Bird CIty | Jaqua
| St. Francis
Homesteading in Cheyenne County
Cheyenne County was a part of Rawlins
County until residents started a petition drive in late 1885 to
have the area be organized into a separate county. Governor John
A. Martin issued a proclamation on April 1, 1886 to organize Cheyenne
County and named Bird City the temporary county seat.
Between April 1886 and February 1889,
there were numerous elections and court cases involving the towns
of Bird City and Wano with regard to the permanent location of
the county seat. The first election took place on May 15, 1886,
and Wano claimed the victory with 788 votes to Bird City's 465
votes. The commissioners met a couple of days later to canvass
the votes, but had to adjourn the meeting because of a mob. They
met again on May 22, and the Wano precinct reportedly did not
have any votes, and at the next meeting, Bird City showed over
1000 legal votes for county officers and the county seat. 612
names that were not recorded on the May 15th vote were reported
to have been added to the poll books after the election. Because
of the poll book fraud, there were legal ramifications. Eventually
St. Francis (formerly Wano) was named the permanent county seat
after an election on February 26, 1889, but there were several
law suits filed even after the Board of County Commissioners declared
St. Francis as the county seat beginning March 2, 1889. The State
Legislature finally put the matter to rest with a February 5,
1891 ruling that stated that the election of February 26, 1889
was legal and therefore St. Francis was to be the permanent county
seat.
A large contingent of Germans from
Russia settled in the four northwest townships of Nutty Combe,
Cleveland Run, Eureka and Cheery Creek. Six German language churches
were eventually built in the Eureka and Cherry Creek townships
where most of the German-Russian settlers lived. The first church,
First German Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, was founded
on May 8, 1887. Eventually a seventh church was founded in St.
Francis in 1926 after several of the older settlers moved into
town.
Sources
Cheyenne County Historical Society,
ed. "The History of Cheyenne County, Kansas" Published
by the Curtis Media Corporation, 1987.
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