Places - Cheyenne KSGenWeb genealogy, family history

1895 Rand McNally Atlas

1928 Townships

1928 T3S R40W Plat

2008 KS Dept. of Transportation

Populated Places

Bird City, a village of Cheyenne county, is located in the township of the same name and is a station on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. 16 miles east of St. Francis, the county seat. It has a bank, a money order postoffice with two rural delivery routes, telegraph and express offices, Adventist and Methodist Episcopal churches, telephone connection with the adjacent towns, a good local trade, and is a shipping point of some importance. The population was 190 in 1910. Extracted 2002 by Carolyn Ward from Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, volume I, page 186.

Jaqua, a small settlement of Cheyenne county, is located on the south fork of the Republican river in the southwestern part of the county, about 18 miles from St. Francis, the county seat. It has a money order postoffice and is a trading point for the neighborhood. St. Francis is the nearest railroad station. Extracted 2002 by Carolyn Ward from Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, volume II, page 20.

St. Francis, the judicial seat of Cheyenne county, is an incorporated city of the third class, located on the Republican river and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy R. R. It has 2 state banks, a weekly newspaper (the Herald), schools and churches, all lines of retail establishments, telegraph and express offices, and an international money order postoffice with two rural routes. It is in the midst of a large area of land adapted to farming and stock raising, for which it is the receiving and shipping point. St. Francis was founded in 1887 by the people of a town known as Wano, about 2 miles to the southwest. There was some difficulty in obtaining a good title to the town site of Wano, and it was resolved to move. Dec. 5, 1887, was the day set to begin occupying the new site. Collins Bros. and James W. Midgley were the first to start improvements. On the 6th three buildings had been moved and the migration kept up until the end of the month. The bank was moved and its name changed. The postoffice was moved and became known as St. Francis. The city of Wano had been incorporated and had a full corps of officials. The last ordinance passed was to prohibit the leaving of any cellar or opening on the old town site in such a condition that animals or travelers by night might fall into it. On the new site there was no city government apart from the township. In 1888 some $50,000 was spent in improvements in the way of buildings. By an election held on Feb. 26, 1889, St. Francis was made county seat. The town was incorporated as a city of the third class in April, 1903, and the following were the first officers: Mayor, L. E. Harrison; city clerk, L. D. Hotchkiss; councilmen, A. E. Smull, G. A. Benkelman, C. E. Burnham, H. B. Bear, J. J. Armstrong and I. S. Hall. In 1905 the legislature passed an act making the incorporation legal and also making the ordinances Nos. 1 to 16 valid. Extracted 2002 by Carolyn Ward from Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, volume II, pages 619-620.