Ghost Towns of Kansas – Elgin
In his Cyclopedia of State History, Frank Blackmar describes the town of Elgin as follows.[i]
Elgin, the oldest town in Chautauqua County, is a station on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. R. in Hendricks township, 10 miles southwest of Sedan, the county seat. It has banking facilities, telegraph and express offices, and a money order post office. The town is supplied with good schools and churches. The first preaching in the county was held here by Rev. S. Peacock. The first school house in the county, as well as the first store, the first mill, and the first Masonic lodge was at Elgin. The town was founded in 1869 by L. P. Getman. The population according to the 1910 report was 350.
According to Emily Cowan, writing for Abandoned Kansas, the post office was established on February 27, 1870, with Lymon P. Getman the first postmaster. The post office lasted for a little more than a century but was discontinued on July 30, 1976.[ii]
Lymon P. Getman was given the postmaster position after the post office was established on February 27, 1970. It was discontinued on July 30, 1976.
Lyman owned a store in the nearby town of Sedan (Chautauqua County seat), and established the first store in Elgin called “Wade & Getman” in the fall of 1870.
The town surged in residents and businesses over the next twenty years becoming the largest shipping point of southern cattle and an entrepot for the Osage Nation. By the early 1920s the cattle shipping industry in Elgin had pretty much dried up. Once many of the pastures used by the Elgin stockyards were given to members of the Osage Tribe and the railroads had expanded well into Oklahoma creating closer ports for the southern cattle to be shipped out from. The town gracefully but reluctantly stepped down from her position which she had held for so long as the “Cattle Capital of the World.”
Oil was discovered in Elgin in 1902 and son the Black Well was erected producing around fifty barrels a day to start. The prospect of oil in Elgin caused another boom in residents and businesses for Elgin. By 1914 it had surged to around eighty-five barrels per day with multiple wells and a new refining co0mpany in the talks. By 1920 The Elgin Oil Refining Company had been organized to operate a 1,500 barrel-a-day unit refinery. Harner Bros drilled four wells in 1930 on the Wynona lease southwest of the town where all of them were producing 109 barrels per day. By the end of the 1930s the oil boom had fizzled out and with the onset of the Great Depression, the town began a slow painful decline over the next 30-40 years. And although its new nickname is “The Town Too Tough to Die” the decline of Elgin is indisputable.
Not much is left of downtown Elgin: a row of three buildings in a state of extreme disrepair on the north side of Grand Avenue between N Carpenter St and N Santa Fe St. The last business that occupied the western-most building was Margaret’s Café, at the time sporting a sign with the town’s motto “Elgin, A Town Too Tough To Die.” The owners, Margaret and Leonard Roberts, lived next door, on the second floor above the Elgin Historic Museum. Margaret’s Café was abandoned in 1993. The Museum, which opened its doors on July 4, 1965, closed in 1995, following a public auction of its contents.
On the south side of Grand Avenue, just east of Santa Fe St, stands the remains of the Elgin State Bank, built in 1901 and abandoned in 1932, after thirty years of handling the business dealing of the growing town. The bank survived a robbery attempt in 1922, followed a year later by an embezzlement by another cashier. In 1932 the bank was closed for liquidation as it was conducting an unprofitable amount of business Continued cash withdrawals from the bank’s customers meant the death sentence for the bank.
At the southeast corner of Grand Ave and Carpenter St are the remains of the Elgin Grace Episcopal Church. In 1904 an empty store was purchased and converted into a church, arched windows and all. On March 9, 1906, a consecration service was held to inaugurate the church building. The building was sold in 1962 and used for hay storage for several years before being abandoned.
There remains one church in Elgin, the United Methodist Church, at the corner of East St and Kansas Ave. The pastor serving the small congregation is based in Sedan, KS, and also leads church services in Wauneta, KS.
Photographs taken on April 16, 2023.
[i] Blackmar, Frank. Kansas. A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Couties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, Etc. Volume I. Chicago: Standard Publishing Co., 1912, p. 572.
[ii] https://abandonedks.com/elgin-ks/