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WCHS Completes Kansas State Historical Records Advisory Board Grant
Greg Hoots, of the Wabaunsee County Historical Society has completed work on his grant project, Preserving Memories: Digitizing History, which digitizes over 400 photographs and manuscripts belonging to Alma photographer and businessman, Louis Palenske. The project funds the digitization work which includes the creation of high-resolution scans of photographs and manuscripts and the placement of…
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The Cold War in the Flint Hills
– By Greg Hoots – For four years in the early 1960s the Flint Hills of Wabaunsee County was home to one of America’s weapons of global destruction, an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile carrying a thermonuclear warhead. Located one and a half mile northwest of Keene, Kansas, Missile Launcher No. 6 was one of nine such…
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The Early History of Lake Wabaunsee: 1933-1945
– By Greg Hoots – In 1925 the Kansas Forestry, Fish and Game Commission was formed, and soon that agency began constructing state lakes across Kansas. In Wabaunsee County, a group of sportsmen, businessmen and community leaders organized an attempt to convince the Fish and Game Commission to build a lake in their county. With…
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Otto Kratzer and His Great Western Adventure
– By Greg Hoots – The dawn of the 20th century found America hungry for motorization. In the 1890s the first powered motorcars were being developed in Europe by German engineers Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, while in America the Duryea brothers and the Studebaker brothers began building motorized wagons. Many other manufacturers and entrepreneurs…
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Paxico
A Tale of Three Towns: Old Paxico, Newbury and Paxico By Doug Hiegert The land we know as Kansas, along with most of the Central Plains in 1850, was unorganized territory with various Indian reservations in what is now the state. Kansas Territory was opened to white settlement on May 30, 1853, and in 1859, Wabaunsee…
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McFarland
Located in the beautiful Mill Creek Valley, McFarland was founded by S.H. Fairfield in June of 1887. The town was platted at the junction point where the Rock Island Railroad branched Northwest to Denver and the Pacific coast, and southwest toward the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Fairfield named his new town “McFarland” after his friend…
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Maple Hill
The name “Maple Hill” was coined by Isabella (Bourassa) Higganbotham, who was appointed the settlement’s first postmaster on May 1, 1862, providing mail service to the few families in the area. Maple Hill Township was established ten years later. Settlement increased dramatically with the arrival of several wealthy Eastern families. William A. Pierce, son of…
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Lake Wabaunsee
Learn more about the story of Lake Wabaunsee by clicking the link below: The Early History of Lake Wabaunsee: 1933-1945
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Harveyville
Harveyville, Kansas was founded in 1880 by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, who platted the town with the completion of the ATSF-owned Manhattan, Alma & Burlingame Railroad. There had been settlers living in the general area of Harveyville for some 25 years before the town was formed. Henry Harvey and his sons homesteaded…
