Santa Fe Kansas.

I had been looking for a Kansas Ghost town to work on for a while now but with no luck. Kansas is full of ghost towns and are easily found. The problem is finding anything on them. There are many reasons why a town dies and unless some important event happen in or around the town it's long for gotten. Then while looking for sometnig eles I found Santa Fe. At first I found vert little on the town then I started changing the wording on my searchs and soon was finding some imformation. This imformation will be in short paragraphs. Even so you will learn a lot about the town and will find the information interesting.

About the picture: Moving S.E. Cave's office building from Santa Fe to Sublette, Kansas View of workers using wagons and mules to move S. E. Cave's office building from Santa Fe, Kansas, to the new county seat in Sublette, Kansas. The James S. Patrick Real Estate office, left, was later moved to Satanta, Kansas. In the background, behind the S. E. Cave building, is the original Haskell County Courthouse building. Santa Fe pioneers fought hard for a railroad for Haskell County, but when it came in 1913, it missed Santa Fe, the original county seat, by seven miles. In 1920, the county seat was moved to Sublette, Kansas, which had prospered by being on the Santa Fe railroad line, and Santa Fe faded away into a ghost town.
Creator: Steele, F. M. (Francis Marion), 1866-1936
Date: Between 1891 and 1912.
Picture can be enlarged by pushing on it .

Santa Fe was founded in 1886, in Haskell county. One of the better known men of Santa Fe was that of Jeptha McCoy, who owned a farm six miles south of Santa Fe, Hhe worked hard on the farm but because of some bad whate corps he would loss the farm. In 1893 Mr. McCoy moved to Santa Fe in order to give his children better school advantages. He still had to depend upon the toil of his hands to support the family, and went to Colorado as a place offering better advantages. He was there almost a year and then decided to remain in Kansas. He planted 400 acres of wheat on the shares, and while there was a fair crop he was $100 worse off when it was threshed than when he finished sowing. This was a year of wet, cold weather, and wheat was practically ruined by the black rust. The next year he again went to Colorado and began operating a threshing outfit for hulling alfalfa. His experiences in Colorado kept him there until June, 1900, when he returned to the harvest fields of Larned, Kansas, and since 1901 has been engaged in farming and stock raising near Santa Fe. Mr. McCoy owns the east half of section 25, township 28, range 33. The improvements on this land were placed there by Mr. Rosenthal, a former banker of Santa Fe.

Mr. McCoy has been quite active in local affairs, was for two years trustee of Loco Township and one of the early members of the School Board of district No. 45. In October, 1917, he retired after two years of service as county treasurer of Haskell County. He was elected to that office on the democratic ticket and has always supported that party in politics. The children of Mr. and Mrs. McCoy are Ella, Frank, Myrtle, and Miss Edna. Ella is the wife of F. E. Murphey, president of the Santa Fe State Bank at Sublette. Frank is a real estate man and abstracter of Sublette, married Etta Swartz and has a daughter, Ethel. Myrtle is the wife of E. H. Elliott, of Sublette, and has two children, Merton and Dorsey.

The Postoffice of Santa FE.

Santa Fe became the seventh post office established June 16, 1886, in what was then Finney County, soon to become Haskell County. James H. Grayson was the first postmaster and served only from June 1886 to November 1886 when Mark Highfill took the office and served until September 1887. Morgan Funkhouser became the next postmaster and served until November 1887. Mr. Highfill again took over and served until May 1889.

William V. Marshall was the following postmaster and he held the office until February 1891 when Andrew P. Heminger was appointed and served until April 1893. Elijah M. McMahan took the office until November 1896 when DeEtta Robertson was named and served until June 1897.

John J. Miller, publisher of The Santa Fe Monitor, was appointerd postmaster and served until November 1901. His daughter, Helen Wells, recalled living in the building where the post office, printing plant, a small grocery store and a lawyer's office was housed.

Joseph T. Miller took the office and served until August 1913. George A. Tyler was appointed and served until July 1915. Katie Cummins filed in from July to September 1915. While she was acting postmistress she was directed from the U. S. Treasury Department to pay James T. Pearce, former postmaster, the sum of 74 cents.

Ralph Wallace served as postmaster until December 1915. Ethyl H. Beymer was the postmistress until March 1819. The last postmistress was Agnes E. Lindeman, who served from March 1918 to July 31, 1925, when the mail was dispatched to Sublette and the Santa Fe office was closed.

Santa Fe was the county seat for a short time then was mover to Satanta, which was named after a famous War Chief. The townsite was surveyed and the first lot was purchased by James S. Patrick, a well known real estate dealer and abstractor who lived in Santa Fe. Mr. Patrick's store can be seen in the above picture. He had built it the front yard of his ranch at Santa Fe. Mr. Patrick made the move just in time to see the first train to arrived in Satanta on October 22, 1912.

Haskell County government.

Governor Martin appointed J. E. Marlow, C. H. Hunnington and Joe Comes commissioners of the county; Lowery G. Gilmore, county clerk, and J. B. Shumaker, sheriff. These officers met in a room of the offices of O’Brien and Manuel and took oath of office. County business began in a room in Santa Fe rented for $20 per month, furnished with a table and six office chairs purchased by the county. The Haskell County Review (later to become The Haskell County Monitor) was designated the official county newspaper.

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Haskell County.

Santa Fe Cemetery.

The largest of the county cemeteries is located just south of Old Santa Fe Feeders on U. S. Highway 83 and originally served the town of Santa Fe. The first block was acquired from Margaret S. Frisbie, and the original cemetery plat was filed August 28, 1888. The balance of land to the highway was purchased from James Patrick in 1921 for $25 an acre. Four blocks are platted, numbering 1600 plots and nearly all have been used or sold.

Records have been carefully kept of the cemetery since 1914. Lots containing four plots were sold for $5 at that time. To raise revenue in addition to the sale of lots, dinners were served and food sales and bazaars held. These netted as much as $83. Donations of $1 and $2 were often made. Mrs. Meredith made a generous gift of $2,000 in 1943.

In 1941 an election was called to give a deed to Haskell Township to legalize a levy; the cemetery is now tax supported. The first well was drilled in 1929, and a new fence was constructed in 1939, replaced in 1951 by the present fence and brick entrance. The metal arch was moved near the highway at that time from its previous location about midway in the cemetery. Many, many hours of volunteer labor have been donated to help keep the cemetery up over the years. The most recent improvement made was a second flagpole placed at the front entrance just before Memorial Day 1984.

In the earlier recorded minutes, plans for Memorial Day were extensive. They included parades, speakers, musical numbers, flowers, flag raising and selection of a high school student to recite the Gettysburg Address. Memorial services are now provided each year by the Sublette American Legion Post #205 and Auxiliary with a speaker, color guard, placement of a wreath at the flagpole and taps, all honoring approximately 70 veterans buried at the cemetery. A flag is placed at each of their graves by the Legion.

The earliest known burials are several in 1887 near the west fence. Side by side are two cement-covered graves whose markers bear that date¾ F. M. Rosenberry, age 12 and Ella Collins, age 15. Two stones marked "unknown" and many other old stones can be found in this area. One inscription tells of a tragic death: Willie Pryor, 1899-1914¾ "Willie tried to swim the Cimarron River at low flood stage."

Many names no longer familiar can be found, but some have been remembered: Mrs. Gillespe¾ "Died August 1893 at A. J. Trimbles." Her story has ben passed on by the McCoy family. She was traveling through the area when she became too ill to go any farther and the family stopped at the Trimbles who took them in and helped care for the sick woman until her death. Their kindness did not stop there. Years later one of the Trimble sons, who was in the monument business, erected the stone in memory of the lady who died at his parents’ home.

Abraham Bushey, a bachelor, died in 1906 at the age of 38. He hauled freight from Garden City for the Rutledge Hotel and, when the wagon was filled with ice, the trip was made at night. On one of these late-night trips, while still in Finney County, he apparently went to sleep and slid to the ground. His neck was broken whe he fell beneath the wagon and died instantly. Mr. Rutledge brought him back to Santa Fe, arranged for his burial and erected the monument.

John L. Taubman, 1848-1918, and his sister Meta Taubman, 1865-1946, came from the Isle of Man, a small island located in the Irish Sea midway between England and Northern Ireland. It is believed she originally came to New York as a maid and that he carried the mail in this area at one time. How and why they came to Haskell County is not known. Several Sublette residents remember Meta who stayed on in Her little two room house a block east of Sublette’s main street until her death.

Where are all of these people’s relatives? They do exist. J. K. Stanley who died in 1921 at the age of 83, was a Civil War veteran who homesteaded here with his wife Margaret (Hanston) Stanely (1848-1898) and also served as Register of Deeds at Santa Fe. A few years ago a Stanely descendant in California wrote a letter of inquiry about them for her genealogy research.

Each person buried in the Haskell County Cemetery has his or her story and all should be remembered for their numerous contributions to our community. For nearly 100 years our Kansas winds have swept this plot of ground as those who lie there rest undisturbed.

Update September 1, 013.

Terry Vollmer sent me this picture and note.

 

This picture looks like it was taken in the 1920's.
Push to enlarge.

Hi...Found your Santa Fe, Kansas info site through Google search... Thought you might be interested.
It appears as if the building in this photo is the  same one seen in the background of the photo you have included on the Santa Fe, Kansas page...  No additional information available with  this photo post card...