Trinity Holiness Church and building in Monmouth, Kansas, courtesy of Google Maps.
Monmouth, Kansas, is an unincorporated community in Sheridan Township of southern Crawford County. It is also an extinct town, as its post office has been closed for years.
Located on Lightning and Limestone Creeks, Lafayette Manlove founded and laid off the town on his farm in 1866 and named it after his hometown of Monmouth, Illinois. It was the third town laid out in the county, and a post office was established on July 17, 1866, with Lafayette Manlove serving as the first postmaster.
The first house erected was a two-story log building belonging to Manlove, which he occupied as a storeroom and residence. Ralph Warner erected the next building for a dwelling, and Dr. Moore, who later represented Crawford County in the state senate, erected a residence.
The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1868.
Old barns in Monmouth, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
In 1869, A.M. Chadsey built a storeroom in which he kept a stock of general merchandise.
Mrs. Van Bibber taught the first school in 1870, which was held in a schoolhouse erected during the summer of that year.
The Presbyterian Church was organized in 1870. The Presbyterians erected a small frame building in 1873.
In 1878, the city boasted a sawmill, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, a district school, a blacksmith, two physicians, two general stores, a boot and shoe store, and a hotel. A stagecoach line ran to Cherokee tri-weekly, carrying the mail. At that time, its principal exports were grain and hogs, and its population was 200.
Mounmouth experienced growth in 1879 when the Memphis, Kansas & Colorado Railroad, a narrow-gauge railroad from Cherokee to Parsons, was first extended to that point.
After the first schoolhouse burned, a new one-story frame structure was built in 1880.
The Christian Church was organized in 1877, and the church house, which is also a small frame, was built in 1882.
In 1882, the rail line was converted to standard gauge.
St. Louis-San Francisco Railway sign board by H. Killam, 1959.
By the early 1880s, the town had made slow progress and had a population of about 400 and five business houses. It was also a considerable point in the shipment of grain and produce.
In 1901, the Memphis, Kansas, & Colorado Railroad came under the control of the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway, which ran passenger and freight trains and maintained a depot at Monmouth.
In 1910, the village was still on the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. It had a grain elevator, a few stores, churches, a school, telegraph and express offices, and a money order post office with one rural route. Its population was 179.
The town experienced a boom in the 1920s, finding itself at the epicenter of extensive coal mining activity in Southeast Kansas.
Monmouth’s post office closed on September 30, 1955.
Monmouth, Kansas Mining.
Passenger service on the railroad ended in the late 1960s.
Freight service continued on the railroad into the 1980s, after Burlington Northern Railroad purchased the Frisco in 1980.
The rail line was eventually abandoned in the early 1990s.
Today, the school, businesses, and railroad tracks are gone. However, several houses and mobile homes remain, as does the Monmouth Trinity Holiness Church.
Monmouth is 12 miles south of Girard, the county seat, and six miles west of Cherokee.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, updated April 2025.
Trinity Holiness Church in Monmouth, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
Also See:
Extinct Towns of Crawford County
Sources:
Blackmar, Frank W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Crawford County Business Directory, 1878.
Cutler, William G; History of Kansas; A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL, 1883.
Home Authors; A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Crawford County, KS, Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, 1905
Wikipedia