Harvey County, Kansas

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

County Seat: Newton
Year Organized: 1872
Square Miles: 540

Court House:

8th & Main, P.O. Box 687
County Courthouse
Newton, KS 67114-0000

Named: Named for James M. Harvey, Captain of Company G, Tenth Regiment of Kansas Infantry, and Governor of the State from 1869 to 1873. In January, 1874, he was elected United States Senator to fill the unexpired term ending in 1877.

State & County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Harvey County, named for James M. Harvey, who was governor of Kansas at the time it was organized, is located in the western part of the eastern half of the state, the third county from the Oklahoma line and the sixth from the State of Missouri. It is bounded on the north by McPherson and Marion counties; on the east by Marion and Butler; on the south by Sedgwick, and on the west by Reno, and is crossed a little east of the center by the 6th principal meridian.

The county's history includes the violence of cowtown wickedness, dynamic railroad activity, and prosperous settlements of "Turkey Red" wheat farmers - many of them Mennonite immigrants from Europe. The beautiful Santa Fe depot in Newton is now mostly an office building; one of the tenant's web site has some neat pictures of the station.

Geography

The general surface of the county is prairie, with sand hills in the extreme northwest, and somewhat rolling in the southeast. It has an unusual abundance of streams, its water system consisting of the Little Arkansas river and its numerous branches. The Little Arkansas enters in the northwest corner and flows east a few miles where it is joined by Crooked creek and other streams. From this point it flows southeast, being joined at different points by Black Kettle, Emma and Sand creeks. In the eastern part of the county are Jester and West creeks. The bottom lands along the streams average from one-fourth to three-fourths of a mile in width and comprise 30 per cent. of the area, which is above the average in Kansas and makes this a fine farming district. The timber belts are from a few rods to one-fourth of a mile in width and contain a number of varieties of wood—walnut, cottonwood, elm, hackberry, ash, elm, box-elder, mulberry and sycamore.

Neighboring Counties:

Marion County (northeast)
Butler County (east)
Sedgwick County (south)
Reno County (west)
McPherson County (northwest)

Cities:

- Alta	township
- Burrton	city	Incorporated Area
- Darlington	township
- Emma	township
- Garden	township
- Halstead	city	Incorporated Area
- Hesston	city	Incorporated Area
- Lake	township
- Macon	township
- Newton (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- North Newton	city	Incorporated Area
- Pleasant	township
- Richland	township
- Sedgwick	city	Incorporated Area
- Walton	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Harvey 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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