Business buildings in Harveyville, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
Harveyville, Kansas, is a small town in Plumb Township of Wabaunsee County. As of the 2020 census, its population was 178, and its total area was 0.13 square miles, all land.
Located in the Osage Cuestas of the Great Plains, it is in the extreme southeast corner of the county, near the borders of Shawnee, Osage, and Lyon Counties.This place was first known as the Dragoon or Harvey Settlement.
Henry Harvey.
Henry Harvey, a Quaker missionary to the Shawnee Indians, first came to the area in 1840.
The main route of the Santa Fe Trail passed through the county several miles south of Harveyville.
Settlers lived in the area of Harveyville for about 25 years before the town was formally established.
George M. Harvey took the first claim here in May 1854, only weeks after the creation of the Kansas Territory. He was also the first Quaker to settle in the territory. The Quakers had been one of the first groups to oppose slavery, and many families were involved in the Underground Railroad. Within a few months, his brother Samuel and his parents, Henry and Ann Harvey, and other family members arrived, also making claims. The land where Harveyville now stands was initially patented and deeded to Samuel Harvey, son of Henry Harvey. The Harvey family had been involved with the anti-slavery movement and the Underground Railroad when they lived in Ohio.
In 1855, I.M. Harris staked a claim near today’s Harveyville, and later that year, Morris Walton established his farm nearby. Gradually, more settlers arrived in the area. However, without the benefit of a railroad to bring in goods and ship products, growth was very slow.
Underground Railroad.
When Harveyville became a not-so-official stop on the Underground Railroad, the Harris house had a secret tunnel for the inconspicuous movement of slaves to their freedom. Their log house soon became a refuge for slaves seeking freedom in Canada. Its out-of-the-way location was an advantage.
Stephen Spear arrived in the fall of 1857. He would later say that after hiding in the Harvey cabin, fugitive slaves were taken by wagon at night to the farm of Enoch Platt near Wabaunsee. Spear’s brother, Daniel, also spoke about the Underground Railroad in the community. He stated that Jehu and Mary Loy Hodgson cared for a slave woman named Charlie and her five children until the time was right to move them north. Jehu Hodgson took them north in a wagon disguised as a load of corn through Topeka and on to a station near Leavenworth.
Harris House, Harveyville, Kansas.
Today, the Harris Farm is a registered Network to Freedom site. The existing house was built around 1900, most likely near the site of the Harvey cabin.
A post office was established on August 21, 1869, at Harveyville.
On August 29, 1872, thirteen men, most of whom were from Wabaunsee County, gathered together to organize what would become the Manhattan, Alma, & Burlingame Railway Company. The papers of incorporation were filed on September 3, 1872. On October 21, 1872, officers of the railroad company were elected, and within a month, a survey of the proposed line was underway. However, in 1873, the United States experienced a major recession and financial panic, which had its roots in railroad speculation.
After nearly seven years of stagnation, the dream of the Manhattan, Alma, & Burlingame Railway began to reemerge in 1879 as economic recovery took hold. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad was particularly keen to acquire more coal, both for its use and as a means of generating transportation revenue. On June 5, 1879, the Board of Directors of the proposed railway reconvened and learned that the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad was interested in establishing a line to connect the coal fields near Burlingame with its main line in Manhattan, Kansas. On August 2, 1879, Wabaunsee County voters approved $138,700 in bonds to finance the portion of the new line that ran through their county.
Old Harveyville Depot by H. Killam.
With the bonds approved, on February 18, 1880, the Manhattan, Alma, & Burlingame Railway’s Board of Directors resigned, and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad executives took control of the railway. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway platted the town.
The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad collaborated with the Union Pacific Railroad to finance a new 56.62-mile rail line, sharing ownership of land grants provided by the federal government. Construction began immediately, and on July 5, 1880, the Manhattan, Alma, and Burlingame Railway arrived in Alma, celebrated by a gathering of over 5,000 people and five performing bands. The excitement for the railway spread throughout the county, and by July 18, the line reached Wabaunsee, with trains operating along the entire route by the end of the month.
On April 18, 1898, the Manhattan, Alma, & Burlingame Railway was sold under foreclosure. In the course of the sale, 22.32 miles of track from Alma to Manhattan were dismantled, and a new corporation, the Burlingame & Northwestern Railway Company, was formed. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, which purchased all of Union Pacific’s interest in the line, owned the corporation entirely. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad operated the remaining line from Burlingame to Alma for the next 75 years.
Harveyville was incorporated in 1905.
Business District in Harveyville, Kansas, early 1900s. Touch of color by LOA.
In 1910, Harveyville continued to be a station on the Burlington & Alma division of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. At that time, it had a bank, a money order post office with one rural route, telegraph and express offices, telephone connections, a weekly newspaper called the Monitor, several good mercantile establishments, Christian and Methodist churches, and a graded public school. A branch of the Osage City Grain and Elevator Company was also located here. In 1910, it reported a population of 331.
General Merchandise Store in Harveyville, Kansas.
During the first half of the 20th century, the railroad provided reliable transportation for those traveling in the county. However, significant changes in Kansas transportation swept the state during the 1950s, as the Kansas Highway Commission and later the Kansas Department of Transportation expanded the role of roads, and paved highways were constructed across the state and through Wabaunsee County.
Harveyville’s population peaked at 333 in 1920.
Over the following decades, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad’s short line became increasingly less significant for transporting passengers and freight in the county. However, it continued to provide essential services to ranchers in Wabaunsee County, primarily as a means of transporting cattle. Each year, tens of thousands of cattle were brought into the county to graze on the lush, tallgrass prairie, arriving on cattle trains made up of wooden cars. In the early 1960s, the railroads faced growing regulations concerning the transportation of livestock, and by 1962, the last cattle train left Wabaunsee County.
In 1972, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad announced that the line from Burlingame to Alma would be closing and would be sold by the end of the year. In response, a group of Wabaunsee County citizens formed an organization to raise the necessary $200,000 to purchase the line. Their goal was to transform it into a tourist attraction offering excursion train rides through the scenic Flint Hills. However, when the December deadline arrived in 1972, they fell $20,000 short of their goal, and the railroad line was sold to metal scrappers. Within a year, the steel rails and railroad ties were removed and sold, marking the end of Wabaunsee County’s first railroad.
Business buildings in Harveyville, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
Harveyville High School was closed through school unification in 1970.
On February 28, 2012, at around 9:02 p.m., an EF-2 tornado hit Harveyville, causing severe damage. About 40% of the buildings were affected, including the destruction of one church. Preliminary assessments revealed that 28 homes were unlivable, with 36 suffering moderate damage, and one commercial building was also damaged. The storm resulted in twelve injuries and one death, with no missing persons reported. The tornado was on the ground for four minutes, reaching a maximum width of 150 yards, touching down one mile southwest of Harveyville and dissipating four miles northeast.
Today, the community is served by Mission Valley USD 330 public school district, which was created by school unification when Eskridge-Harveyville-Dover schools consolidated. Mission Valley High School is located in Eskridge, Kansas, approximately eight miles northwest of Harveyville, and its mascot is the Mission Valley Vikings.
The Harveyville Cemetery contains the graves of Underground Railroad participants Ann Harvey, Jehu and Mary Thomas Hodgson, and Morris Walton.
Harveyville is 25 miles southeast of Alma, the county seat, and 8.5 miles northwest of Burlingame.
Church of Christ in Harveyville, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, June 2025.
Also See:
Wabaunsee County Photo Gallery
Sources:
Blackmar, Frank. W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Volume I, Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, 1912
Cutler, William G.; History of the State of Kansas; A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL., 1883
Mount Mitchell Prairie
Wabaunsee County
Wabaunsee County Historical Society & Museum
Wikipedia