Finney County, Kansas

Finney County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Garden City
Year Organized: 1884
Square Miles: 1302
MSA:

Court House:

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Named: Originally Sequoyah, from the celebrated Cherokee Indian of that name, the inventor of the alphabet of his language, and a most remarkable man. Changed in 1883 to Finney, in honor of D. W. Finney, then Lieutenant-Governor of the State.

State & County QuickFacts:

History

Finney County, in the southwestern part of the state, is the third county north from the Oklahoma line and the third east from Colorado. It is bounded on the north by Scott and Lane counties; on the east by Hodgeman and Gray; on the south by Gray and Haskell, and on the west by Kearny county. This territory was settled about 1880. but was traversed at early dates by Coronado (q. v.), Pike's Expedition and the Santa Fe road.

The county was organized in 1884 and named in honor of Lieut.-Gov. David W. Finney. It then covered a much larger area than at present, the counties of Kearny, Sequoyah, Grant, Arapahoe, Kansas, Stevens, Meade and Clark, as they existed prior to 1883, were disorganized in that year to make Finney. In 1887 the area was reduced, so that it occupied less territory than it does now. In 1893 the present boundaries were formed. In Gov. Glick's proclamation organizing the county, which was made on Oct. 1, 1884, Garden City was named as the county seat

Geography

The surface of the county is nearly level north of the Arkansas river, and undulating prairie in the south, with a range of sand dunes. The bottom lands along the Arkansas average 4 to 5 miles in width. Natural timber is very scarce, there being but a few cottonwood trees. The government has set apart 70,000 acres, which covers nearly the whole area south of the river as a forest reserve, and has planted the most of it to artificial forest. Magnesian limestone of a fair quality and sandstone are found in the northeast. Clay for bricks exists in various parts of the county and potter's clay and gypsum are found in small quantities.

Points of Interest

Garden City was the longtime home of C. J. "Buffalo" Jones who is sometimes credited with saving the buffalo from extinction.

Garfield county was annexed into Finney county in 1893 causing Finney county's strange shape.

Neighboring Counties:

Scott County (north)
Lane County (north)
Ness County (northeast)
Hodgeman County (east)
Haskell County (south)
Gray County (south)
Grant County (southwest)
Kearny County (west)

Cities:

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County Resources:

Finney County - KS-Cyclopedia - 1912

County Resource Guide

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we’ve given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the “characteristic features of our country!”

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn’t the only reason to explore counties’ role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today’s counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990’s political slogan “Think globally, act locally.”

Penn Foster High School

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