Belpre | Kinsley | Lewis | Nettleton | Offerle | Wendell

Homesteading in Edwards County

Prentis, Noble Lovely. "History of Kansas." Winfield, KS: E. P. Greer, 1899.

Organized in 1874, Edwards County was named in honor of W. C. and R. E. Edwards who were among the county's first settlers. The Edwards constructed the county's first brick building, a building that served as the courthouse for several years.

The county attracted German and Swedish settlers. The county has a large population of Germans. The Catholic Germans settled mainly northwest of Kinsley in the area of the St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church. German Methodists also settled in this part of the county where they established the Salem Methodist Church. South of Offerle there are German Lutherans, who established the Zion Lutheran Church. In the northeast part of the county near the Pawnee County boundary was a group of Swedish settlers. This group had close ties to Garfield and helped establish the Lutheran church there.

Contact Us:

Edwards County Historical Society
P.O. Box 64
Kinsley, KS 67547
(620) 659-2420

Sources

Rosetta Graff of the Edwards County Historical Society supplied most of the information on this page.

William G. Culter's History of the State of Kansas (1976 reproduction).

Nobel L. Prentis' A History of Kansas (1904).