America’s first female mayor came from a tiny town in Kansas. And she got the job by accident

Kansas was years ahead of most of the country in granting women full suffrage. A prank by a few men backfired when Susanna Madora Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, in 1887.
These days, it’s common to see women on the ballot for school boards, city council and mayoral races in Kansas. The state’s top official, Gov. Laura Kelly, is in the middle of her second term. But women running for office — heck, even women voting — is only a little more than 100 years old in most of the country.

Except in Kansas.

There, women were allowed to vote in school board elections in 1861. By 1887, women could vote in Kansas in a municipal election.

And by 1912, women had full suffrage — a full eight years before the passage of the 19th Amendment.

“Kansas was ahead of most other states but it took a long time to get to the ultimate goal. Kansans, some Kansans, were struggling for a better place from the beginning,” says historian Virgil Dean, retired editor of Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains.