Morehead, Kansas Railroad Crossing by Kathy Alexander.
Morehead, Kansas, is an unincorporated community in the Shiloh Township of Neosho County. It is also an extinct town, as its post office closed decades ago.
Leavenworth, Lawrence, & Galveston Railroad Locomotive, 1867.
Morehead was a small station on the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad and the first depot agent was J.D. Doan.
The first house in the village of Morehead was built in July 1873 by J.K. Graves. It was a small one-story building used for business purposes. By the fall of 1878, the settlement had increased to about ten business houses. In June 1879, Morehead was surveyed and platted by J.P. Nichols, who owned the land upon which it was built,
J.K. Graves, the postmaster, established a post office on December 1, 1873.
On January 1, 1876, a postal route was established from Parsons to Neodesha via Morehead. The first resident physician was J.M. Fidler, from Santa Fe, Missouri; the first attorney was John Essex of Plymouth, Indiana; and the first ordained preacher was Reverend A.J. Moore of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Morehead, Kansas.
The town made steady improvements; before long, land was worth $10 to $30 per acre. About two and a half miles northwest of the town were fine veins of coal, and the country immediately around it was a fertile rolling prairie.
The first schoolhouse was built in the fall of 1881, and L.E. Swope was the first teacher.
The United Brethren congregation was organized in May 1882. At that time, the town had a population of about 100 and had four stores, a hotel, and a post office, with Harmon Sipes as the postmaster.
Morehead had a newspaper called the Searchlight that was briefly published in 1898-1899.
Big-4-Four Consolidated District No. 1 school in Morehead, Kansas, 1907.
In 1909, the Big-4-Four Consolidated District No. 1 school opened in Morehead. Its students came from Neosho, Labette, Wilson, and Montgomery Counties. The school offered classes for primary, intermediate, and high school students.
In 1910, Morehead was on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. At that time, it had telegraph and express offices, several general stores, a money order post office with one rural route, and a population of 150. One of its leading business enterprises was a shop that manufactured the Smith detachable plow share.
Morehead’s post office closed on April 15, 1954.
An old house in Morehead, Kansas, by Kathy Alexander.
The Big-4-Four Consolidated District No. 1 closed in 1966. At some point, the building was razed.
There are still a few homes in the area, and the cemetery is west of the old townsite.
It is located on U.S. Highway 169 in the extreme southwest part of the county near the Labette County line. It is about 20 miles southwest of Erie, the county seat, and 25 miles northwest of Oswego.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, December 2024.
Also See:
Extinct Towns of Neosho County
Morehead, Kansas Cemetery.
Sources:
Blackmar, Frank W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Case, Nelson; History of Labette County, Kansas, Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill. 1901.
Cutler, William G; History of Kansas; A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL, 1883.
Kansas Post Office History