Almena, Kansas Main Street by Kathy Alexander.
Almena, Kansas, an incorporated town in Almena Township in Norton County, is located on Prairie Dog Creek in the northeastern part of the county. As of the 2020 census, the city’s population was 363 and has a total area of 0.61 square miles, all land.
A post office was established on June 10, 1872. It was named by Margaret Coleman, an early settler and first postmistress, for her hometown of Almena, Wisconsin.
When J.H. Reeves came to Almena in 1874, Fort Kearny, Nebraska, was the nearest railway point, and it took a week to make the trip. All the supplies had to be shipped overland from there. Reeves worked in the is in the grain business.
In 1878, the town had a sawmill, a Methodist Episcopal Church, a Presbyterian Church, and a district school. It exported wheat and pork from Trego, the nearest railroad station. It was on the stagecoach line to Republican City, Nebraska, from which the mail was delivered four times weekly to C.B. Laugh, the postmaster.
The Tellessen brothers came to this country from Norway in 1883 and operated a repair shop in Almena.
In 1884, the town had a blacksmith, a doctor, a general store, a hotel, flour and sawmills, a dressmaker, a justice of the peace, and a population of 30. Mail was delivered to W. Harmonson, the postmaster, from the stagecoach line to Norton thrice weekly.
Almena, Kansas, 1890.
A large brick school building was erected in 1888.
The Almena Plaindealer newspaper began publication in September 1888 and continued publication off and on until 1990.
Almena was incorporated in 1893.
Almena, Kansas Depot.
By 1894, Almena was a shipping point located at the junction of two railroads — the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad.
By that time, it had three churches, a bank, two weekly newspapers, the Almena House hotel, two blacksmiths, a baker, a milliner, five doctors, a dressmaker, a lumber company, two grocery stores, two grain elevators, a restaurant, a druggist, two liveries, a dry goods store, the Commercial Hotel, two hardware stores, a furniture store, a harnessmaker, a barber, an implement dealer, five general stores, a flour mill, and a population of 500. It was on the stagecoach line to Fair Haven, Hedgewood, and Rayville, from which the mail was delivered to S.H. Stone, the postmaster.
In 1901, Almena was the second-largest town in Norton County.
Almena, Kansas School, about 1915.
An addition to the school was built in 1907. In 1909, the combined grade school and high school had 275 students, with 175 in grade school and 100 in high school. There were baseball, basketball, and volleyball courts and other playground equipment such as slides, teeters, swings, and trapezes. There were six teachers in the grade school and six in high school. The building is well equipped with electric lights and hot and cold water.
In 1910, it had a weekly newspaper, an opera house, good hotels, four churches, two banks, two hotels, large grain elevators, and an international money order post office with three rural routes. There was also a public library and amusement places, such as the Lyric Theatre, that showed pictures four nights a week. Other entertainment was provided in the theater building, a city park, a baseball diamond with a grandstand, and a golf course. There was also a municipal water and electric plant. Its population peaked that year at 702. Situated amid a fine agricultural country, Almena shipped large quantities of grain and livestock, and its retail stores supplied a considerable section of the northeastern part of the county. Kansas’s greatest corn-raising, alfalfa-producing, sheep and cattle-feeding section surrounded it. Fine-quality building stone was found in the immediate vicinity.
Almena schools and Long Island, Kansas schools were consolidated, with their first school year being 1967-1968.
Almena, Kansas School.
Almena, Kansas Business Building by Kathy Alexander.
On December 27, 1990, the 102-year-old Almena Plaindealer newspaper folded. It was the last letterpress newspaper to operate in Kansas, and it succumbed to the same harsh economic conditions that killed newspapers throughout rural America.
Today, Almena is served by the Northern Valley USD 212 public school district, headquartered in Almena, Kansas. Grades K-4 and 9-12 are located in the Almena school building, and grades 5-8 are in the Long Island, Kansas school building.
Almena is 11 miles northeast of Norton, the county seat.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, December 2024.
Also See:
Almena, Kansas post office by Kathy Alexander.
Sources:
1878 Gazetteer and Business Directory, R. L. Polk & Co.
1884-1885 Gazetteer and Business Directory, R. L. Polk & Co.
1894 Gazetteer and Business Directory, R. L. Polk & Co.
1912 Gazetteer and Business Directory, R. L. Polk & Co.
Blackmar, Frank W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Norton County Genealogy
Roots.web
Western Resources Monthly Magazine, Number 130, Denver, Colorado, April, 1901.
Wikipedia
An old lumber yard in Almena, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.