Ravanna
This town went through several name changes
after it was founded in 1882 by John Bull. It was originally called
Bulltown, after Mr. Bull, but the settlers did not like that name.
It was then changed to Cowland which the merchants did not like.
Ravanna was the next and final name chosen.
By the time Garfield County was organized in
July 1887, Ravanna had become a trading center for the ranchers
in the area. Governor John Martin named John Bull as a county
commissioner and the commission named Ravanna the temporary county
seat. The commission set up an election to be held in November
for the permanent county seat. Ravanna had 467 votes; Eminence
had 432 votes. A courthouse constructed with native rock was built
in Ravanna, and it ended up costing $2,000 more than the $10,000
in bonds and was nicknamed the "Great White Elephant".
Citizens of Eminence started an investigation
of the election and found that a construction crew, using the
names of the dead men, had voted and none of them were citizens
of Ravanna. The attorney's general's office deducted 60 votes
from Ravanna, and Eminence became the county seat on December
11, 1888.
The county commissioners in Ravanna refused
to hand over the county records. There are several different accounts
of what happened next, but the men of Eminence basically forced
their way into the courthouse and seized the county records. The
new courthouse was completed except for some final touches in
1889.
The State Adjutant General was sent to the area
and persuaded the two towns to hold off on declaring the county
seat until the court met in September, 1889. The final judgment
gave the victory to Eminence.
A surveyor hired in 1892 by Ravanna citizens
found that the county did not meet the required number of acres
that it needed to be organized legally. In the autumn of 1892,
this finding was upheld in the court which declared Garfield County
illegal. The state legislature annexed Garfield County to Finney
County in the spring of 1893.
The county annexation was a blow both to Eminence
which had a population of 300 and to Ravanna. Both towns lost
their bid for the county seat, and people began moving away, closing
businesses and leaving farms.
The Kansas Pacific Railroad's plans to put in
tracks from Ravanna to Dodge City did not come to fruition. These
decisions ultimately led to the demise of Ravanna. Today there
are only a few foundations that lay where a town once was home
to several hundred people.
The ethnicity of its settlers is unknown.
Sources
Blanchard, Leola Howard. Conquest
of Southwest Kansas: A History and Thrilling Stories of Frontier
Life in the State of Kansas. Wichita, KS: Wichita Eagle Press,
1931.
Finney County Historical Society.
History of Finney County. Garden City, KS: 1950.
Fitzgerald, Daniel. "Ghost
Towns of Kansas." Vol. 2. Daniel Fitzgerald, 1979.
Lindner, F. Claudine. History
of Garfield County, Kansas. Masters Thesis, University of Wyoming,
1949.
Harris, L. David. "Lest
We Forget Beersheba". The Wichitan, February 1981.
