Blakeman
The Burlington and Missouri Railroad
built tracks to the north of Atwood in 1886-1887, and the tracks
continued along the creek to the junction of the Middle and North
Beaver Creeks which was five miles west of Atwood. At that junction
was to be the new town site called Blakeman. The B & M Railroad
purposely set the tracks that way because they wanted their new
town site to be the county seat. An idea was put forth by the
railroad to move the entire town of Atwood to Blakeman in 1886,
but it was rejected by the citizens of Atwood. The Lincoln Land
Company, a subsidiary of the railroad, platted the land which
become the town of Blakeman. A huge depot was built in Blakeman,
and several buildings were moved from Atwood to Blakeman.
The railroad then began the campaign
to move the county seat to Blakeman from Atwood. The town filed
a petition that called for an election to relocate the county
seat to Blakeman, but the county commissioners refused to do so
because the required three-fifths of the registered voters had
not signed the petition. The case was appealed to the Kansas Supreme
Court by the B & M Railroad and Blakeman residents, but the
court ruled in favor of the county commissioners. The controversy
continued for some time until people tired of it and the Nebraska
corporations (Lincoln Land Company and the B & M Railroad)
gave up the cause in the early 1900's. Many of the buildings had
been moved to Atwood, and in 1910, the Lincoln Land Company sold
the town to W. E. Thompson who plowed the ground under and used
it for farm land.
The ethnicity of its settlers is unknown.
Sources
Hayden, Ruth Kelley. "The
Time That Was: The Courageous Acts and Accounts of Rawlins County,
Kansas, 1875-1915". H.F.Davis Memorial Library, Colby Community
College, Colby, KS, 1973.
"History of Rawlins County,
Kansas". Rawlins County Genealogical Society, 1988.
Fitzgerald, Daniel. "Faded
Dreams: More Ghost Towns of Kansas". University Press of
Kansas, 1994.
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