The Scammon post office opened in 1890, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Scammonville (1879), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
2020 census: 376136 years
How did Scammon get its name?
Scammon was named for the four Scammon brothers, who operated the first mine there.
Scammon was laid out in 1884. It was named for the four Scammon brothers, who operated the first mine there. David Mackie (1836–1910) was a founder and builder of Scammon, and the first President of the Scammon State Bank. The community was known as Stilson when it was first settled. The town was known as Scammonville for a short time before adopting the current name.
The first post office at Scammonville, established in 1879, was renamed Scammon in 1890.
The local railroad history group Heart of the Heartlands, based in Scammon and nearby unincorporated Carona, has restored the old Carona depot as a museum.
Passages that mention Scammon, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Cherokee County, Kansas1904 · page 173Read the page →
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Bovard & Dixon first opened mines near the present town of Scammon. on the line of the road. Afterward Keith & Perry operated mines there, before opening mines at Weir City. Even as late as 1880, Weir City was a mere mining camp containing only about 350 people. This was nine years after the railroad had been built through the county. The progress of develop-
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History of Cherokee County, Kansas1904 · page 175Read the page →
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the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf Railroad was finished through Cherokee County. It passed through the tract of land on which the town of Scammon was afterward built; but for a number of years after the road was built there was no town there at all. Even as late as 1883 the land there, and all around, was in farms, and the people living there had no ex-
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Scammon, 1879 to 1916
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 (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.
