The story
Read it all →How Kansas came to be
From Wikipedia’s history of Kansas.
A post office called Kansas has been in operation since 1855. The town was named after the Kansas Territory.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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History · Kansas
Kansas’ post office opened in 1855, and 11% of its homes were built before 1940
Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1967 on, and the census since 1960.
1855first post office
0on the National Register
11%homes built before 1940
1old photo or paper
Quick answers
How Kansas began
When was Kansas founded?
1855
The Kansas post office opened in 1855, the earliest record of the town by name.
First census: 211 in 19602020 census: 180171 years
Founding year: the first Kansas post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Kansas’ past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
★ What stands out · Help out
Start Kansas’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Kansas’s history is told.
Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.People over time
Kansas, census by census
Peaked at 267 in 1980; 180 people lived here in 2020.
7 censuses, 1960–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Kansas’ Wikipedia page.
Timeline
Kansas, 1855 to 1980
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
By decade
Kansas, decade by decade
One decade in the archive so far: the 1860s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
On the map
Kansas on the map, 1967 to 1983
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Kansas. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1967Carbon Hill sheet · 1:24,000U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Kansas.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewStrong's dime caricatures. No. 2, Little Bo-Peep and her foolish sheep, 1861
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Kansas’ page.
Retake this view · +15Famous people
See all →Famous people close to Kansas
Nobody well known was born in Kansas itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Questions about Kansas’ history
What year was Kansas founded?
The Kansas post office opened in 1855, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Memory lane
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Start a conversation
Sources
Where this page comes from
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From the Library of Congress (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.