I looked again and saw that under the sun the race is not won by the swift, nor the battle by the strong. Food is not given to the wise, nor is wealth given to those who have good judgment, nor is success given to those who have knowledge, because time and chance come upon all of them.
Ecclesiastes 9:11
Despite what the Bible says, it appears that when it comes to towns and cities, the race for people and industry does belong to the swiftest, to those who possess good judgment and good chance. Thus, when the Osage Indian Lands of southern Kansas were opened to settlers, townsites sprouted like prairie flowers in spring. There were many: Valley Center, Newton, El Dorado, Augusta, Winfield, to name a few.
There was also Douglass and Wichita.
The Race is On
Both Wichita and Douglass Kansas were founded in 1869. Wichita was laid out on the eastern banks of the Arkansas River at the confluence of the Little Arkansas. Douglass was built on the western side of the Walnut River at the confluence of the Little Walnut, and north of Muddy Creek. Both were on southern cattle trails leading north to the railheads in northern Kansas.
The Arkansas being larger, score one for Wichita. The men who founded Wichita, J. R. Mead, William Greiffenstein, William Mathewson, saw its potential as a cattle station on the Chisholm Trail. Douglass was settled by farmers and ranchers. And the Texas cattle that came up from Texas carried a tick fever that infected the local cattle. Score two for Wichita. Perhaps ;most importantly in this race, the first train to Wichita arrived the night of Thursday, May 16, 1872, and the entire town had waited up to meet it. Douglass waited nine more years.
Thus the race was won.
Still, Douglass was a nice place to live.
In the Beginning
J. M. Satterthwaite in J. P. Mooney’s History of Butler County gives this account of the first settlers at Douglass.
“Probably the first settlers to claim land in the township were the Dunn brothers, Birney and Samuel, the latter part of the year 1867. (Samuel was killed by Indians’ May 17, 1869.) Their claims were upon the Walnut river at the south side of the township, and at the southern border of the land the Osage Indians were then ceding to the government for settlement. About the same time, a man named Hugh Williams opened a frontier trading post in a cabin near a ford of the Walnut, a little north of the claims of the Dunn boys. Just what lines he carried is not known at this date, but his stock must have been the frontier staples: Flour, bacon, gun powder, tobacco and whiskey.”
By 1883 when Cutler wrote his History of the State of Kansas, he remarked that since the arrival of the railroad, “the town has had a rapid growth and now claims a population of 700, and twenty-five live business houses.” The farmers included Milton Brown from Pennsylvania, George Fox of Ohio, John Green of Kentucky, and others, most having served in the Union Army during the Civil War. But there were Southerners too, like Charles Scott of Kentucky, merchant. Foreign immigrants were represented as well, like James Blakey of England, a cattleman, and William Zahl of Berlin, Germany, the blacksmith.
Joseph Douglass
Another story of note is that of Joseph Douglass, an early settler for whom the town was named. On the night of his murder, he arrested a camper he suspected of stealing chickens. As the man had chickens in his possession and did not give a good story of how he got them, Douglass marched his prisoner to several places where he had said he purchased the birds, but each party denied selling them. The prisoner, fearing his fate, shot Douglass with a concealed pistol. Douglass shot back, but failed to hit him. The mortally wound Douglass requested that the murderer’s life be spared.
The chicken thief was captured, tried and sent to the Kansas penitentiary for ten years.
It seemed people in Douglass Kansas all got along pretty well. That is, except for the Butler County War, but that is another story…
Today
Today, Douglass, Kansas, in Butler County, is a peaceful little town, south of Augusta on Highway 77, on the way to Winfield. It is not a well traveled route. The turnpike from Wichita takes most travelers heading south. And Winfield, itself a beautiful town lies east of the turnpike, without the advantages of location and industry that Wichita possesses.
The 2020 census gave Douglass a population of 1,555. There is a nice school, some 67 businesses, several churches, and plenty of nice homes.
Abandoned, old, and interesting Kansas 