land-grant colleges, which today is Kansas State University.
Although it has a population of about 52,000, nearly half are students at Kansas State University, which is also the city’s largest employer. The school’s 23,000 students are a major component of the economic engine that drives the city. The city’s top three employers are public entities: the university, nearby Fort Riley, and the public school district, Unified School District #383. Consistently ranked high on lists of the best places to live, Manhattan was singled out by Forbes magazine, which named the city number one among its “Best Small Communities for Business and Career.”