Dundee, Kansas Town View, courtesy of Google Maps.
Dundee is a tiny, unincorporated community in Barton County, Kansas. It is also an extinct town, as its post office closed decades ago.
This place got its start when 15 families of German descent migrated to the area from Russia in 1874 and 1875 to homestead on about 1,000 acres. Their colony was one mile east of the town of Dundee. The Mennonites built 15 homes, one for each family, and a school building in the center, also used as a church. Eventually, the families sold their homes and bought larger farms elsewhere.
Grain elevator in Dundee, Kansas, by Kathy Alexander.
In 1881, S.A. Lebold & Co. built a large sugar mill at Dundee. The mill was an extensive building, five stories high, three of which were stone and two frame. The mill was operated by steam, and the capital invested was $40,000. In 1881, the mill produced 50,000 gallons of syrup, and in 1882, it produced 75,000 gallons.
A post office was established in Dundee on October 3, 1881. However, the town must have declined in the next decades, as the post office closed on June 14, 1902.
In 1910, Dudee had a station on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad and was a shipping point for the area. At that time, it received its mail from Great Bend and had a population of 68.
The post office was re-established on March 12, 1915. Afterward, the town declined, and its post office closed its doors for the final time on October 15, 1943.
An old business building in Dundee, Kansas, by Kathy Alexander.
Located eight miles southwest of Great Bend on Highway 56, the townsite still supports a grain elevator, several silos, agricultural buildings, a few homes, a cemetery, and a couple of old business buildings. It is on the Kansas & Oklahoma Railway.
Area children are served by the USD 428 in nearby Great Bend.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, updated October 2024.
Also See:
An old grain elevator in Dundee, Kansas, courtesy Facebook.
Sources:
Blackmar, Frank W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Cutler, William G; History of Kansas; A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL, 1883.
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Fort Hays State University
Kansas Post Office History