Skyview of Coats, Kansas, courtesy Wikipedia.
Coats, Kansas, is a tiny town in southwest Pratt County. As of the 2020 census, the city’s population was 68, and it has a total area of 0.21 square miles, all of which is land. It also officially an “extinct town”, as its post office has closed.
Coats was founded in 1887 by William A. Coats and is named for him. A post office was established on June 7, 1887.
The Coats State Bank was established in 1902 with a Capital of $25,000. The officers were C.Q. Chandler, President, and J.M. Hellings, the Cashier.
Early day, Coats, Kansas.
The Coats Courant newspaper began publication in 1905.
Coats was incorporated as a city within the now-defunct Grant Township in 1909.
Coats Hotel.
In 1910, it was described as one of the county’s principal towns and as a station on the Wichita & Englewood division of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. At that time, it had a bank, a money order post office with one rural route, express and telegraph offices, telephone connections, a grain elevator, a hotel, a weekly newspaper called the Courant, and a population of 269.
The town’s population peaked at 383 in 1920. At that time, it had many thriving businesses, including three general merchandise stores, three grain elevators, one drugstore, two livery barns, two hotels, one graded school, a state bank three hardware stores, two lumber yards, two auto garages, four blacksmith shops, a cement block plant, a barber shop, a meat market, two real estate offices, one millinery store, and a jewelry store. It was on the Englewood Branch of the Santa Fe System, and is the trading point for a large area of prosperous agricultural country.
Business buildings in Coats, Kansas.
The Coats Courant newspaper ceased publication in 1925.
Coats schools were consolidated in 1968, and area students were then sent to the Skyline USD 438 public school district, which is two miles west of Pratt.
The Coats post office closed on January 8, 2018.
Coats is located approximately 12 miles southwest of Pratt and 100 100 miles west of Wichita, Kansas.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, December 2025.
Grace United Methodist Church in Coats, Kansas.
Also See:
Sources:
Blackmar, Frank W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Pratt Commercial Club; Chronicles of Pratt and Pratt County, Kansas; Pratt County Historical Society, 1911.
Wikipedia