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.

External links edit

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