Isabel, Kansas Main Street by Kathy Alexander.
Isabel, Kansas, is a small town in Valley Township on the northern county line of Barber County. As of the 2020 census, the city’s population was 68, and its total area was 0.25 square miles.
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad depot in Isabel, Kansas, 1931.
Isabel was founded in 1887 and named for the surveyor’s daughter. On May 24, 1887, the post office moved from Bates to Isabel.
Located on the Mulvane extension of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, it initially provided passenger rail service to Isabel on a line between Wichita and Englewood.
In 1910, Isabel was an incorporated town and still on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. At that time, it had a bank, a weekly newspaper called the Herald, over a score of mercantile establishments, express and telegraph offices, a money order postoffice with one rural route, and a population of 222.
Isabel’s population peaked in 1920 at 341.
Business building in Isabel, Kansas, by Kathy Alexander.
The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad formerly provided passenger rail service to Isabel until at least 1958, while mixed trains continued until at least 1961
Today, Barber County North Unified School District 254 in Medicine Lodge serves the community.
The nearest passenger rail station is located in Hutchinson, where Amtrak’s Southwest Chief stops once daily on a route from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Isabel is 13 miles North of Medicine Lodge, the county seat.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, October 2026.
Also See:
Church of Christ in Isabel, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty Site
Sources:
Blackmar, Frank W.;Â Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol. I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Wikipedia