Bonner Springs is a city in Johnson, Leavenworth, and Wyandotte counties in the State of Kansas, and part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,314. Bonner Springs is reputed to be the first commercial center and permanent settlement in Kansas in the year 1812. Bonner Springs was incorporated as a City on November 10, 1898.

Bonner Springs is home to several national and regional attractions including the Providence Medical Center Amphitheather, the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame, and the annual Kansas City Renaissance Festival.

Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado spent the winter of 1541-1542 at what is now Bonner Springs. The diary of Father Juan Padilla records that the expedition reached the 40th degree (Kansas northern border) and came to a great river (the Missouri). An inscription found on a stone near Atchison has been translated as, "Thus far came Francisco de Coronado, General of an Expedition." The explorers traveled downstream to the mouth of another great river, the Kansas, and preceded upstream 16 leagues to camp in what is now Bonner Springs before returning to Mexico. Due to the mineral springs, this legend gave the area its first recorded name, Coronado Springs.

The Kanza tribe had settled the area because of the mineral springs and abundant fish and game when, in 1812, two French fur traders, the Chouteau brothers, made their way from St. Louis Missouri and settled in the area that would become Bonner Springs, starting a trading post named Four Houses. This makes the site of Bonner Springs the first settlement in what would become the State of Kansas. The location allowed easy access to trade items, and ferry to cross the Kansas River was added. In 1830, Henry Tiblow, a Delaware Indian, took charge of the ferry. Tiblow was a Delaware Indian who worked as an interpreter for the government. He lived in a small cabin on the west side of the city.

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