The Turon post office opened in 1881, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Cottonwood Grove (1877), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
2020 census: 309145 years
Founding year: the first Turon post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Turon’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Turon was founded in 1886. It was incorporated as a city in 1905.
In 1887, the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway built a main line from Herington through Turon to Pratt. In 1888, this line was extended to Liberal. Later, it was extended to Tucumcari, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. It foreclosed in 1891 and taken over by Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway, which shut down in 1980 and reorganized as Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas Railroad, merged in 1988 with Missouri Pacific Railroad, merged in 1997 with Union Pacific Railroad. Most locals still refer to this railroad as the "Rock Island".
Passages that mention Turon, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Reno County, Kansas1917 · page 229Read the page →
Read the text
passed a general law allowing school districts to combine, and on August [2, 1912, after a considerable time of discussion, districts 78 and 85 united under the name of "Union District No. 78." Likewise on June 6, 1913, district 70 was combined with district 73 at Turon, under the name of "The Turon Lhiion School." Tn tqoo, districts number 123. 125, 124 and 60, all in Medford township, united under the name of "Union District No. 5."
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The Turon Mill Company, located at Turon, was built by John R. Price. It has a capacity of producing one hundred and fifty barrels of flour daily. with a storage capacity for one hundred and fifty thousand bushels of wheat.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Turon, 1877 to 1881
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born 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 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.
