Homesteading in Seward County
Arkalon
The town site was platted by the
Arkalon Town Company on May 10, 1888, one day after a post office
called Arkalon had been established. Many of its settlers moved
here from Fargo Springs and Springfield. However, the town was
in an area of hills and had deep sand which caused many problems
for getting supplies into and out of town. Despite the unforgiving
ground, Arkalon was a vital shipping area for close to twenty
years. It was the flood of 1914 that doomed the existence of the
Arkalon because it wiped out a bridge that lead to the town over
the Cimarron River. Shortly after this happened, the Chicago,
Rock Island and Pacific Railroad moved its operations to Liberal.
By 1920, there were few people remaining in the town, as many
of them had left and moved to Liberal. The post office closed
in 1929.
The ethnicity of its settlers is
unknown.
Sources
Fitzgerald, Daniel. "Ghost
Towns of Kansas". Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988.
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