One such group was a colony of former slaves who travelled from the Kentucky hills to set up a community called Morton City on the rolling prairie northeast of what is now the town of Jetmore.
The group of 177 freed slaves arrived in Kinsley on March 24, 1878, and after some days of organizing supplies and arranging wagons, they embarked on a life filled with hope and promise. In response to a series of homesteading advertisements and letters home, the following year brought more settlers to join what was known as 'The Colored Colony.' Morton City soon sported three wood-constructed homes and many dugouts, as well as a church building.
Most of the residents tried their hands at farming small acreages. A few had brought mules from Kentucky, and were able to plow 10 to 20 acres for planting sod corn and wheat. Many more families tried to raise what they needed to survive by working the thick grassy soil by hand.
Since the town had no businesses, they were required to haul supplies from Kinsley. Some settlers worked as hired hands when the demand for labor allowed, helping with wheat harvest and sporadically working on neighboring ranches to help put food on the table.
Some men were forced to leave their families and find work in other areas, sending back scant supplies when possible. Sometimes the women left to become the major breadwinners, when they could find work as laundresses or kitchen help.
As the hard winters and dry spells of the plains took their tolls, the little colony began to shrink in size and determination. Many of the inhabitants moved to Kinsley, Larned, or Dodge City, and supported their families as carpenters, mechanics, or day laborers. Morton City gradually was reclaimed by the prairie, with occasional stone outcroppings of building foundations and the earthy mounds of sod houses surrounding the church, which stood for many years after the last resident moved away.
Another settlers’ colony that went from a thriving community to a deserted ghost town was Beersheba. In 1882, the Ohio organization of the Hebrew Union Agricultural Society selected a site along the banks of Pawnee Creek in Hodgeman County. Twenty-four Russian- Jewish families were supplied with implements and livestock. Living in dugouts, the 60 immigrants erected a sod schoolhouse and a synagogue, and dug water wells to supply the residents and their livestock.
The colony depended on cattle for their income, but when they leased a piece of their land to a local cattle syndicate they signed the death warrant for their fledgling community. The elders in the Ohio organization punished the settlers for their independence by taking all their livestock and equipment, thus crippling the colonists’ ability to work the land.
After 1886, there was nothing left of Beersheba. Some residents moved to surrounding towns to work at odd jobs and eke out a living. But the majority of the settlers, all of whom had a profession or trade other than farming, found work in Kansas City or St. Louis and left a ghost town on the prairie for life in the big city.
Thanks to the Hodgeman County Historical Society and the Haun Museum in Jetmore, Kansas, for contributing research material for this story. For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Debra Bolton in Manhattan Kansas.
For another great story about Morton City history, be sure to check out this article from The Hutchinson News!
High Plains History is a production of High Plains Public Radio. Special thanks to Lynn Boitano for additional production assistance.
