A New Town ...

I came across this while looking though microfilm.  It is from the February 12, 1873 issue of the Neosho County Journal [1].   The directions — about eight miles east of this city (Osage Mission) — seem odd until you realize there were no real roads at that time.  

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"A NEW TOWN — A town company has been organized and a charter applied for to start a town on the line of the M, K & T Railroad, about eight miles east of this city and one mile west of Walnut Station, on the farm of J. M. Mudd.  The location is a good one for a town, it being surrounded by a number of the best improved farms in Southern Kansas.  Mr. Jno (?) Burke, who is a member of the company, informs us that arrangements have been made with the railroad company to put in a side track and the Town Company have agreed to build a depot and store house.  About forty acres will be laid out into lots as soon as the weather will permit.  The neat little Catholic Church, which was built by Father Colleton about two years ago, will be upon the town site, also a good school house.  These two institutions are exceedingly good things to start a town with.   The name of the new place has not yet been fully decided upon, but Walnut will probably be the name."

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The timing seems right because it is recorded that Osage Mission Jesuit missionary Philip Colleton started a mission station at Walnut (Station) in Crawford County during 1869.  The station was initially started at Mr. Clements home for railroad workers and white settlers.  He later built a Church of St. Ann's.

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1.  The Neosho County Journal is one of three names held by a long-running pioneer newspaper.  The paper started in 1868 as the Osage Mission Journal.  Later the name was changed to the Neosho County Journal for broader appeal.  It ended its ninety-three year run in 1961 as the St. Paul Journal.  Not bad in an era when newspaper life-spans were often decided by local elections.