It’s Worth Repeating: Stories of Early Southwest History

 

Ghost City of Ryansville Is Shown on Old Map of Ford - Hodgeman Counties

 

By Heinie Schmidt

 

Tom Gray, at the city of Ford in Ford county, used to refer to his alfalfa field as Ryansville, Jr. And thereby hangs the tale of one of Southwest Kansas' ghost towns, the town of Ryansville.

 

There is no plat of the town of Ryansville on file in the office of the register of deeds, but there is a description of the town in a pamphlet by Bennett and Smith, land attorneys at Garden City, and the town is located on an old map in my possession. The pamphlet is owned by Victor Hull of Dodge City, and the map was given to me by Monte Hubbell of Jetmore. Hubbell tells me the map was found when the old Hodgeman county court house was torn down.

 

This is the way the Bennett and Smith writer describes Ryansville:

 

“A live town situated on the south side of the Arkansas river, immediately east of Mulberry creek, 14 miles south of Spearville and 20 miles southeast of Dodge City.

 

"Mulberry creek, skirted with timber, empties into the Arkansas river on the west side of the town, and is the only stream that puts into the Arkansas from the south for 100 miles east or west. A brook of pure spring water curves through the townsite and on the eastern part of town is a pretty little lake alive with fish.

 

"It is in the direct line of the railroad running from Wichita to Dodge City, known as the Kingman branch. This road will be completed to Ryansville by the 15th of April 1886.

 

"Water can be procured at a depth of 12 to 18 feet. A bridge will be built across the Arkansas river within 60 days.

 

"Good school houses and churches are the pride of the citizens of the town.

 

"A splendid mill site and water power can be had with very little expense, and those wishing to embark in such an enterprise will consult their interests by seeing the same, or corresponding with the secretary of the town company.

 

"This town was organized and incorporated Sept. 28, 1885 by Dodge City parties, and the showing of the town at present is a decided illustration of what energy and good judgement can do for people who wish to invest in a live town of the best advantages.

 

"New additions in the shape of store buildings and residences are going up, and already the town is assuming city style.

 

"Correspondence solicited and promptly answered. John Finlay, president. James Langton. secretary.”

 

The Bennett and Smith account its interesting in many ways. It contains the only date I can find for the founding of the town.

 

The description of the town, we must remember, was dreamed up by promoters of Southwest Kansas whose intention was drawing settlers from the East into this part of the country. From the descriptions given me by others who knew Ryansville, however, the Bennett and Smith paragraphs are not overdrawn.

 

The description also locates the date of the pamphlet at somewhere between Sept. 28, 1885, and April 15, 1886.

 

John H. Finlay, president of the town corporation, was an attorney at Dodge City.

 

Dr. C. A. Milton, pioneer doctor, was vice-president of the town company, Mrs. Agnes Herzer of Dodge City tells me. Dr. Milton experimented with many things. He had a cherry orchard, for one, covering 20 acres northwest of Dodge City, known far and wide as the Milton Cherry Orchard. People went there and gathered bushels and bushels of cherries.

 

In the Catholic section of the Maple Grove cemetery at Dodge City is a gravestone, reading, "Patrick Ryan, born in Turone, Ireland, died Nov. 29, 1885, aged 45 years." Here lies the body of the founder of Ryansville.

 

An inkling of his popularity can be found in the Globe Livestock Journal published at Dodge City, for July 15, 1885. The item reads, "Pat Ryan, whose range is on the Mulberry, was in this city on last Friday. Pat is one of the old standbys of this city, and everybody knows him, which keeps him busy talking to friends while in the city."

 

I have not been able to find out the year that Ryan came here. He was not an enlisted soldier, but was an army teamster with the Seventh Cavalry under General Custer. He left the army either at Fort Hays or Fort Dodge. For several years he was a buffalo hunter out of Dodge City, and then he used Dodge as a freighting center.

 

For many years we had Pat Ryan's buffalo gun, a double barreled gun, on display in the City Hardware store in Dodge City where I worked for old Scotty Robison. The gun now is in the Beeson museum at Dodge City.

 

Ryan finally went to the Mulberry creek site and established his ranch headquarters there before the town was laid out.

 

(continued next week)

 

     The map above was adapted from one found by Monte Hubbell of Jetmore when the old Hodgeman county court house was torn down. Most of the pertinent facts on the map have been reproduced in the drawing above. There is no date on the old map, which shows Hodgeman and Ford counties, but evidence is that it was drawn between 1885 and 1887, after Ryansville was established, and before its railroad was abandoned.

     The portion of the map reproduced shows the southeast boundary of Ford county. One of the most important things located is the town of Ryansville. It can be seen that the Mulberry creek and the proposed Wichita and Western railroad (called the Kingman branch of the Santa Fe by all the oldtimers) both go through the townsite of Ryansville. There seems to be no information on the town named Rio.

     Both Ryansville and Ford City are shown on the old map in Ryans township, probably a mapmaker's error for Ryan township no longer exists, nor does Corbitt township, nor the township whose corner shows at the lower left, named Hamilton. The strip to the left of Spearville township is an undesignated area two sections wide and 14 sections long, along the side of the Fort Dodge military reservation.

     Windhorst on the map (Windthorst, today) is on the north boundary of what was South Wheatland township. The township directly, above was designated as Wheatland. Grid lines indicate sections shown on the map. Mrs. Kathleen Emrie of Ford provided the drawing of Pat Ryan's brand and the explanation in the accompanying story. (High Plains map.)

 

–Newspaper clipping saved by Verna (Dawson) Karns.

[This article, first of a series of three, appeared on Page Two of The High Plains Journal dated Thursday, July 1, 1954. The High Plains Journal is still published weekly from Dodge City, Kansas.]