Republic County, like many other counties
of Kansas, has been settled by people of many nations. After being
used as a pathway for many years it finally came to be of interest
to homesteaders. Perhaps the fact that it was the seat of the
old Pawnee capital had something to do with its long period of
neglect for the Indians still opposed settlement west of the Republic
River and made frequent raids east from that point.
The county was laid out and its boundaries
defined by the state legislature in 1860.
An old military road ran through the
county, following the [Republic River], and is often spoken of
in early letters and accounts of travel through this region. After
the southern route west from Fort Riley became crowded and Indian
attacks became almost a certainty for any train using it, this
road to the north was used by some of the Mormons and by settlers
bound for Oregon.
With the passage of the Homestead
Bill in 1862, settlement in northern Kansas was given a new stimulus
and land seekers came, at first slowly and then more and more
rapidly until by the early seventies all the free land was gone.
People of many nations of the world were once more claiming this
region for their own, this time for homes. Fast and faster they
came---Swedes, Norwegians, Poles, Bohemians, Scotch, English,
German, French, Scandanavians, with sprinklings of other nationalities---all
seeking land.
Most of these groups were represented
by settlements in Republic County. Only the Germans and French
failed to establish colonies within its boundaries but they settled
so near its borders that their settlements have gradually extended
themselves into the county.
This was the background for the group
settlements of particular nationalities which began in 1868 with
the coming of a group of settlers sent out by the Scandinavian
Agricultural Society to the little village of New Scandinavia,
now Scandia, which had been laid out for the settlers of this
company. Although this group was the first to come, it was followed
so quickly by the others that the settlements seem almost simultaneous.”*
“As the western part of Republic
County is Scandinavian, so the eastern part is Bohemian. The Bohemians
have spread over the county probably more than any of the other
groups, but the eastern part of the county still remains distinctly
Bohemian.”+
Map of
Republic County
Contact Us:
Republic County Historical Museum
W. Hwy 36
P.O. Box 218
Belleville, KS 66935
(785) 527-5971
e-mail: repcomuse@nckcn.com
www.nckcn.com/homepage/republic_co/repmus.htm
Sources
We thank Patricia Walker, Curator/Director
of the Republic County Historical Society, for pointing us to
information on Republic County.
*Ida Lucretia Smith, “A History of the
National Group Settlements in Republic County, Kansas” (M.S.
thesis, Fort Hays Kansas State College, 1933), 1, 2, 3-4, 5.
+Ida Lucretia Smith, “A History of the National Group Settlements
in Republic County, Kansas” (M.S. thesis, Fort Hays Kansas
State College, 1933), 61.
Smith, Ida Lucretia. “A History
of the National Group Settlements in Republic County,
Kansas.” M.S. thesis., Fort Hays Kansas State College, 1933.
