Bridgeport, Kansas Co-op Grain Elevator & Building. Photo by Kathy Alexander.
Bridgeport, Kansas, is an unincorporated community on the Smoky Hill River in Smoky View Township of Saline County. It is also an “extinct town” as it no longer has a post office.
The first known settler in the area was D.F. Hopkins, who came from Iowa in 1866 and eventually claimed 360 acres. Originally from Indiana, Hopkins served as a Union soldier in the Civil War, participated in some hard-fought battles, was taken prisoner at Shiloh, Tennessee, was confined in various Southern prisons, and was paroled at Macon, Georgia. Married to Nancy Husted Hopkins, the couple had nine children. Upon his arrival, he was primarily interested in establishing a flouring mill at Bridgeport.
Missouri Pacific Railroad Locomotive.
Before long, a five-story gristmill, measuring 30×44 feet, was propelled by water from the Smoky Hill River. The mill, owned by Hopkins & Mills, was built for $12,000. It consumed about 450 bushels of grain daily.
The post office opened on September 30, 1879. In the early 1880s, the community was on the Missouri Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroads, and the grist mill was doing very well.
In 1910, Bridgeport had telegraph and express offices, a money order post office with two rural routes, and a population of 120.
In the 1960s, a Stuckey’s Restaurant was established along I-135 just outside of Bridgeport.
The post office closed on July 17, 1976.
Old Stuckey’s Restaurant-Dairy Queen, near Bridgeport, Kansas, by Kathy Alexander.
In the 1990s, the railroad was abandoned.
In 2004, Stuckey’s Restaurant closed, and afterward, the building was utilized as a Dairy Queen. However, it was also short-lived and closed in 2007. It has since sat abandoned.
As of the 2020 census, the community’s population and nearby areas was 64. It is located 15 miles south of Salina along K-4 near Interstate 135.
Today, the community is served by Southeast of Saline USD 306 public school district, approximately four miles west of Gypsum
© Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated September 2024.
An old business building in Bridgeport, Kansas, by Kathy Alexander.
An old house and junk in Bridgeport, Kansas, by Kathy Alexander.
Also See:
Emerging Ghost Towns of the Plains
Sources:
Blackmar, William; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Standard Publishing Co., Chicago, IL,1912.
Cutler, William; History of the State of Kansas, A.T. Andreas, Chicago, IL, 1883.
Kansas Post Office History
Wikipedia