Garden City, the largest town and county seat of Fiuney county, is centrally located on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and Garden City, Gulf and Northern railroads, and on the Arkansas river. It is the commercial center for a large and prosperous irrigating district, and is in the midst of the Kansas beet sugar region. It has electricity for lighting and power, waterworks, sewer system, fire and police departments, a county high school, public library, hospital, opera house, 3 banks, 3 newspapers (the Telegram, a daily and the Imprint and Herald, weeklies). There is a beet sugar factory, erected at a cost of $1,000,000, which handles 1,000 tons of beets and turns out 200,000 pounds of refined sugar daily. There are two seed houses, which cure and market native seeds, several firms which manufacture stock tanks, pumps, and all sorts of well supplies, 2 elevators, a flour mill and a planing mill. Daily stages run to Santa Fe, Eminence and Essex, and tri-weekly stages to Terryton. The shady streets and fine lawns in the residence portion of Garden City indicate that it is well named. The business district, which covers several squares, is solidly built with structures of brick and stone. The city is supplied with telegraph and express offices, telephone accommodations, and an international money order postoffice with two rural routes. Garden City was first settled in 1884. For the first few years the growth was rapid, but, in common with other western Kansas towns, it lost in population during the period of business depression from 1889 to 1896. Since then its progress has been along more conservative lines and the improvements are consequently of a more substantial character than those of earlier years. In 1900, the first U. S. census after the city was incorporated, the population was 1,590. Ten years later the city was divided into three wards and reported a total population of 3,171, an increase of almost 100 per cent. during the decade.