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.

Yankton, Kansas a defunct town in Harper County

Photos by Sandra Milburn. Concrete still remains at Yankton townsite

A few clues about Yankton

I got an email after the 2014 Kansas State Fair from Dan Stringer, who said he once lived at the townsite of Yankton in Harper County. So, photographer Sandra Milburn and I picked Stringer up where he was living in Argonia and trekked to the former townsite near Attica. 

Harper County has more than 30 extinct villages – towns like Joppa, Pilot Knob, Shook and Ruby, according to the Kansas State Historical Society. While some have chronicled histories, the details of Yankton’s brief existence are few. There is no evidence of its birth or how and when, exactly, it died. 

        There are some clues however. 

Perhaps the town was started by the Oliver family. According to the book “Harper County Story” written in 1968, Yankton was a pioneer village in Ruella township. It had a post office, which opened Aug. 6, 1883. The postmaster was Stephen C. Oliver. He also owned the Yankton Hotel, livery and stable. 

Meanwhile, Marcus Oliver,   postmaster Oliver’s brother, was in real estate of the town, having “a number of city lots for sale cheap,” according to the book. He also ran a peanut stand in connection with his real estate business on the north side of the Yankton square.

Yankton even had a newspaper, the Yankton Gleaner, an eight-page paper devoted to Yankton and its vicinity. It sold for $2 in advance.

And, for a time, people came to the area and settled here, calling Yankton home. A.J. Barr was a bricklayer, plasterer and sod carpenter. R.S. Sullivan was a shoemaker and cobbler. L.A. Jones was a hairdresser.

There was also Dr. Joseph Brockway. He settled with his wife and six of his children – noting in a letter to family that his daughter was at a university in Iowa.

His family’s roots are deep, he wrote to the receiver – noting his family history goes back to “the Massachusetts colonial tradition.” Two family members were massacred at a fort on the banks of the Connecticut River at the close of the Revolutionary War, he wrote.

The letter, the property of the University of Kansas’ Kenneth Spencer Research Library, was dated May 1884 and gave no details about life in Yankton, except to mention he was writing from Yankton in Harper County, Kansas. Brockway did write that he hadn’t finished his doctorate and was taking classes at Ann Arbor University.

There are few mentions of Brockway in other publications. One genealogical document noted he also was an attorney. The Annual Report by the U.S. Bureau of Animal Industry lists Brockway fighting southern cattle fever on his farm south and west of Harper along Nine Cottonwoods Creek in 1883.

Brockway must have eventually left Kansas, although I'm not sure when. It could have been after Yankton's demise. An obituary for a Dr. Joseph Brockway in the Wichita Daily Eagle published in May 1911 said he died in Aline, Oklahoma, which is about 70 miles from Yankton.

Then the trail of Yankton’s story runs cold. Brockway’s obituary never mentioned Yankton. Even Postmaster Oliver’s obituary never mentioned Yankton or his time as a postmaster. It said he settled in the Attica area, just two miles to the west of the Yankton townsite, in 1882. He is buried in the Attica Cemetery.

What little details there are show the town was short-lived. The post office closed one year after it opened in October 1884.

Stringer said the stories he heard was Yankton was near the site of an Osage Village. In Souix and Osage, the name means “village at the end.” Yankton residents planned for a railroad. However, the tracks were laid to the north, going through the nearby town of Crystal Springs, instead.

On our trip to the site, Stringer pointed out where he and his second wife, Phyllis, lived. It was once the Yankton hotel and saloon, with a brothel upstairs, he said. They ran a Christian ministry from the site, which is now being used by a local church.  

To read the whole story on KansasAgland, click here