Kalida, Kansas Ghost Town

Kalida, Kansas, is a ghost town in Woodson County. When this place was first settled, it was called Chellis.

On September 21, 1868, a vote was held to determine the county seat between Neosho Falls and Chellis. Neosho Falls received 313 votes and Chellis 199.

In January of 1869, the townsite was surveyed and platted on the property of Hale and Sarah Chellis. In May 1869, they opened the townsite of Chellis to the public. The post office was moved from Bath and established in Chelllis on July 15, 1869. By autumn, the little town also had a general store and a hotel, and numerous lots had been sold for residences.

In the spring of 1870, Thomas H. Davidson moved his family to Chellis. Originally a Pennsylvania farmer and merchandiser, Davidson arrived in Kansas with his family in August 1866, purchasing a farm near Fort Scott in Bourbon County. Four years later, he and his son James filed a claim on government land in Woodson County within easy reach of the farm at Fort Scott. The family moved to Chellis in the spring of 1870. In September of that year, Thomas Davidson purchased a controlling interest in the Chellis townsite and changed its name to Kalida — a Greek word meaning beautiful. On March 20, 1871, the post office’s name was changed to Kalida.

Thomas Davidson’s chief ambition in the early days was to improve Kalida. He “laid off” more town lots, broadened its streets, and laid the foundation for a metropolis. He encouraged the building of churches and schools, served for years as a member of the school board of the Kalida school district, and was an elder in the United Presbyterian Church. Described as a splendid scholar, a deep thinker, and a diverse reader, he was a highly cultivated and educated gentleman. He was also a Justice of the Peace, director of the Fort Scott & Wichita Railroad, and editor and promoter of the Kalida Advocate published at Kalida.

In addition to his town interests, Davidson became a stock raiser of great magnitude and was known far and wide as the most successful trainer of oxen through the skill he acquired while a boy was on his father’s farm in Western Pennsylvania. Many a yoke of oxen that he trained became competitors of the “iron horse” in the “freighting business” on the Western plains.

The town grew rapidly to a population of 500. At its peak, it had a hotel, a livery stable, two grocery stores, two dry goods stores, a barber shop, a drug store, a blacksmith shop, a post office, a billiard hall, a meat market, three physicians, two preachers, one lawyer, and the Kalida Advocate newspaper.

In 1873, Woodson County became involved in a “county seat war” with the nearby town of Defiance four miles east of Kalida. On November 3, 1873, when the votes were counted, Defiance had 506, Kalida 530, and Waldrip 1.

However, Kalida’s hold on the county seat was brief, as another election was held just a few months later, on February 23, 1874, and Defiance won the seat of justice with 643 votes to Kalida’s 491. Afterward, Thomas Davidson stoutly insisted that there were enough illegal votes cast in the election of February 1874 to entitle Kalida to a majority of the bona fide votes of the county if the same could be determined. Many prominent citizens shared his views. He may have had some knowledge of irregularities on election day and sought some explanation for the defeat of Kalida. However, the figures, as shown by the official election returns, didn’t warrant the conclusion he drew.

After the second election, both Kalida and Defiance were short-lived towns. The lack of water was the primary drawback to Kalida and Defiance as county seats. The only method of digging wells was using picks, spades, shovels, or gunpowder for blasting. Therefore, water had to be hauled by ox teams from the Neosho River, 13 miles to the northeast. Unfortunately for Defiance, it was also short of water.

In the meantime, several springs of “living water” that did not go dry were found on a high hill on Abner Yates claim two miles north of Kalida. Abner Yates soon laid out a new townsite on his land called Yates Center.

A new factor emerged in the county seat fight in 1875, and a fresh election was called with Defiance, Neosho Falls, and Yates Center as candidates. During this heated campaign, men who talked freely about their choice of county seat took their lives into their own hands. At a meeting in Defiance, the town leaders told a big crowd that the county could not afford to locate the county seat at Yates Center as the land would cost too much. However, Abner Yates, who attended the meeting, stood up, raised his hat, and shouted, “No, it won’t cost the county a cent. I will give you all the land you want for a county seat.”

This vote gave Defiance 235, Neosho Falls 301, and Yates Center 335.

A second election to decide between Yates Center and Neosho Falls took place on September 12, 1876, and was hotly contested, resulting in Neosho Falls 426 and Yates Center 488. That settled the matter, and Yates Center was the permanent county seat. In addition to Abner Yates giving the county an entire block of ground for the courthouse, around which the town of Yates Center was built, he also gave the city a park and lots for each church building location.

Kalida’s post office was moved to the site of the new county seat on June 12, 1876, and its name was changed to Yates Center. Numerous homes and buildings were also moved from Kalida and Defiance to Yates Center, including the Defiance Courthouse and the Kalida Hotel.

Afterward, most of the town of Kalida was gone, but the townsite lived on under the name “Kalida Farm,” which had become one of the most beautiful of the prairie farms of the Sunflower State. Thomas H. Davidson died at his on February 2, 1889. Afterward, his widow, Anna M. Mehard Davidson, continued to live on the homestead, and their oldest son, James, became the active head of the family.

James Davidson soon became one of the most successful farmers in the state. He was also the planner and projector of the massive architectural attractions for which the Davidson homestead became noted far and wide. After attending the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, James Davidson was inspired by the beautiful stonework he saw on his trip. On his return, he hired Henry Ashley, one of the finest stonemasons in the area, to build an elaborate hand-hewed sandstone above-ground cellar and stone gateway. Constructed from 1893-1897 per James Davidson’s ideas, the one-and-a-half-story building is known as the Kalida Cave or Kalida Castle.

When completed, the castle featured two towers on the sides of the entrance, and its roof was covered in grass. It soon garnered much attention. The utility cave’s primary purpose was to store milk, fruits, and vegetables, and it also served as a tornado shelter and canning cellar.

Today, there is little left of Kalida but a farmhouse, several outbuildings, and the Kalida Castle/Cave. The Kalida Cemetery is a short distance northwest of the farm. The Kalida Castle/Cave and the old Davidson farm are privately owned.

What remains of the old townsite of Kalida is two miles south of Yates Center at 964 Osage Road.

© Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, December 2024.

Also See:

Kansas Destinations

Woodson County Extinct Towns

Woodson County, Kansas

Woodson County Photo Gallery

Sources:

Abandoned Kansas
City of Yates Center
Duncan, L. Wallace and Scott, Charles F.; History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas; Iola Register, Printers, and Binders, Iola, KS., 1901.
Kansas Historic Resources Inventory
Revitalize Yates Center