Homesteading in Seward County

Arkalon

The town site was platted by the Arkalon Town Company on May 10, 1888, one day after a post office called Arkalon had been established. Many of its settlers moved here from Fargo Springs and Springfield. However, the town was in an area of hills and had deep sand which caused many problems for getting supplies into and out of town. Despite the unforgiving ground, Arkalon was a vital shipping area for close to twenty years. It was the flood of 1914 that doomed the existence of the Arkalon because it wiped out a bridge that lead to the town over the Cimarron River. Shortly after this happened, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad moved its operations to Liberal. By 1920, there were few people remaining in the town, as many of them had left and moved to Liberal. The post office closed in 1929.

The ethnicity of its settlers is unknown.

Sources

Fitzgerald, Daniel. "Ghost Towns of Kansas". Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988.