Nonchalanta - a Dead town in Ness County.

The Nonchalanta hotel

A big thank you to Tom Reed, who hails from the ghost town of Ravanna in Finney County, Tom McCoy of Ness City and Harlan Nuss, who rents the pasture where Nonchalanta once thrived.

They gave me a great tour of the ruins here. They were kind enough to spend much of the afternoon talking to me and showing me around. 

Remember, this is private property. No trespassing!

This old stone house was once the site of the Nonchalanta post office.

Just give it a "d---" name

With the promise of free land, Fred Roth and his family came in covered wagons from Missouri to Ness County.

So did others. John Silas Collins, a circuit-riding Methodist minister, who arrived in 1879 and began work to prove up his homestead, according to an article by local historian, the late Jan Gantz, which was published in the Ness County News.

They began building sod homes and plowing up the grass. 

With pioneers came the need for a town. Homesteader Lewis Odom in 1885 decided to plat a town and asked another local, Dr. W.A. Yingling, to come up with a name.

"And I don't care a d--- what kind of name it is, just so it's a taking name," Odom told Yingling according to several historical articles. 

So, as the tale goes, Yingling called it Nonchalant, after the French word of that very idea, and then decided to add the "a."

Odom loved it and began promoting Nonchalanta with the idea the railroad was coming. One newspaper printed on May 23, 1885: "New town of Nonchalanta laid out." By September, lots were reported to be selling for $15 to $85, according to the book "Ness, Western County, Kansas" by Minnie Dubbs Millbrook.

Momentum continued and folks prepared for a promised railroad. Nonchalanta would soon have a livery, a drug store, three-story hotel, real estate office and a general store, Gantz wrote in her article. There was a Methodist church and newspaper. A quarter-mile away, a man named McCandish operated a small country store and post office that the government had previously dubbed Candish. By 1887, the post office was renamed Nonchalanta.

Photo courtesy of Cheryl McVicker Lewis. This is the Nonchalanta school. Her grandmother, Annie Slagle McVicker, was the teacher and Annie's siblings are in the photo.

In fact, said Wichita resident Cheryl McVicker Lewis, whose family homestead in the area, the Nonchalanta newspaper from August 1887 showed 22 businesses advertising in it. 

"And it said there were also several more carpenters, two more blacksmiths and several stone masons and plasters," said Lewis, who grew up near the town site and has researched local and family history. "There were plans to build 100 houses in the next six months."

Folks had began construction on the bank, as well as more stores, restaurants and a Grand Army of the Republic post. There was even talk of a summer resort called "Wildhorse Lake" - located around a natural depression where the wild horses would water, wrote Gantz.

Gantz also reported that lots were advertised in Folsom Heights - "a beautiful suburb overlooking the city."

Great tour by Tom Reed, left, Harlan Nuss, center, and Tom McCoy.

And, in 1887, according to the book by Millbrook, the newspaper advertised the town as "the magic young city of the plains, with six public wells with pure water, a hundred houses to be built in early spring and a railroad to be built during the coming summer."

Sam Howell was one of the business owners. According to family history, he worked on the railroads across western Kansas, drove freight and was employed on area ranches before homesteading and starting a feed store in Nonchalanta. 

There he met Susie Helen Corbet, a young girl working at the Nonchalanta hotel, which was operated by John Rogers, a man who would later become governor of Washington, according to Corbet's writings discovered by Lewis.

Susie and Sam married in Nonchalanta in April 1888 - the same year the school was finished.

The town was buzzing. 

"Dancing, baseball games and picnics were part of the entertainment," wrote Gantz. 

Nonchalanta Methodist Church. It was founded in 1887 and had a minister until 1918. The church continued with a Sunday School until 1925. The building was sold and moved to Ness City.

Morton City - a dead exoduster colony in Hodgeman County

In the years following the Civil War, a couple dozen black colonies dotted Kansas.

That included a short-lived settlement in Hodgeman County.

After Pap Singleton established Nicodemas in northwest Kansas, exodusters arrived in Kinsley in March 1878. They headed into Hodgeman County and began to form Morton City, which they named after Oliver P. Morton, according to the book "Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction" written by Neil Irvin Painter.

Benton Butler, James Board, Carrell Lytle, George Perry, Frank Harris and William Maxwell were black Union soldiers who moved to Hodgeman County sometime in the 1870s, according to a February 2003 article in The News. They are buried in the Jetmore cemetery with other pioneers. The men and their families were part of an early surge of migration before the "Great Exodus" from the South in 1879.

Most who left during the exodus were responding to the South's reconstruction, which resulted in violence and economic dependency for black residents, said Rita Napier in the article, who was then an associate professor of history at the University of Kansas.

A dream of free land spurred them on. Under the 1862 Homestead Act, the federal government provided acre to any settler, regardless of race or sex, who improved the land for five years.

"This is to lay before your minds a few sketches of what great advantages there are for the great mass of people of small means that are emigrating West to come and settle in the county of Hodgeman," one poster advertised. "And more especially the colored people, for they are the ones that want to find the best place for climate and for soil for the smallest capital."

Migration was led by Thomas Moore, said Crystal Bradshaw, 21, who wrote a book about her family history - which traces her five-great grandmother Eliza from slavery to Kansas.

According to Painter's book, the homesteaders had a hard time building the settlement and taking care of their homesteads. Eventually, they focused on just their homesteads.

However, only one settler, equipped with a team of livestock, could grow crops. Others had to make due with gardens and hiring themselves out to the area's established farmers.

Most of the settlers moved away - scattering to nearby communities, said Mary Ford, with the Haun Museum in Jetmore.

Wilburn Bradshaw continues to farm in the area, Crystal Bradshaw said. 

Crystal Bradshaw will have a book signing for her new book, "Eliza: A Generational Journey," from 1 to 3 p.m. Dec. 22 at the Hodgeman County Museum. 

Refreshements will be provided. 

The books costs $14.95; the ebook is $9.95. To order the Kindle version, visit http://hutch.news/Bradshaw. Or visit Crystal's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CrystalBradshawWriting.

A little family history from Corwin, Kansas - a dead town in Harper County

Desiree (Kirby) Rahman

Ingram homestead in NW Oklahoma c. 1897 - 1900  

Often after my dead town stories are published, I get tidbits from people who had relatives in a particular town. 

That was the case with Corwin, my latest story. The Harper County town today is a shell of its former, vibrant, self.

Here's some info and photos sent by Desiree (Kirby) Rahman. Rahman grew up in Hutchinson and her mother still lives in town. Here grandfather was the well-digger's grandson mentioned in the story. 

Here's what Rahman sent:

Charles Ingram's family, c. 1910 

The family moved to Alfalfa County, OK in 1895, after the Land Run. Here's a little more about Charles Ingram. Everything I have always says the family lived in Anthony, but apparently they were in Corwin... My grandmother was born on the farm shown in the "homestead" picture. If you look at the woman in the picture (my great-grandmother) she may be pregnant - if so, I'm guessing that she is carrying my grandmother which would date the picture as 1900. I don't know this for a fact, but it makes a good story!

Text from newspaper clipping, name of paper & date not included, probably The Cherokee Messenger & Republican, Cherokee, OK, Fri Jan 18, 1935

Mr. and Mrs. C. M. Ingram Observe Golden Wedding Anniversary January 13th.

Sunday, January 13, the children and Mr. and Mrs. C. M. Ingram gathered at the farm house five miles west of Cherokee, in honor of the fiftieth wedding anniversary of their parents.

Mr. Ingram and his wife, who was Miss Cynthia Millay, daughter of Rev. and Mrs. D. W. Millay, were married January 15, 1885, at the home of the bride’s parents, near Coloma, MO. Dr. S. D. Millay, grandfather of the bride, performed the ceremony.

The newly married couple left soon for Anthony, Kansas, where they made their home for several years. In 1895, Mr. and Mrs. Ingram, with their four children Edwin, May, Ida, and Edith, moved to the farm which is now their home. Here, the two younger children, Pearl and Charles, were born.

Mr. and Mrs. Ingram were typical pioneers. Mr. Ingram is widely known in this section of the country, having drilled wells since locating here; also being in various business enterprises and politics...

To read more on Corwin, click here.

Corwin, Kansas, a dead town in Harper County

Rice County farmer Delmar Conner dropped by a book a couple years ago on the history of Corwin, Kansas.
He wasn't from Corwin, but he thought it sounded interesting.


So, on a hot June morning, on my way to a wheat field near Kiowa, I ventured to the tiny ghost town.

There isn't much there. And what is there is blocked out by trees. That includes the school and a few homes.


I was greeted by an elevator employee, who said he had been interviewed once before, when the nearby town of Hazelton was evacuated for a gas leak (or something to that affect.) He directed me down the road to Monty Whitaker, who has lived in the town for more than 20 years.


He estimated about 10 people live in Corwin, which includes a son and family.


Corwin once had grocery stores, blacksmiths, church and the bank. It had a school and an assortment of houses with families. The elevator, however, is the only business remaining.

To read about Corwin, visit our website, KansasAgland.Com. Here's a link to the story and photos.