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.

"Eliza - A Generational Journey" - Morton City - an exoduster community

 Crystal Bradshaw's book chronicle's her five-great grandmother, who was a slave for 40 years. Eliza Bradshaw was part of an exoduster group in the late 1870s that helped the now defunct town of Morton City in Hodgeman County.

Courtesy of Crystal Bradshaw

It seemed, at first, that Eliza Bradshaw’s life was long buried beneath her tombstone in the town cemetery – which just marks her birth and death.

Crystal Bradshaw knew her distant grandmother was born into slavery. She knew Eliza was an exoduster who came to Hodgeman County with her family and 100 others in search of a life free of racism and poverty after the Civil War. On the sparsely populated, windswept prairie, they began building a small community they called Morton City.

But when Crystal was tasked to research her family history for one of her high school classes at Hodgeman County High School, she found few answers.

Courtesy of Kansas Memory

“A lot of people in my high school class knew about their family members but not many in my family knew where the Bradshaw side came from,” said Crystal, 21, now a junior at the University of Kansas.

For the past five years, Crystal has been combing newspaper articles and research papers to learn more about her family’s past. She compiled her information into her first nonfiction novel – “Eliza – A Generational Journey,” which she self-published this fall.

She saved her money from her three jobs to publish 50 of the 133-page books. Crystal works as a resident assistant in a college dorm and as a communications specialist and office manager for The Project on the History of Black Writing – part of KU’s English Department. She also earns money as a writer.

In the book, Crystal preserves the highs and lows of Eliza’s life journey – which parallels a harsh time in history.

Eliza was born a slave, growing up in poverty in a one-room cabin with no windows. At age 7 she was sold to another planter. At 17, she was sold again to a cruel slave owner. There were beatings. There were sorrows.

Courtesy of Crystal Bradshaw

And, even when freed, Eliza and her family faced more challenges because of their race and their new found freedom.

Crystal was shocked when she began delving into Eliza’s story, but was also disappointed that it had nearly faded away as the years went by.

“How do you let this rich history just slip away?” Crystal asked, adding. “That is why I didn’t want to just compile my research. That is why I wanted to write a book to preserve it so future Bradshaws can go and see where they came from.” 

To read more of Crystal's story, click here.

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.

Feterita, Kansas - a dead town in Stevens County

Stevens County Sheriff Ted Heaton and his family are the last residents of Feterita, a dead town in Stevens County. Here's a little history on the town that thrived for a while in the 1910s and 1920s.

Photo By Calvin Mathis

Meadows to Feterita

It was an era where towns were established about every 10 miles - the distance a farmer could typically travel by horse and wagon in a day to do business. In addition, one thing that helped secure the location of a town was whether it would get a train.

The train came through in 1913, according to an article written by longtime resident Susie Ausbun in the book "The History of Stevens County & Its People."

"All the farm people and our entire school drove up to see the first train go through. It was traveling so slowly with all the railroad VIPs on it. People were walking behind, some had trailed it from Hugoton."

With the train, a town was planned about seven miles west of Hugoton, Ausbun wrote. Organized around 1918, it was originally called Meadows and was platted under that name.

"We had a big celebration, people came from all over the country when we auctioned of lots to form the town," Ausbun wrote. "For every 25 lots sold, one was given away to names drawn from a large box. Anna Nichole, my sister, won one."

According to the June 21, 1918 edition of the Hugoton Hermes, "The opening of our new neighboring town, Meadows, was a success. Business lots sold for from one hundred to two hundred dollars. Residence lots sold for twenty-five to seventy-five dollars. There is a new Farmer's Equity Elevator and a switch almost completed. Stakes are on the town site at present, but construction will begin soon on several buildings, and Meadows will soon e a thriving village."

Photo by Amy Bickel

People began to build on their lots, Ausbun wrote, noting, "Many little shacks went up." A store opened on Main Street.

However, when the post office organizers wrote a letter to the government to get a permit to open, they heard back that there was another Meadows.

"After a lot of discussion, the name Feterita was passed by the post office department. Feterita was the name of a grain crop raised at that time in the area. A lot of people were disappointed in the name and the town was still called Meadows for a while then Feterita began to become familiar."

The post office opened in 1919 but closed in March 1920. It reopened in December 1922 but closed again by April 1937.

"I can remember a little grocery store over there and two elevators and a family or two lived over there," said Gladys Renfro, who helps run the Stevens County Oil and Gas Museum. "All the people who lived there are all gone."

Shirley Kramer, who farms with her husband, Jim, in the area, said her mother was Ausbun who wrote the history.

She said when she and her family would go by Feterita, "we used to laugh we were going to Feterita Junior College."

Except for a small elevator operated by Elkhart Equity Exchange, there hasn't been anything happening at Feterita in his lifetime, said Neal Gillespie, director of the Stevens County Economic Development.

"In my lifetime it has been a bump in the road," Gillespie said.

An old store photo from Carniero, Kansas.

I received this photo earlier this summer from Joy. It's of one of the old, Carniero, Kansas, stores. I love these old photos! here is a note from Joy.

I have roots in Carneiro and Kanopolis.  In fact my dad was born there to John and Ethel Ulrickson.  John, my grandfather was a blacksmith in the Salt Mine.  I want to share with you one of the pictures I have identifying a building that may still exist in Carneiro.  It was owned and run by O.B. Smith and Sons.  I believe he also became a judge in the county of Carneiro.  Time period - around the 1890-1900s.  

I don't think this is the same store that is still standing in Carniero - which is featured on the cover of our book - Dead Towns of Central and Western Kansas - but it could be. Thanks so much, Joy! And if anyone else has some great old photos, don't hesitate to share.

Here's an earlier post from Carniero.

A little history on Fort Zarah, Allison Ranche and the town of Zarah - Barton County, Kansas

Photographer Lindsey and I ventured here more than a month ago. We found little left of any of the sites, although we really didn't know where to look.

I want to thank Robert Yarmer for his help in sharing his wife's family history. Here's a little bit from my latest dead town story.

In the summer of 1855, when prairie pioneers Williams Allison and Francis Booth came to what would someday be Barton County, there was nothing here but windswept prairie, Indians and buffalo along with the occasional schooner heading toward Santa Fe on the Santa Fe Trail.
Fort Larned wouldn’t be established for another few years and there was little settlement west. Nevertheless, the two men decided to build a settlement along Walnut Creek on the trail – offering supplies and respite to those making the journey.
These days, there is little left of the settlements that sprang up along the trail just east of Great Bend – a few stones in a field, remnants of dugouts and a handful of civilian graves deep below a field of greening wheat.

The autumn 1966 cover of the Kansas Historical Quarterly features a water color of Fort Zarah on the Santa Fe Trail as illustrated by Henry Worrall.

Allison Ranche, along with a town of Zarah that would develop a short distance to the north about 15 years later, have both disappeared – meeting the fate of more than 6,000 other settlements that once populated the state in the latter half of the 1800s.

A trading post
William Allison, a man with just one arm, and Francis Booth had become familiar with the route as former conductors of the monthly mail, according the Kansas State Historical Society. They had encountered Indians along the trail and knew of the hazards of the prairie.
Therefore, 132 miles beyond Council Grove, they established a trading post on Walnut Creek, located in the domain of the nomadic Plains Indian tribes and of the buffalo range.
The July 1855 issues of the Independence, Mo.-based publication, the Occidental Messenger, gave this account of the pioneers.
‘Mr. Wm. Allison and Booth, known as famed prairie men, have determined to make a settlement at Walnut Creek on the Santa Fe road. A short time since . . . they started on an expedition to the gold region; their mules and provisions giving out, and not being able to purchase any on the road from any train, they abandoned the idea of going further toward the Wichita diggings, and returned here, determined to settle on Walnut Creek. Booth left a month or two since, and Allison this week, and from last reports of Booth’s progress, he was busily engaged in building houses and corrals.
This is the first attempt at building by citizens made West of Council Grove, and we hope it may grow up in a short time a flourishing settlement. The men at the head of this enterprise are well known here, and distinguished for their energy and determination, they have no fear about them. ... This settlement will be another stopping point on the route to New Mexico and will make, in a little while, the road less dangerous by lessening the distance between civilized points and affording those in danger or want an opportunity to obtain relief.”
On August 25, the Occidental Messenger also reported that Allison and Booth’s post was nearing completion, with the men hoping to open trade to Indians and any travelers who needed “provision and aid as they journey.”
In December 1856, a post office was established at the ranche, with Allison as postmaster, according to the historical society.
In February 1857, the Santa Fe Gazette published this notice that Allison and Booth had established a trading house and general depot at Walnut Creek on the trail, having on hand groceries, provisions, forage and corrals, according to the historical society article. However, by September, the partnership ended. An article in the Santa Fe Gazette a month later reported: The Mexican who brutally murdered Mr. Booth and Walnut Creek last month, by splitting his head open with an ax, was arrested in San Miguel County last week.”
Meanwhile, according to the historical society, Allison continued to prosper as train traffic boomed. Those venturing toward Pikes Peak in search of gold took the mountain branch of the road to head to Colorado.
Despite his success, Allison died in 1859 of heart failure.

Peacock and Rath
Following Allison’s death, George Peacock took over the ranche.
Peacock’s time at the post, however, was short. Kiowa war chief Satank was arrested after almost passing out from drinking too much at Peacock’s post. Satank escaped but asked Peacock to write a letter of introduction saying he was a good Indian. Not counting on Satank having the letter translated, Peacock instead headed warning to those who read it – saying the Indian was treacherous and dangerous.
According to the state historical society, in the fall of 1860, Satank led warriors to the ranch and killed Peacock and five other men and stole all of the livestock.
Trader and buffalo hunter named Charles Rath took over the trading post next, and he expanded the operation, even helping establish a toll bridge across Walnut Creek.
Meanwhile, as attacks subsided, the military abandoned Fort Zarah in 1869.

Unearthing remains of the ranch house at Walnut Creek Crossing of the Santa Fe Trail (near Great Bend) as supervised by State Historical Society archeologists May 31, 1969. The photograph was taken looking north along the west footings.

The town of Zarah
Not long after Fort Zarah’s abandonment, a town by the same name was formed on the edge of the fort’s property, just north of Allison’s Ranche, Yarmer said.
It was 1870, says Yarmer, adding his wife’s great great uncle, Titus Buckbee, a cattleman, was one of the founders.
Back then, Yarmer said, “everyone wants to start a town, sell lots and be a mayor. That was where the money was.”
Buckbee had been in the Civil War before venturing west. His prison stay at Andersonville during the war hindered his health, Yarmer said.
Zarah would have a blacksmith, a grocery and a livery, among a handful of other stores. In 1871, Buckbee became the town’s postmaster, becoming the first postmaster since Barton became a county.
It also had a murder. Buckbee’s brother-in-law Zach Light was minding the store for Buckbee when a man came in asking for crackers, according to the book “Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West, Volume 2” by Robert K. DeArment. The man wanted cheese for his crackers. Light said he had none.
“This is a hell of a town,” the man said, adding Zarah was letting Great Bend “get away with things.”
Light said if he didn’t shut up, he would shoot, according to the book. And he did, hitting the man in the forehead. Light fled and, despite being arrested by authorities, never stood trial for the killing.
The town went on for a time, but Zarah’s existence wouldn’t last. Great Bend leaders were working to gain the county seat title. Formed in 1871, town leaders knew survival depended on whether they could secure the honor. An election in 1872 decided the towns’ fates. Ellinwood would receive 22 votes, Great Bend 144 and Zarah 33.
Also, Yarmer said, Santa Fe Railroad had reached Barton County that year and didn’t put a depot in Zarah.
“Politicians from Illinois – they knew how to grease the skid,” Yarmer said, adding the story is these Great Bend officials “bought cases of whiskey and dined the railroad. Zarah tried to do the same, but didn’t have the moxie to do it.”
Angry, Zarah folks moved most of the buildings to Ellinwood’s downtown. Fires destroyed the buildings, Yarmer said.

Little left
Today, there is little left of this area’s early settlement. A sign on the side of the road near Great Bend tells the history of Fort Zarah, although the park isn’t located on the actual fort site. A display at the Barton County Museum also shows artifacts found from digging exhibitions, Neuforth said.

School photos from Saratoga, Kansas, a dead town in Pratt County

I was cleaning out my email and noticed this old photos of the Saratoga school that was sent to me last summer. To find out about Saratoga, a dead town in Pratt County, click here. A clump a trees at the site mark where the school stood.

These photos are courtesy of the Pratt County Historical Society.

Densmore, Kansas, a dead town in Norton County

 Marion Wilcox stopped by last summer, wanting me to research his hometown.

It's Densmore, Kansas, several hours from Hutchinson. I haven't been to Norton County in a while - not since a fishing trip three or four years ago.

But Wilcox was persistent, which gets me every time. I began making calls to see if I could find out a little more about this ghost town.

There is not much left. The red brick Methodist Church has long been overtaken by trees.

Other dilapidated buildings line the dirt streets here, including a wooden elevator near where the railroad tracks once lay. The roof is caving in on the bank turned post office, which closed in the 1980s – the zip code still etched on the window. The old Farmers Supply Store is but an empty shell and the high school isn’t much more then rubble. 

In fact, for those still counting, only a handful of people withstand in a town once vibrant with activity. But over the years, one by one, people have sought greener pastures in bigger cities – abandoning the rural Norton County town of Densmore.

 “There was a hardware and the elevator, a lumber yard and grocery stores,” Wilcox told me, who now lives in Partridge but spent many of his childhood years in Densmore. “We had a post office and a garage. We’d haul cream to the depot – we’d send five or 10 gallons of cream by train a week.”

Yet Wilcox was among the many who left – taking Highway 9 out of town to join the Air Force, then found work in a Hutchinson manufacturing plant.

Here is a little bit of the tale. All photos are courtesy of Doyle and Lois Archer. Doyle grew up at Densmore.

A pioneer named Densmore

Pioneers were still just settling the western Kansas prairie in 1878 when Cyrus Archer came to Norton County. 

Much of the landscape was still rolling waves of grass. But as Archer trekked across it, he saw smoke coming up from the horizon where a dugout eventually emerged, said Doyle Archer of his distant relative. 

There, he met Thomas J. Densmore, a man who had come to the area four years earlier.

At the time, there were a few homesteaders in the area. One, a man named Sorghum Smith, had died not long before Archer’s arrival. Smith had been in a disagreement with neighbors. Four weeks before his death, a note was pinned to his door, signed by 15 citizens who told him to leave the county or he would be mobbed, according to the “The History of the Early Settlement of Norton County, Kansas.”

In mid-April he vanished. Three weeks later, one of Smith’s sons went down into the tunnel which had been dug on his farm where Smith had considered building a mill. He saw his father’s body floating. A coroner and jury were summoned, and they called it a suicide.

Densmore lay claim to Smith’s property and eventually laid out the town of Densmore on the Solomon River. The town began to boom when the railroad came through in 1881, according to an article in the Norton County News that was transcribed by historian Ardie Grimes.

Businesses began to pop up across the little town. There was a hotel, hardware, general store, newspaper and creamer. Densmore himself was the first postmaster in town. Cyrus Archer helped constructed the 

Free Methodist Church and was the first pastor, according to information compiled by Grimes.

The town would eventually have a bank, school and elevator, and, in 1910, it had a population of 100, according “Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History,” published in 1912. Yet Thomas Densmore didn’t get to see the town’s future growth. A train struck his horse and buggy in 1890 and he died a few months later.

Densmore sued the Missouri Pacific before he died, then his widow took up the suit, according to Grimes’ research. A jury found in favor of the railroad.

Doyle Archer said Densmore had a couple of famous sons, including Glenn Archer, who was born in Norton Count in 1929. He was a senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a position he was nominated for by President Ronald Reagan.

 

Go West Young Man - Greeley County ghost towns

It has been more than 150 years since the New York newspaperman told easterners to "Go West." Yet, in Greeley County, Horace Greeley's name lives on.

The county seat is named after his newspaper. The county and a town both carry his name. There are ghost towns, as well, influenced by the New York Tribune publisher, including the communities of Whitelaw and Reid - named after an editor - and Hector, after his dog.

In 1841, Greeley established the Tribune, which became the leading national newspaper of its time. He helped form the Republican Party and, as an abolitionist, he fought for Kansas' entry into the Union as a free state. Greeley ran against Ulysses S. Grant in 1872 for the presidency, but lost, dying before the votes were even counted.

Still, Greeley's devotees named towns, streets and counties after him. That included W.C. Gerard. Gerard founded Tribune in 1885, which was originally known as Chappaqua and located a mile north of present-day Tribune. But the name changed shortly after its founding.

"He was never out here," Nadine Cheney, curator of the Horace Greeley Museum, said of the county's namesake. Yet people like Gerard coming from the east were largely influenced by Greeley and his newspaper.

Hector - four miles north of Horace there was Hector, named after Horace Greeley's dog. In April 1886, C.T. Thompson began publishing the Hector Echo, Cheney said. Hector also had had two hotels, two stage lines, a lumberyard, hardware store, a land-and-loan company and good water.

In December 1885, it got a post office. A newspaper chronicling the blizzard of 1886 reported that newly named postmaster George Chapman didn't assume his post, as he died in the blizzard.

Even with all of these new businesses, in the summer and fall of 1886 the town of Hector declined and was transplanted to Tribune.

It became the first ghost town in Greeley County as a result, according to Fort Hays State University.

Greeley Center  -- a town north and west of present-day Horace, was the county's second ghost town. Named after Horace Greeley, the Greeley Town Co. formed in October 1885, according to Fort Hays.

It had a newspaper, the Greeley County Gazette, edited by the Wilbe brothers from Hutchinson, Cheney said. The town had the Greeley House Hotel, a livery stable, a grocery store, blacksmith, general store, lumberyard and drugstore.

Cheney said the newspaper reported 75 new arrivals in one day's time, but, in June 1887, the boom ended.

Others had already started the town of Horace in 1886 and Greeley Center lost a significant number of businesses to Horace, Fort Hays reported. By June 1887, the Denver, Memphis and Atlantic Railroad put tracks through Horace and left Greeley Center unable to continue its growth.

"The last remnants of Greeley Center were plowed and cleared away by 1894, never to be seen again," according to Fort Hays. "A lot of the buildings moved to Horace, all planning on being by the railroad tracks. But they did not come through Hector and they did not come through Greeley Center."

Colokan - on the Colorado/Kansas line - Colokan didn't have a tie to Horace Greeley, it was settled by those seeking land to the east. It was located just off the Colorado/Kansas border, not far from the Colorado community of Towner.

According to Fort Hays, Civil War veterans from Illinois came and settled in Greeley County, forming what was known as a soldiers' colony. In 1887, the colony merged with the United Presbyterian colony, forming Colokan Town Co.

The first issue of the newspaper, the Colokan Graphic, edited by O.Q. McNeil, was published in October 1887, Cheney said. It advertised Robert Rockwell's new hotel and restaurant with meals at any hour. Colokan had a real estate office, notary public, a grocery and a blacksmith. The Denver, Memphis and Atlantic Railroad went through the town and the town of Towner. However, when Towner got the depot instead of Colokan, the latter folded.

Whitelaw - Reid Whitelaw Reid was an editor at the New York Tribune and a close friend to Greeley. He was on Republican incumbent Benjamin Harrison's presidential ticket as the vice president, although the duo lost. Thus, two towns are named after the man - Whitelaw and Reid.

Whitelaw had a post office from 1888 to 1890, according to the Kansas State Historical Society. And Cheney said it had an elevator and a few houses.

Residents at Reid, however, had bigger dreams.

Thinking it would be the county seat, the newspaper in Tribune moved to the newly formed town of Reid in 1887. The railroad line went 2 1/2 miles west of Greeley Center, which ultimately became the site of Reid. The town had 50 residents in June 1887.

Old Tribune, before the county seat election, eventually moved a mile south to catch the railroad, helping secure its place in the present day. In November 1888, Tribune was declared the county seat over Horace and Reid, with 420 votes in favor of Tribune, 202 votes in favor of Horace, and only 2 votes going to Reid.

When Tribune became the county seat, all the businesses from the different towns began to move their stores to Tribune, Cheney said. The moving of these businesses ultimately led to the demise of Reid.

In 1891, there were 26 people living in Reid, now called Astor by those residents. By 1897, the town became a ghost town and the town company eventually sold the land for $35.01 in 1901 to pay the back taxes on it.

Locals probably named Astor after John Jacob Astor, one of the richest men in the 19th century. Horace Greeley was a critic of the New Yorker, and a Greeley County illustrated map from 1897 depicts a man with dollar signs on his head.

"Reid/Astor faded into the Kansas background just like so many other settlements of the time period," Fort Hays reported.

Other towns tried to start, as well, including Ainsworth, Thelma, Locust, Youngsville, Hurt and Sidney. Each had a post office, but none of the towns lasted much past the 20th century.

Except for Horace and Tribune, the county's only incorporated cities, nothing remains of any of these ghost towns, Cheney said.

Cheney has trekked through every town site in the county, finding only fragments of life.

There are a few foundations at Astor. She has found broken glass, pieces of concrete and square nails.

"Wherever man goes, he leaves trash," she said.

Moreover, the county never saw the populations it did when these towns were thriving.

The 1890 census shows the county population at more than 2,600 inhabitants in 1887, according to "Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History." It is unclear whether the county actually had that many people. Census numbers show dramatic drops after that, including just 1,200 people in 1890, and the population in 1900 dipped below 500 people.

In 2009, the U.S. Census estimated the county had 1,200 people - the smallest in Kansas.

It didn't take long for early-day farmers to realize that growing crops in the semiarid terrain wasn't easy. Some moved to Holly, Colo., Cheney said. Others went elsewhere.

"Some of them left for the Oklahoma (land) run," she said. "Many times they couldn't find water in Greeley County, and they seemed to move on."

Saratoga, Kansas - it died after losing election for the Pratt County seat

When a town dies, there is no funeral.

But at Saratoga's Summit Hill Cemetery, the wild Iris' still bloom. And perhaps, on occasion, someone remembers a loved one with flowers on Memorial Day.

I ventured here on a cold and rainy day, stopping by the Carter Barker home. His home is situated in where a platted town should be - but nothing remains of Saratoga, except for the 10-acre cemetery.

By the size of the cemetery, they had plans for a big community. But when Saratoga lost the county seat to Pratt, located just a few miles to the west, the town disappeared. I'll have a story in Sunday's Hutch News about the town and its death.

Dorotha Giannangelo has written five books on Pratt County history. She is a great source of information on Saratoga.

Besides the cemetery, there are a few brick remains of the school atop this hill by the trees.

Some of the things found around Saratoga that are on display at the Pratt County Museum.

Here's a rendition of the old flour mill.

Another pictorial shows the school.

Residents set aside 10 acres for the cemetery. They definitely expected to get the county seat honor.s Here's what it would have looked like. A quarter of the cemetery was designated for the town's African American settlers.

Some of the graves are cracked. Some have been stolen over the years.

The cemetery's condition isn't great. But a man named Price Gibbons set up a fund for upkeep before he died a few years ago.

The stone for Jane Martin rests against a tree.

I believe her name was Lizzie Eisenhour.

One of the few graves still standing - His name was Miles.

A few things on Saratoga, Kansas -a dead town in Pratt County

Source: Fort Hays State University

Saratoga, Kansas, once had aspirations to be the Pratt County seat.

Today, it is just a wheat field.

Here are a few things I've discovered while researching this story. I'll be heading to Saratoga Friday.

Click here for a link to whose buried in the little Saratoga Cemetery.

An excerpt from volume II of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / 

There were a few settlers (in Pratt County) in 1876, but in 1877 over 100 families came, many of them from Iowa. The county was attached to Reno that year as a municipal township. The bogus organization was set aside in the fall of 1878, and in the spring of 1879 the citizens petitioned the governor for organization. A census taker was appointed and upon receiving the returns Gov. St. John issued a proclamation organizing Pratt county, with Iuka as the temporary county seat and the following temporary officers: County clerk, L. C. Thompson; commissioners, John Sillin, Thomas Goodwin and L. H. Naron. The election was held on Sept. 2nd, when the following officers were elected: County clerk, L. C. Thompson; clerk of the district court, Samuel Brumsey; probate judge, James Neely; treasurer, R. T. Peak; sheriff, Samuel McAvoy; county attorney, M. G. Barney; superintendent of public instruction, A. H. Hubbs; register of deeds, Phillip Haines; surveyor, J. W. Ellis; coroner, P. Small; commissioners, John Sillin, L. H. Naron and Thomas Goodwin.

For county seat there were three candidates, Saratoga, Iuka and Anderson. In the count the commissioners threw out three townships on account of irregularities. This gave the election to Iuka, but caused so much dissatisfaction that a recount was taken, including the votes previously thrown out. No candidate then had the majority and a new election was ordered. Anderson withdrew. The election was held Aug. 19, 1880. An attempt on the part of Saratoga to buy votes became public before the election, Iuka received an overwhelming majority and was declared the permanent county seat.
The next year some of the county officials were found guilty of swindling the county by issuing scrip illegally, in the two years after the county was organized they had taken nearly $75,000 or about $40 for every man, woman and child in the county. They were prosecuted and new officers elected. In the fall of 1885 there was another county seat election. The candidates were Iuka, Saratoga and Pratt. It was one of the most bitterly contested county seat elections ever held in the state. Saratoga had 546 votes and Pratt 324.

As the total number of voters at Saratoga was but 200 fraud was charged, the commissioners sustained the charges and declared Pratt the county seat. The matter was taken into the courts, and pending the decision the feeling ran high. The Saratoga and Pratt partisans were all armed and trouble was hourly expected. The Pratt men went to Iuka and forcibly removed the county records. On the way back they were attacked by the Saratoga men, who succeeded in capturing the treasurer's safe, which they took to their town. The next day Saratoga made an attack on Pratt in a fruitless effort to get the other county property.

By this time the more peaceable citizens asked the governor to send militia to restore order. Gov. Martin sent Adjt.-Gen. Campbell and Col. W. F. Hutchinson to the county. They stationed guards at both towns and allowed no one to carry arms. Finally the supreme court handed down its decision and ordered the records taken back to Iuka. Matters quieted down, but the county seat contest was not yet forgotten, and in Feb., 1888, a petition was presented to the commissioners asking for a special election to relocate the county seat.

The election was held on Feb. 29 of that year, and Pratt was the winning candidate. The question was settled at last.