Manhattan is located in the northeastern part of the state of Kansas, and a city and seat of Riley County and a part of the limits is in Pottawatomie County. It sat along the rivers meet of Big Blue and Kansas and was dammed to form the Tuttle Creek Lake that is situated along Flint Hill’s northern edge. The area was founded in 1855 when the settlements of the Poleska and Canton were consolidated with Boston and was then renamed as Manhattan after the consolidation the following year. The Beecher Bible and Rifle Church took its name after the proslavery and the antislavery tumult that rifles for the abolitionist congregation that arrived in crates that were marked “Bibles.” The city is primarily an education center and one of the cities that were granted the land along with the other coeducational colleges in the United States.