The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad
got a federal land grant in 1864 to build a railroad and get it
to the Kansas-Colorado border by January 1, 1873. They barely
made it by finishing the rail line on December 28, 1872. The county
was blocked out and named by the legislature the following year
(1873), but was not officially organized until March 27, 1888.
It was originally organized as a municipal
township of Ford County in 1879, and in 1883 was divided between
Sequoyah (Finney) and Hamilton Counties. Finney County was formed
in 1884 with the land of the eastern half of the original Kearny
County and all of Sequoyah County. All of the old Kearny County
land was detached from Finney County in 1886 and then united with
Hamilton to become Hamilton County. Finally, on March 27, 1888,
Kearny County was organized as it had been blocked back in 1873.
The first permanent settler in the
county was John O'Loughlin, born in 1842 in Ennistymon County,
Clare, Ireland. He came to the United States with his mother and
two siblings in 1850 and settled in Iowa. While serving in the
Grand Army of the Republic Quartermaster Corps as a wagon master
under General George Custer and Philip Henry Sheridan, O'Loughlin
began a trading post and toll bridge over the Pawnee Creek on
the Fort Hays-Fort Dodge road. After the ASTF had completed its
line, O'Loughlin decided to look for another location for his
trading post. The site he selected in 1873 was halfway between
Dodge City, Kansas and Granada, Colorado. He named it Lakin after
an ATSF railroad trustee, David Long Lakin.
Among the settlers were a small number
of Danes and Swedes. In 1885-1886, there were 13 men who purchased
claims, among them brothers Hans P. and Rasmus P. Eskelund and
their brother-in-law Louis Hoi. Their families joined them in
January 1886, but Louis Hoi and family returned to New York after
three years. A Swiss family settled northeast of Kendall in 1906.
In 1905-1906, a colony of Mennonites
from Harvey, Reno and McPherson Counties in Kansas settled in
the southwest part of the county and the southeast part of Hamilton
County. The Menno post office was established and a couple of
churches were built, as well as a store and a blacksmith shop.
However, by 1912, only about a dozen families remained, because
the dry years lead to discouragement in farming the western Kansas
land. Many families returned to eastern counties they had come
from.
A Jewish Agricultural colony was founded
in Kearny County in 1886. It was called Touro.
Sources
"History of Kearny County,
Kansas." Lakin: Kearny County Historical Society, 1970.
