Itaska, Kansas, business building.
Itaska, Kansas, is an abandoned town in Sherman County.
This town, which was laid out and platted in December 1885, was first named Leonard after Thomas P. Leonard, one of the platters and a member of the Sherman County Land Association.
Other prominent businessmen settled there, and it began to boom. In the spring of 1886, a school was built, and a drugstore, real estate office, a livery stable, and the Commercial Hotel was built. The hotel contained 16 rooms and was one of the largest in the western part of the state. The Sherman County Republican was published in Itasca that year.
The town offered lots to anyone who would build structures on them. Before long, the town had 75 houses.
In March 1886, the people of Leonard were stranded during the Great Blizzard. There were about 140 people huddled in the small restaurant that measured 16 by 24 feet. They had burned all the coal, and Mr Leonard instructed the men to sawup the lumber in the lumber yard to burn in the stove. Several thousand feet of perfectly good new lumber was burned in this way. Finally, on the third day, the storm abated.
In the summer of 1886, the townspeople tried to get a post office. However, establishing a post office proved difficult because the town’s name was similar to those of other towns in the state. After three attempts during the summer of 1886, all were refused because of the name. The board of trustees then decided to change the name from Leonard to Itasca. The Itasca post office was established on July 22, 1886. That year, Itasca made an unsuccessful bid for the county seat. This may have been because transportation to and from Itasca was a problem. The products sold in the town had to be hauled across country from Fort Wallace, a distance of 32 miles.
At its peak, Itaska had 500 residents
When the railroad came into the county late in 1886, the tracks were several miles from the town. Most of the businesses moved to Sherman Center and Eustis that fall. The post office closed on January 26, 1887, and the Commercial Hotel and the Swigart Building moved to Goodland that year. Nothing remains of the town today.
Sherman County, Kansas by L.H. Everts & Company, 1887.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, January 2026.
Also See:
Extinct Towns of Sherman County
Sources:
Fitzgerald, Daniel. “Faded Dreams: More Ghost Towns of Kansas”. University Press of Kansas, 1994.
Fort Hays State University
Kansas Post Office History