It started with a cluster of communities competing for the economic benefits of a railroad line.
“Each town site represents the belief of where the two railroads were going to cross,” [historian Jim] Whaley said.
Where the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroad tracks met would be the prime location for development.
“Town buildings was something of an art,” Whaley said, and entrepreneurs wanted to be in early. He said there are 17 different stories about where people believed that junction would be.
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