Greensburg, the county seat and principal city of Kiowa county, is located about 4 miles north of the center of the county on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. R. It was settled in 1885, the year before the county was organized. The first number of the Greensburg Republican was issued on March 22, 1887, by Hollis & Welles, and in an editorial the publishers said "A little more than two years old, yet we are a substantial, thriving and bustling city, with a population of 2,000 earnest, energetic, educated people," etc. Greensburg was then 28 miles from the nearest railroad. The day before that issue of the Republican was published the people of Center township voted bonds to the amount of $20,000 to aid in the construction of the Kansas Southwestern, and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific line was then under construction. By July 1, 1886, the city had two banks in operation, but for various reasons the city did not meet the expectations of some of the pioneer settlers, and many of them moved elsewhere. By 1900 the population had dwindled to 343.

Then began an era of steady, substantial improvement, and in 1910 the population had reached 1,199, an increase of more than 250 per cent, in ten years. Greensburg has 2 banks, 2 weekly newspapers (the Republican and the Signal), an opera house, good hotels, Baptist, Christian and Methodist churches, graded public schools, express and telegraph offices, a number of well stocked mercantile establishments, and an international money order postoffice with 2 rural routes. Large quantities of grain and live stock are annually shipped from Greensburg, which is one of the progressive little cities of southwestern Kansas.