Wikipedia

List of ghost towns in Kansas

This is an incomplete list of ghost towns in the state of Kansas.

Map of the United States with Kansas highlighted

Causes

edit

There are many reasons as to why a community becomes abandoned (or nearly abandoned).

  • Transportation – With the development of major highways and interstates, people were willing to travel farther for goods and services causing local businesses in smaller towns to lose customers and ultimately close. The more businesses that close the more people are apt to want to move away to a bigger town. Transportation has played a major role in settlement in Kansas. As traffic from the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails increased, towns boomed along them. When railroads were established towns developed along the tracks or even moved to where the tracks were.
  • Politics – In Kansas, the political atmosphere was highly divided. Towns were either pro-slavery or abolitionist. When Kansas became a free state in 1861, pro-slavery towns died out. Survival of a town also depended on if it won the county seat. Towns that were contenders for the county seat and lost typically saw most, if not all, of their town die out.
  • Lack of employment – Towns that catered to a specific industry like coal mining or military housing were boom towns that quickly died when their markets collapsed. Some towns were abandoned in the 1930s during the Dust Bowl period which mainly relied on agriculture.
  • Eminent domain / flood control – Since 1951, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have sought to control floods through the building of dams along rivers and the resulting outcome is a town having to be moved or abandoned and demolished.
  • Environmental degradation – remnants of lead and zinc mining can cause soil contamination that can render entire communities uninhabitable; e.g. Treece.[1]

List

edit

List of ghost towns in Kansas, which aren't incorporated cities or unincorporated communities:

Allen County

edit

Anderson County

edit

Atchison County

edit

Butler County

edit

Chase County

edit

Cherokee County

edit

Cheyenne County

edit

Clark County

edit

Clay County

edit

Cloud County

edit

Cowley County

edit

Decatur County

edit

Doniphan County

edit

Douglas County

edit

Elk County

edit

Ellis County

edit

Ellsworth County

edit

Finney County

edit

Franklin County

edit

Geary County

edit

Gove County

edit

Graham County

edit

Greeley County

edit

Greenwood County

edit

Harper County

edit

Harvey County

edit

Haskell County

edit

Jewell County

edit

Labette County

edit

Leavenworth County

edit

Lincoln County

edit

Linn County

edit

Logan County

edit

Marion County

edit

Marshall County

edit

Mitchell County

edit

Montgomery County

edit

Morris County

edit

Neosho

edit

Norton County

edit

Osborne County

edit

Ottawa County

edit

Phillips County

edit

Rawlins County

edit

Reno County

edit

Republic County

edit

Rice County

edit

Rooks County

edit

Rush County

edit

Russell County

edit

Seward County

edit

Shawnee County

edit

Sheridan County

edit

Smith County

edit

Stevens County

edit

Sumner County

edit

Thomas County

edit

Trego County

edit

Wabaunsee County

edit

Washington County

edit

Wichita County

edit

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ NY Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/magazine/last-ones-left-in-treece-kan-a-toxic-town.htm
  2. ^ "Index of Kansas Places - Kansas Historical Society". www.kshs.org. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
edit
Retrieved from "https://en.luquay.com/w/index.php?title=List_of_ghost_towns_in_Kansas&oldid=1225449652"