Sitka, Kansas

Sitka Main Street, 1917

Tearing down Sitka home

Train going through town.

Trucks line up at elevator

Home Lumber and Supply Co.

Lackey store and city hotel

Interior of Lackey store

Main street 1939

Sitka church burning

Sitka 1911

Reed service station

Sitka Roundup

PLat map

Arial photo

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Eldora McMinimy stands by the Sitka sign. She wrote a book about the town.

The elevator is the last business in town.

SITKA - Preparing to haul water to thirsty cattle during October's dry spell, professional steer wrestler Jule Hazen peered across a landscape where a lively town once stood.

An old bank - now a heaping pile of bricks - sits near the corner of the city street that leads to his ranch house. A few foundations are scattered in the neighboring pasture where cattle graze across sidewalks that lead to nowhere - signs that people once inhabited this farming and ranching community.

But not anymore. Living in the nearly 100-year-old home he and his wife, Heidi, bought earlier this year, Hazen is the last cowboy in Sitka, population 2.

"My cousin said you can still see where the city blocks were at from the top of the elevator," Hazen said, gesturing to the town's last business, a cooperative open only during harvest seasons.

Those taking U.S. 183 to the Oklahoma border will find Sitka, Kan., a small pit stop in southern Clark County. It seems the town, once a center of commerce, has quietly slipped away.

An old home just north of Sitka.

Eldora McMinimy published a book last year on the history of Sitka, Kansas, which is now a ghost town in Clark County.

This sidewalk once lead to the old school,  Now it's a sidewalk to nowhere

A old water pump still rests in a pasture where houses once stood.

The old school was turned into a restaurant, which closed in 1999.

An old home is falling in.