Pop quiz: How many cities in Johnson County begin with the letter “P”? The answer may surprise you. Of course, we all know Prairie Village, but what about Provence Village? The city, which was an independent third-class city, existed southwest of Olathe for less than a decade. In the postwar era, northeastern Johnson County was rapidly suburbanizing. As master-planned subdivisions grew into communities, many became large enough to incorporate as state-recognized cities. Third-class cities, the smallest in Kansas, had less than 2,000 residents. Between 1948 and 1951, a whopping 11 suburban developments were incorporated as new third-class cities in Johnson County. These included: Leawood (in 1948); Fairway, Mission Hills, Mission Woods, Westwood, and Westwood Hills (in 1949); Merriam (in 1950); and Countryside, Mission, Roeland Park, and Prairie Village (in 1951). The number of incorporated cities in the county more than doubled.
While it was expanding like many of Johnson County’s existing towns, Olathe was not experiencing the boom of the county’s northeast. The 1950 census recorded 5,600 residents in Olathe, a second-class city. Still, WWI Navy veteran George Provence and his wife Aletha thought the area was well-suited for a new suburban development. In 1947, George and Aletha Provence purchased a tract of land southwest of the City of Olathe. It was bounded by the Santa Fe Railroad tracks to the south, Dennis Avenue to the north, and U.S. 50 bisected the land running from the southwest to the northeast.
Source: Johnson County Post