Playing a major role in the railroad industry throughout the middle portion of the country, Sherman was a community inhabited by a wide range of ethnic groups. It saw a boom in economic activity but unfortunately, fell victim to a common die out of…
Sibley Township, primarily settled by homesteaders from Sweden, Norway, and England, was formally organized in 1866. However, the first settlements in the area date back to 1860 at Lake Sibley. Sibley has a rich history, but ultimately lost out to…
Silkville Ranch was an experimental socialist community founded by Ernest de Boissiere in Franklin County, Williamsburg Township. Although the experiment failed due to financial challenges, Silkville persists as a ranch. This study includes…
There is very little information available pertaining to the disappearing railroad town of Skiddy, located in the extreme northwest corner of Morris County in Kansas. This paper draws from an article in the Council Grove Republican written by a 1936…
This study analyzes the cases of smallpox in Clay County, Kansas, between the years of 1900-1925. Evidence suggests proactive prevention methods were used to limit and eventually eradicate Smallpox. Data and information is drawn from county disease…
In this paper you will see how twin town rivalry can lead to the death of a town. This will be done using the case study of Solomon Rapids located in Mitchell County Kansas. This study includes recent photographs of the Solomon Rapids town site.
The 1850's frontier amalgamation of different cultures and people helped create one of the most unheralded yet demographically and geographically diverse regions in American history, with traces of its existence still evident today.
This is a brief history of the town of Speed, Kansas.
The author describes the life of an early Irish Catholic settlement in eastern Kansas. Originally a Quaker community, Irish immigration "exploded" there just after the Civil War, eventually stamping the town with a particular religious…
A. B. Squires established a large hotel in his new town of Squiresville, which became a destination for Union soldiers and stage line passengers until the end of the Civil War and construction of a nearby railroad closed down the town. This study…
This is a study of the origins of St. Boniface Parish. The author takes you from the early beginnings founded by Jesuit missionaries as a territorial Catholic church serving displaced native Americans to a 600 acre subsistence farm and monastery run…
This study illustrates the founding, growth, and decline of the small town of St. Clere in Pottawatomie County, Kansas, which competed unsuccessfully with the nearby town of Emmett. Included within the study are maps, pictures and information about…
The Ashland and Lower McDowell Creek communities were settled towards the end of the 1800s, but contained a variety of cultural and economic differences. St. Joseph’s Catholic Church worked as an agent to resolve these differences. This study, using…
It is a sunny Saturday afternoon in Cloud County, Kansas, when the peace of the rolling tallgrass prairie is broken by cries of “Au feu! Au feu!” The French Presbyterian Church just south of St. Joseph’s was ablaze under mysterious circumstances.
This study overviews the German-Catholic hamlet of St. Mary’s Aleppo, a church community located in western Sedgwick County, Garden Plain Township. Maps, photographs and personal accounts are included.
The following paper is a history of the town of Stanley, Oxford Township, Johnson County, Kansas. Stanley was an unincorporated community that was annexed by Overland Park in 1985 despite resistance from residents. The information was mainly…
The author uses newspaper articles and historic documents to tell the story of the town of Strawberry, Kansas. She is able to give an explanation of the towns growth and reasons for its eventual demise.
In the late nineteenth century there was a passion for growth and development among Americans. Their dream was to own land and strike gold. In the case of many early Kansans, the gold would come from a sweet treat, sugar, processed from sugar beets…
The author creates a vivid picture of turn of the century rural life as often impoverished, harsh, and filled with economic loss. He examines the unusually high suicide rate among young farmers who lost their land in the Panic of 1893. This study…
The author theorizes the name of "Swamp Angel" and its possible settlement by its remaining un-incorporated houses, grain silo and railroad tracks located on the floodplain of the Kansas River.
Swedish immigrants established the first homestead in what became Garfield Township in 1868. Churches provided the foundation of the Swedesburg community, which overcame the Great Depression, both world wars, and a 1973 tornado.
This study describes the once burgeoning town of Sylvia in Reno County, Kansas. Propelled by local agriculture and a railroad line laid by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Company, Sylvia saw impressive growth during the latter half of the 19th…
The community of Tecumseh is located in Shawnee County, Kansas on the fringes of the state capital, Topeka. In the mid 1850s, proslavery settlers from Missouri founded the town. The first post office was established on March 3, 1855. Because of…
This project creates an abbreviated history of Terra Cotta, Kansas.
Among the 713 newspapers in print in Kansas in the 1880s, a single short-lived newspaper provides insight into political shifts and battles in small towns. The Firebrand newspaper in Clay Center provided inflammatory rhetoric for a single year, also…
