Celebrate 150 years of Derby

A lot has changed in 150 years, especially in the city of Derby. In 1869, the Alexander Garrett family staked a claim near Spring Creek close to what’s now Garrett Park, sparking the community that soon became El Paso and then in the 1950s boomed into Derby.

Let’s get this in perspective. In 1869, Ulysses Grant was sworn in as our 18th president. The outlaw Jesse James robbed the bank that made him famous, and the first transcontinental railroad was completed. The terrain here was mostly prairie grass, and Kansas had just become a state in 1861. Look around Derby today and try to picture it with dirt roads and only a few blocks of “town” buildings in the vicinity south of Madison Avenue around the railroad track and what’s now K-15 highway. The rest of what’s Derby today was all farmland.