KBS has been in existence, in one form or another, for nearly one hundred years.
From our early beginnings as a statewide survey effort of various University departments, through our years as a program of the Kansas Natural History Museum, to our current evolution as a legislated agency for the State of Kansas, KBS has maintained a strong tradition of excellence in natural history survey and research.
1911-1948: The Early Years
In
1911, University of Kansas Chancellor Frank Strong requested that the Board
of Regents approve the organization of the "Kansas Biological Survey."
The phrase wasn't meant to create a formal agency, but rather was intended
to support a statewide natural history survey and inventory project.
This Kansas biological survey would build on the informal
biological surveys that had been accomplished in the 19th century and early
years of the 20th. 
At the time of his letter to the Board, the Chancellor envisioned this comprehensive survey would take at least 6 - 8 years! Nearly one hundred years, and countless accomplishments later, the Kansas Biological Survey is still going strong.
Tiny budgets and big results:
Authorized by the Kansas legislature in the spring of 1911, fieldwork for the newly official Survey got underway promptly -- with an impressive budget of $500. At least nine separate expeditions were launched during the summer and early autumn of that year.
The
survey was led by Chancellor Strong and administered by the heads of the zoology,
botany, and entomology departments and by the acting head of the state fish
and game commission, Dr. L. L. Dyche. Dr. Dyche was one of the nation's pre-eminent
naturalists and was renowned for his field expeditions.
These field forays resulted in some of the state's first natural history collections and included amphibians, reptiles, fossils, and plants.
Many of these specimens are today archived in the Natural History Museum.
Decentralizing the Kansas Biological Survey...
In 1914, after 3 years of fieldwork and collecting, the superintendent's role in the Kansas Biological Survey was eliminated and the management structure of the Survey was decentralized. A department-based Committee of the Whole was designated and for the remainder of this early chapter of the Kansas Biological Survey the overall work of the Survey was left to the individual efforts of the various departments of bacteriology, botany, entomology, and zoology.
The immediate effect of this change on the Kansas Biological Survey is that most of the project work, collections, or publications that were affiliated with KBS were simply lost to history. Each department received a small budget in subsequent years to continue Survey work, but most if not all of this work was attributed to the individual department or to the Museum of Natural History rather than being noted as KBS work.
In the KU budget reports throughout most of these years, there are listings for Biological Survey under "State Work."
KBS goes into dormancy...
Between 1935 and 1947, a period of twelve years including World War II, there are no budget listings for the Kansas Biological Survey.
Thus, KBS was essentially inactive from 1935 through 1948.
