GHOST TOWNS & POST OFFICE TOWNS

The Atwater Townsite Company, incorporated Oct. 18th, 1887, with James E. McCall, John J. Mohler, John I. Jones, Wm. B. Long, H. L. Markley, John E. Maxwell, and Lewis Maston, directors. Atwater comprised the southeast forty acres of Section 34, Township 33, Range 29. The plat was filed Nov. 9th, 1887.  

On March 27, 2009, we had a blizzard in Meade County... I was trapped in the house and it made me think of a pile of yellow newspapers that J.T. Powell had given to me last fall... newspapers his mother had saved about the blizzard of 1957. Imagine my surprise when I read the date... March 27th!

Byers was a small town beginning just prior to Nirwana City in the summer of 1885. J.M. Byers started a store and a blacksmith shop on his farm near Nirwana, calling the embryo town in honor of himself, Byers. The town was located in south Meade County about five miles north of the state line.

By April of 1885, Carthage was established by the Carthage Town Company on the east half of Section 31, Township 31, Range 28. This is about the time that Meade Center came into existence. Carthage exhibited great signs of prosperity for a while, attaining a population of around four hundred, and was a very aggressive candidate for the location of the county seat. 

Jasper, like other western towns, had two locations through the years. The first was platted in Mertilla Township on the E/2 of the SW/4 of Section 26-T31-R29 on May 14, 1888, by the Kansas Town and Land Company, stating that they owned a 51% interest in the location. A 49% interest was owned by George W. Ragon.

"In the fall of 1885, the town of Mertilla began. A small one room house, in which Sam High started the first grocery store, was moved in by the power of four oxen," according to Jim Gillick as told to Marlene Brown in the book "Pioneer Stories of Meade County."

I recently ran across an article in the Plains Journal that was telling about a fire at the old Nye Post Office. It gave a good history so I thought I would post it along with a great old photo offered to me from the Larry Meyer collection. As we discover more about "Nye" we will post it here.

Each wave of occupation of the American frontier developed its own mode of migration and settlement. For the Great Plains one of the serviceable patterns was the mutual aid or cooperative colony. Everett Dick in The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890, describes a number of these colonies..

Rainbelt was an unplatted community located northwest of Missler, in W/2 Sec. 23-T31-R29. It was considered quite a trading post at first but alas, didn't last very long. Post office records show that Rainbelt established September 18, 1884, and closed April 12, 1888..

The town of Wilburn was actually located in the southern-most part of Ford County in [SW/4-SEC 35-Twp 29-Rng 26]... about a quarter mile from the Ford and Meade County line. Wilburn Cemetery still stands today a quarter mile south and two miles east of the town site [NW/4-SEC 1-Twp 30-Rng 26] in Meade County.