Kansas History and Heritage Project-Labette County

Labette County History



A New Centennial History of Kansas, Charles Tuttle, 1876:

Labette County was organized in 1867, and was named in honor of the river. The area is 649 square miles. The population in 1875 was 14,574, males preponderating by just 900. There are about 64 per cent, engaged in farming, 9 per cent, in trade and transportation, and 10 per cent, in mines and manufactures. Bottom lands are about one-fifth of the whole area, and there is 10 per cent of forest. The woods are of good varieties. The Neosho river runs along the east line of the county, and the other streams are the Labette, Hackberry creek. Deer, Pumpkin, Turkey and Snow creeks, besides many smaller streams. Springs are few, but well water is found at from 20 to 40 feet in depth. Coal has been found underlying 75 per cent, of two townships, and from ten inches to two feet in thickness, varying in depth from two to twelve feet. The quality is good, and large shipments are effected. Limestone and sandstone are plentiful and of good quality. Pottery clay and gypsum are also found. The railroad facilities of the county are supplied by the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, and the Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston, the principal stations being at Parsons, Labette, Oswego and Chetopa. Oswego is the county seat, 131 miles south from Topeka, and the river makes a horse shoe bend at this point, which would give a fall of nine feet should a race of one mile be cut, consequently the time cannot be distant when the water power of the Neosho will be utilized largely. The works now prosecuted in Oswego are a brewery, steam flouring mill, broom factory, cabinet factory, brick factory and a cheese factory. The other manufactures of the county are, in Richland, a steam furniture factory and two steam flouring mills; at Neosho, a steam saw mill ; at Liberty, a steam flouring mill; in the city of Parsons, a foundry and machine shop, a pottery and drain tile factory, a brewery and a steam furniture factory; in Montana, a flour mill and saw mill, and in Chetopa a steam foundry. There are four banks in Labette county; two in the city of Parsons and two in Oswego, the county seat. The newspapers published in the county are five in number; one at Chetopa, two in Oswego and two in the city of Parsons, all weekly. There are 95 school districts and 86 schools, valued at $118,270. The churches number 15, some of them very fine, and the estimated value is set down at $53,000. Libraries are reported to the extent of 12,230 volumes. Labette was self supporting at the time of the locust plague.






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This website created September 18, 2011 by Sheryl McClure.
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