Overland Emigrant and Freight Train, Operated by Sprague & Digan, leaving West Main Street, Atchison, Kansas, April 1, 1866, en route to the Far West.
Atchison County Map, 1899
St. Patrick Catholic Church in Atchison County, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
More Extinct Towns (See Below)
With its proximity to Missouri, Atchison County, Kansas was one of the first to be populated in Kansas Territory. Immediately, the fight between pro-slavery advocates and abolitionists began as settlers from both sides rushed into Kansas in an attempt to establish the state with their politics. Some of the first in Atchison County were a party from Iatan, Missouri, who took claims in the vicinity of Oak Mills in June 1854. The following month, a larger group of settlers and those who would become the founders of the county flooded into what would become Atchison. Settlements soon sprang up all over the county, but, like other new territories, only the strongest would survive to the present time. Some of these old extinct towns would be very difficult to find, but for the many signs posted by the Future Farmer’s of America years ago. Though the signs placed by students long ago are very helpful in determining the sites of these “lost” settlements, they haven’t been maintained over the years and are sometimes unreadable.
More Extinct Towns:
| Town | Post Office Dates | Additional Information |
| Arrington | 1862-1973 | Also called Arrington Springs, was a settlement located in the southwestern part of Atchison County on the Delaware River. |
| Brownlee | 1885-1887 | |
| Burnside | 1857-1858 | |
| Cantonment Martin | N/A | Cantonment Martin was the first military post in Kansas under the authority of the United States Government. |
| Cow Island | N/A | Also called Isle au Vache, this was an Island in the Missouri River where once stood Cantonment Martin. |
| Dalbey | N/A | |
| Eden | 1858-1900 | Located in the northern portion of the county on Independence Creek, it was about five miles east of Huron. The post office was located on various farms in the area. The post office was discontinued upon the establishment of a rural delivery service in 1900. In 1910 the population was 20. |
| Farmington | 1868-1940 | Located on the Central Branch of the Missouri Pacific Railroad in Atchison County, Kansas, Farmington got its start as a station on the railroad |
| Hawthorne | 1891-1900 | |
| High Bridge | 1888-1900 | In the southeastern part of Atchison County, this hamlet was located about 10 miles south of Atchison. |
| Invermay | 1882-1897 | |
| Kennekuk | 1857-1900 | Kennekuk was one of the first places in the county where whites located permanently when a Methodist Episcopal Church Mission was established in 1833 among the Kickapoo tribe. |
| Locust Grove | 1862-1887 | The post office moved from Mount Pleasant. |
| Monrovia | 1857-1955 | Monrovia started as a stage stop on the Overland Stage Route in 1856. |
| Mormon Grove | NA | Mormon Grove was but one of the many outfitting stations utilized by the Mormons as they traveled westward. It was established in about 1855. |
| Mount Pleasant | 1855-1862 1864-1888 1888-1900 |
The first settler in the area was a man named Thomas L. Fortune in 1854, who opened a general store. It’s post office opened and closed several times. |
| Noll | 1899-1900 | A small village situated on the Missouri River about five miles below Atchison. |
| Oak Mills | 1868-1945 | Oak Mills, Kansas, was once located along the Missouri River. The site was originally home to a Kanza Indian village. |
| Ocena, Oceana | 1855-1858 | The post office moved to Pardee in August 1858. |
| Pardee | 1858-1903 | Pardee was one of the oldest settlements in Atchison County. It was established by Caleb May in October 1854. |
| Parnell | 1883-1923 | Situated on both the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad and the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the town was platted in December 1883. The station was named for a hero of the Civil War, James L. Parnell, a private soldier in the Thirteenth Kansas volunteer infantry, who was killed during the skirmish at Haare Head, Arkansas, on August 4, 1864. Parnell was the original settler on the townsite and was one of the first citizens of Atchison County to respond to President Abraham Lincoln’s call of July 1862. It was located seven miles southwest of Atchison. In 1910, it had only a population of 12. |
| Plum Grove | 1862-1868 | The post office moved to Oak Mills in January 1868. |
| Port Williams | 1856-1860 | Located in Walnut Township, the settlement was situated on the Missouri Pacific Railroad. |
| Saint Nicholas | 1859-1863 1868-1873 |
The post office moved to Cummingsville in December 1873. |
| Shannon | 1882-1941 | A small village located on the Missouri Pacific Railroad about nine miles west of Atchison on the Parallel Road. G. W. Sutliff platted it in February 1883. It had a population of 50, one store building, in which the post office was located, a few residences, a railroad station, and a small elevator in 1910. |
| Spencer | 1860-1867 | |
| Sumner | 1857-1870 | Sumner, Kansas, was once one of the most important towns in Atchison County. |
| Todd | 1897-1900 |
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, updated June 2022.
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