Moscow
The Moscow Town Company founded the
town site on June 6, 1887. By mid 1888, there was a newspaper
and a hotel. The name originally had been Mosco, an abbreviation
of Moscoso, who was one of the men in Coronado's expedition. However,
much to the dismay of the townsfolk, the post office added a "w"
when a post office was established on April 28, 1888.The town
began to decline in the 1890's because of the drought, and soon
there were no buildings. The post office was moved from one homestead
to another to keep the mail route going.
The Charles Stull family filed a homestead
claim on land near the Old Moscow town site in 1905. A family
member took over the post office a few years later and moved it
to the Stull homestead. A small store was added to the post office
by Charles Stull.
In 1912-1913, the Santa Fe Railroad
built tracks through Stevens County, and the store was moved to
a new town site by the tracks seven miles northwest of the old
town of Moscow. The new town took the name of Moscow after the
post office moved there.
The ethnicity of its settlers is unknown.
Sources
Thomson, Edith Campbell. "History
of Stevens County Kansas." Edith Campbell Thomson, 1967.
|