Matfield Green, Kansas, in about 1900.
Matfield Green, Kansas, is a tiny town in Matfield Township of Chase County. It is also an extinct town, as its post office closed years ago. It is located on the south fork of the Cottonwood River in the scenic Flint Hills, near the county’s south line. As of the 2020 census, the city’s population was 49, and its total area was 0.14 square miles, all land.
Here, the tallgrass prairie nourished bison for more than 1,000 years, which sustained countless generations of American Indians.
When the Kansas Legislature established Chase County in 1859, the area was opened to white settlers, who continued the Native American practice of prescribed burning but replaced the native bison with cattle.
Matfield Green was founded by an English immigrant named David Mercer and named after Matfield in England. It was sparsely settled from the beginning.
Pioneer Bluffs Historic District, Chase County, Kansas, courtesy Wikipedia.
Rogler Ranch was founded north of Matfield Green by Charles Rogler, who homesteaded 160 acres on the Southfork River in 1859. His son, Henry, later operated the ranch until it was turned over to his son, Wayne Rogler, the third generation. When Wayne Roger passed away in 1993, the ranch had 4,000 acres. Today, the original home and outbuildings are open to the public daily under the Pioneer Bluffs Foundation. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in November 2013.
One and a half miles north of Matfield Green, the Crocker Ranch began extensive cattle and farming operations in 1866. Initially owned by Captain Erastus Bryant Crocker, a Civil War veteran, an 8.5-acre portion of the ranch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Only one building, a stone provision house, survives from the original 1860s farm. Erastus Crocker’s son, Edward Grey Crocker, built a house and various buildings in the 1880s. The main house was built in 1908-09 and was later remodeled. Other surviving structures include a barn built in 1906 and a grain elevator added in 1915-16.
A post office was established on January 11, 1867.
Dr. George Bocook’s old house in Matfield Green was built in 1876. Photo by Kathy Alexander.
Doctor George W. Bocock, originally from Kentucky, came to Chase County in the spring of 1878. In addition to his medical practice, he operated a 280-acre farm on the South Fork of the Cottonwood River and had a half interest in a general merchandising business. At that time, the settlement shipped its goods to Cottonwood Falls, which had a daily stage line. Its mail was delivered to Hattie I. Largent, the postmistress.
The city’s population in 1880 was 324. By then, Matfield Green had two general stores, a blacksmith shop, and a flour mill.
Matfield Green formed its first school district in 1881. Classes were held in a framed one-room schoolhouse.
Edwin Cameron, originally from Ohio, bought a half interest in Doctor George W. Bocock’s store in February 1883, which then operated under the firm name of Cameron & Bocook. Afterward, the business was moved to a more spacious store building, and the stock enlarged and the business extended. The firm carried a general stock of dry goods, clothing, boots and shoes, groceries, glass, tin, dishes, notions, drugs, and more.
In 1885, Matfield Green had Methodist Episcopal and Christian congregations, a district school, a physician, two general stores, a stone mason, a blacksmith, a boot and shoemaker, a flour mill, a justice of the peace, and a constable. It shipped products from Strong City, the nearest railroad point, 17 miles distant. Stagecoaches ran to El Dorado and Cottonwood Falls tri-weekly, from which mail was delivered to G.W. Bocock, the postmaster.
A two-room stone schoolhouse was built in 1886.
A Community Church in Matfield Green today by Kathy Alexander.
Matfield Green didn’t grow much over the following two decades.
In its heyday, at the beginning of the 20th century, Matfield Green grew to about 350 residents and possessed a bank, grocery store, livery and blacksmith, hardware, flour mill and lumberyard, a hotel, and schools.
Afterward, its population began to dwindle.
In 1910, the town had a bank, a money order post office with one rural route, and a population of 275. The nearest railroad station and shipping point was Bazaar, nine miles to the north.
Rural Kansas communities benefited from record-high crop and oil prices during World War I.
In 1917, the two-room schoolhouse was replaced with a larger building.
The Emporia Gazette reported in April 1917 that an oil and gas well was drilled on the Emerson Clark land, three miles west and two south of Matfield Green. The Wyoming & Montana Developing Company put down the well, which hauled its drilling material from Burns. It was the fifth test well to be drilled in Chase County within twelve months. The three first wells drilled in the north-central part of the county near Elmdale were all dry holes. The fourth well was also near Mattfield Green.
Matfield Green, Kansas in about 1920.
In the 1920s, Matfield Green’s school attendance soared due to a post-World War I baby boom, automobile ownership, improved roads, and the rail line extension connecting Matfield Green to Wichita and Kansas City. This growth promoted the consolidation of smaller area schools.
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in Matfield Green, Kansas by H. Killam, 1964.
In 1924, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad purchased 47 acres a half mile north of Matfield Green and extended its tracks south from Bazaar to Matfield Station. The railroad developed pens for cattle transport by rail, a bunkhouse for ten workers, and a foreman’s house.
A new gym/auditorium was built in 1929. The two-story brick gym building served as the sports and performing arts facility for Matfield Green High School, which stood next door until its demolition in 1970. Today, the gym is the town’s oldest and tallest building.
A new grade school was built in 1938.
The next half-century, however, saw the oil fields dry up, and highways replaced the railroads as the most cost-effective way to ship cattle. Jobs migrated to Emporia and Wichita. By the 1960s, the area schools had been consolidated, and Matfield Green was a third of the size it had been at the turn of the century. Between 1930 and 1960, the town’s population reduced by half, from 182 to 95.
Matfield Station near Matfield Green, Kansas.
Matfield Station’s active railroad use ended in the 1960s. The railroad continues to traverse the site, but Mattfield Station’s restored section house now serves as an Airbnb, providing incredible views of the native grasses and flowers of the tallgrass prairie. Most of the 47 acres have never been tilled.
After much debate, the community decided to close Matfield Green High School in 1967, and it was demolished in 1970.
In 1974, after a survey showed that only two grade school students would attend Matfield Green in the 1974-1975 school year, the school lacked the necessary ten students to remain accredited, and the school was closed.
Old bank building in Matfield Green, by Kathy Alexander.
In the 1990s, the community began to garner media attention following William Least Heat-Moon’s New York Times bestselling book about Chase County entitled PrairyErth. Although Matfield Green’s population had plummeted to 33 by 1990, it nearly doubled to 60 by 2000. Many new residents were affiliated with The Land Institute, a nonprofit sustainable agriculture organization. The Land Institute purchased and rehabilitated the Matfield Green Grade School in the 1990s.
The post office closed on September 30, 1995.
In 2006, Pioneer Bluffs, the historic Rogler ranch north of Matfield Green, was auctioned off. A group of investors headed by architect and sculptor Bill McBride bought the ranch headquarters and surrounding twelve acres, subsequently establishing the nonprofit Pioneer Bluffs Foundation. In 2010, the first art gallery in Matfield opened in the 1908 Rogler home at Pioneer Bluffs.
Today, Chase County’s USD 284 public school district serves the community. It has two schools: Chase County Junior/Senior High School, at 600 Main Street in Cottonwood Falls, and Chase County Elementary School, at 401 Maple Street in Cottonwood Falls.
Ranch House at the old Crocker Ranch.
Matfield Green is 16 miles south of Cottonwood Falls, the county seat, and 95 southwest of Topeka.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, November 2024.
Also See:
Matfield Green stockyards, 1950.
Sources:
1884-1885 Gazetteer and Business Directory, R.L. Polk and Co.
Blackmar, Frank W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Kansas Historic Resources Inventory
Matfield Station
Polk’s 1878 Gazetteer and Business Directory
Register of Historic Kansas Places – High School Gymnasium
Wikipedia