Woodsdale is a ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 in Stevens County

Stevens County, Kansas

Stevens County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 5,724. Its county seat is Hugoton...

, Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It was involved in a county seat war

County seat war

A county seat war is a phenomenon that occurred in the American West as it was being settled, although incidences elsewhere, such as in West Virginia, have been also been recorded. As new towns sprang up and county lines were drawn, there was intense competition for the status and tax benefits...

 with Hugoton

Hugoton, Kansas

Hugoton is a city in and the county seat of Stevens County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,904.-History:...

.

History

Samuel Newitt Wood

Samuel Newitt Wood

Samuel Newitt Wood was an American attorney and politician.Wood represented Chase, Morris, and Madison counties in the Kansas Territorial Legislature in 1860 and 1861, was a member of the first Kansas State Senate in 1861 and again in 1867, a member of the Kansas House of Representatives in 1864,...

 and I. C. Price developed the town and it was named for Col. Wood. Its post office was established November 11, 1886, and the town incorporated April 11. 1887. Following the bloody county seat contest in which the governor had to send in two National Guard companies, and which Woodsdale lost to Hugoton, Woodsdale declined. The post office closed March 31, 1915, and there are now no traces of the town remaining. It was located two miles east of Hugoton and six miles north at the intersections of sections 11, 12, 13, & 14.

See also

• Hay Meadow Massacre
  Hay Meadow Massacre
  The Hay Meadow Massacre, July 25, 1888, was the most violent event of the Stevens County, Kansas, county seat fight.In July 1888, Sam Robinson, the marshal of Hugoton and a group of men supporting Hugoton for the county seat planned an outing in No Man's Land just south of the county...
  
  
• Wild Horse Lake (Oklahoma)
  Wild Horse Lake (Oklahoma)
  Wild Horse Lake is a playa lake located in Texas County, Oklahoma. The lake was the location of the infamous Hay Meadow Massacre in which one faction in the county seat fight in Stevens County, Kansas, killed four members of the opposing faction. Since the killings took place in what was then No...
  
  

Further reading

• Butler, Ken. Kansas Blood Spilled Into Oklahoma. Blue Skyways (retrieved October 27, 2006)
• Mason, Henry F. "County Seat Controversies in Southwestern Kansas" The Kansas Historical Quarterly 2:1 (February 1933) 45-65. (retrieved from The Kansas Collection October 27, 2006)

External links