Finney County, Kansas Map by L.H. Everts & Co., 1887.
Friend, Kansas, is an unincorporated community in Terry Township of Finney County. It is also officially an extinct town, as it no longer has a post office.
This town was first called McCue after Basil M. McCue of Hastings, Nebraska, who organized the Garden City Gulf & Northern Railroad. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad changed its name to Friend when it took over the railway line between Garden City and Scott City.
The Friend post office was established in Scott County on August 19, 1887, two miles north of its present location. W. E. Stover was one of the earliest settlers in this part of the county. W. S. Ruth was another pioneer in the Friend community. Settling 22 miles north of Garden City in 1886, he helped make the sod road across the sand hills south of Garden City in 1887 and hauled freight from Garden to Scott City before the railroad arrived in Scott City.
A town company was organized, and a plat was made in 1910. That year, the post-hamlet was on the line of the proposed Garden City, Gulf, & Northern Railroad, about 22 miles from Garden City.
In 1920, the Friend school district consolidated with three others, and the school buildings were centered at Friend. It was not long until a tornado destroyed all the buildings, which were replaced by a modern structure in 1922. About 100 students were enrolled in the four grades, and four teachers were employed. Two buses were used to take the students to and from school.
In the 1930s, Friend had an I.G.A. grocery store, at which time, H.L. Miller was the postmistress and occupied space in the store of which her husband was the manager. N. W. Shinnerer owned and operated the Square Deal general store, Jim Scott had a first-class blacksmith shop, and the George B. Gano Grain Company had a large elevator, making it a wheat grower’s loading point.
The town’s post office closed on April 11, 1992.
Today, the tiny town of Friend is located west of U.S. Route 83 on the Garden City Western Railway, south of the Scott County line. It still has a grain elevator, several silos, and a few buildings.
The community is served by Garden City’s USD 457 public school district.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, updated October 2023.
Also See:
Sources:
Blackmar, Frank W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Wikipedia