Denison was founded as a result of the Kansas City, Wyandotte and Northwestern Railway laying tracks that would connect the communities of Valley Falls and Holton. The railroad was slated to come through one mile south of an existing village, Tippinville, and in September 1887, A.D. Walker and Hollis Tucker, land speculators, laid out lots for a new town, which was named after Tucker's hometown of Denison, Ohio. Most of the houses and two churches in Tippinville were physically moved to the new townsite, which is primarily in Garfield Township, with a small portion in Cedar Township (it was all Cedar Township at first). By August 1890, Tippinvile had been officially vacated and by 1894 Denison had a population of 150.
Passages that mention Denison, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late war... history of Missouri, map of Jackson county ..1881 · page 524Read the page →
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The same week in August that the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad began to run its trains to Kansas City, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad began to run its trains here also. This came about in this way : This road had been completed to Denison, Texas, the winter previous, where it made connection with the Texas Central for Galveston. Kansas City availed itself of this fact to make an effort, now that it had such connections with Galveston, to realize the old dream of 1856, to effect an outlet by that port to the markets of the world.
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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 Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
