The Jamestown post office opened in 1878, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Alva (1871), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
First census: 101 in 18802020 census: 237148 years
How did Jamestown get its name?
Jamestown was named for either Senator James Pomeroy, or James P. Pomeroy, a railroad official.
Jamestown was founded in 1878, and was incorporated as a city in 1883. It was named for either Senator James Pomeroy, or James P. Pomeroy, a railroad official. A post office was opened in Alva (an extinct town) in 1871, but it was moved to Jamestown in 1878. The town located itself on the Missouri Pacific Railroad.
In 1911 the entire downtown business district was destroyed by a fire. Few records remain of that fire, but the townspeople subsequently rebuilt the downtown commercial district. Three towns in the area had devastating downtown fires on the same night: Jamestown, Courtland, and Glasco. Damage was reported to amount to $500,000 at the time.
Passages that mention Jamestown, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Biographical history of Cloud County, Kansas1903 · page 775Read the page →
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most surely fulfilled at the Ansdell farm. Mr. Ansdell's father, l-'rederick F. S. Ansdell was a man well known to all the old settlers of the county as having established the first .store in 1870, which was the only one in the vicinity until the city of Jamestown was founded, and as that seemed a good location for business he was one of the first to open an extensive general merchandise store; almost simultaneously Myron M. Strain and 11. W.
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Biographical history of Cloud County, Kansas1903 · page 736Read the page →
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The prosperous little city of Jamestown is situated eleven miles west of Concordia in Grant township. The town was originally platted by C. I. Gould. A tract of land comprising sixty acres was divided into lots, of which each alternate division was given to the railroad company. V. A. Thomas one of the early settlers of that community, who owned a farm adjoining the town site laid out what is known as the "Thomas Addition," consisting of twenty-live acres, which makes a total area of eighty-five acres in town lots.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Jamestown, 1871 to 1930
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
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 Wikimedia Commons (5), 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.
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