Sawyer, Kansas Business District by Kathy Alexander.
Sawyer, Kansas, is a small town in Paxon and Elm Townships of Pratt County. As of the 2020 census, its population was 89, and its total area was 0.14 square miles, all land.
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad depot in Sawyer, Kansas, about 1955.
Sawyer was founded in about 1886 and was named for Warren Sawyer, a railroad official. It was initially served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, which provided passenger rail service to Sawyer on a line between Wichita and Englewood.
A post office was established on June 18, 1887.
Sawyer had an elementary school early on, and a high school opened in 1906.
In 1910, Sawyer was still located on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. At that time, it had a bank, a telephone exchange, a weekly newspaper called the News, a foundry and machine shop, several retail stores, schools, churches, telegraph and express offices, a money order post office with one rural route, and a population of 275.
Sawyer’s population peaked at 276 in 1930.
Business buildings in Sawyer, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad provided dedicated passenger service until at least 1958, while mixed trains continued until about 1961.
As a direct result of Kansas’s aggressive school unification efforts in the 1960s, Sawyer’s schools were closed in 1967. The Sawyer High School mascot was the Eagles.
Today, the community is served by Skyline USD 438, a public school district located two miles West of Pratt.
The nearest passenger rail station is located in Hutchinson, where Amtrak’s Southwest Chief stops once daily on a route from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Sawyer is about 12 miles South of Pratt, the county seat.
An old school in Sawyer, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, October 2026.
Also See:
Sources:
Trand Crane Service in Sawyer, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
Blackmar, Frank W.;Â Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol. I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Wikipedia