Winfield

By Beverley Olson Buller

Occupying land along the Walnut River that once belonged to the Osage Indians, Winfield grew from a small settlement in the early 1870s to a bustling center of culture by 1909, when it was called the "Little Athens of Kansas." Its colleges, picturesque limestone buildings, homes, churches, trolleys, and annual Winfield Chautauqua Assemblies were ideal subjects for the picture postcards popular at the time. These cards, which provided a window to the world of Winfield, now provide a view of its past. The trolley tracks are gone, and Chautauquas have given way to the Walnut Valley Festival, but much remains of the glory that was Winfield.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Mar 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781439650417

Beverley Olson Buller

Beverley Olson Buller was born and raised in Winfield and is a longtime educator with interests in history and children's literature. She has authored two biographies for young readers that were recognized by the Kansas Notable Books List. Postcards in this book appear courtesy of Buller's mother, who was an avid collector.

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Olson.

INTRODUCTION

Penny postcards presented a simple and interesting way to communicate with friends, customers, and family into the 20th century. They speak of what a community found important as well as how it wanted to present itself to the wider world at the time. For this reason, illustrating the history of a city with postcards is by no means exhaustive; its view is quite literally based on the views chosen worthy of being placed on a postcard. That being said, each postcard offers the opportunity to dig deep into Winfield’s past to discover the stories it contains.

The history of Winfield, Kansas, goes back to 1869, when Clifford M. Wood visited the area and felt it would be ideal for a town site. His wife, Melinda Jones Wood, even gave the town a name—Lagonda—because it reminded her of her hometown in Ohio located near Lagonda Creek. Within a month, however, Wood discarded the idea until he met Edward Cassander Manning, who was in the area looking for a place to establish a general store and a cattle ranch. Cowley County, created in 1864 by the Kansas State Legislature and named for Civil War casualty Matthew Doll Cowley, belonged to the Osage Indians by treaty rights, part of the Osage Diminished Reserve, which ran through eight Kansas counties. When Wood claimed land on the west side of what is now Winfield and built a structure, Indians burned it down. Manning, with T.H. Baker, a business partner he had met in Manhattan, Kansas, claimed over 40 acres of land in the area and paid Chief Chetopa $6 for rent. In June 1869, he placed a foundation on his claim and before the year was out built a 14-foot-by-16-foot log cabin at the north end of what is now Manning Street in Winfield.

At the beginning of 1870, Manning put together a town company of 12 other men, with Clifford M. Wood as vice president. He gave 40 acres of his claim to the town company; the other men agreed to pay half of the cost of building a log store and sell parts of their own claims later to create a 160-acre town site. A member of the town company, W.W. Andrews, suggested the name Winfield for the new town when the well-known Baptist minister Winfield Scott offered to provide a church if the town received his name. In November 1870, Scott came to the town that now bore his name and began the proceedings to establish a Baptist church. Manning acted fast in February 1870 to ensure Winfield was named the county seat when he heard that Cresswell (now Arkansas City) had been suggested. Manning, meanwhile, planned the town and aligned Main Street with the North Star. The original town site went north from Ninth Avenue to Fifth Avenue and a half mile west to Mansfield Street. The first building erected on the new Main Street was the log cabin store, built in April 1870 at the northwest corner of Ninth Avenue and Main Street. Some forethought went into its construction, as it had two stories, which allowed space on the second floor for county offices and other public uses, while the first floor housed the Manning & Baker store and rented space for other merchants. Manning allowed free public use of the second floor for two years, after which he claimed the whole building for his purposes. In April 1870, Manning built a residence near Eighth and Manning Streets and brought his family from Manhattan to Winfield. The next month, Manning set up a post office in his log store, distributing the mail being brought from the Douglass, Kansas, post office until the mail coach established regular delivery to Winfield in June 1870. When Winfield celebrated its first Fourth of July that year, a flag sewn by local women hung from the top of the log store, and after a day of games, picnicking, and patriotic music citizens danced at a ball on the second floor of the store. Further reason for celebration came in July 1870, when Pres. Ulysses S. Grant authorized the purchase of Indian land, including that on which Winfield had been built. Expecting a flood of settlers, Manning persuaded J.P. Short to open Winfield’s first hotel at the northeast corner of Ninth Avenue and Main Street in October 1870.

The official survey of Cowley County began in January 1871. Upon its completion, the Winfield Town Association formed with E.C. Manning, J.C. Fuller, D.A. Millington, W.A. Mansfield, and A.W. Tousey as its members. The town site consisted of the east half of Manning’s claim and the west half of Fuller’s. Millington used his surveying skills to lay out the town’s streets, alleys, blocks, and lots. Once the Winfield town site, with 72 lots and 80 buildings, entered the land registry for Cowley County, it could truly begin to grow. Never a boomtown, Winfield experienced slow and deliberate growth thanks to the foundation provided by E.C. Manning and his business partners.

By 1872, Winfield’s 700 citizens shopped its many stores on Main Street, could attend one of five churches, get their photograph taken, join a lodge, and began to plan for the first public school building, jail, and courthouse. On February 22, 1873, it became a third-class city with W.H.H. Maris elected the first mayor. At this point, 65 percent of the original 72 lot-holders no longer lived in Winfield, but others certainly came to take their place. In 1878, E.C. Manning constructed a large building on the site of the old log store, now moved down the street to 821 Main Street. By 1879, with the population grown to over 2,000 denizens, it became a city of the second class. The Santa Fe Railroad came to Winfield that same year, and its population grew more in that year than ever before.

By 10 years into the new century, Winfield began to receive notice as an attractive, thriving, interesting city. Its trolley system, annual Chautauqua assemblies in its beautiful Island Park, two colleges, hospital, state school, churches, and homes caught the eye of a reporter for Kansas magazine in 1909. In its April edition, he hailed it as "Beautiful Winfield, the little Athens of the Sunflower