The western terminal of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and the end of the Chisholm Trail were located in Kansas, giving the state a crucial role in America’s westward expansion. Spurred by the Homestead Act, thousands of acres in Kansas were claimed by settlers. Out of this rough and tumble pilgrimage came some of our nation’s most colorful characters – among them Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson, and Wyatt Earp. Although frontier towns in Kansas would turn out a number of distinguished Americans – including President Dwight D. Eisenhower and aviation pioneers Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart – the lure of the West was tempting for some criminals. By the 1920s, machine gun-toting gangsters had replaced gunslingers, and small post offices in isolated communities were among their targets. Losses in one year alone totaled more than $200,000 (equal to nearly $7 million today). To make it difficult for thieves to sell stolen postage stamps, Postal Inspector Louis Johnson proposed stamps be overprinted with the name of the specific state where they would be sold. The idea of overprinting U.S. stamps to prevent theft wasn’t a new one – it had been suggested nearly 30 years earlier – but the newly invented rotary press now made the idea possible and affordable. As one of the states victimized by postage stamp theft, Kansas was selected for the experiment. If successful, authorities planned to distribute overprinted postage stamps to each U.S. state within one year.