Buxton

Buxton, Kansas
When driving through Buxton, Kansas today, it is hard to believe this tiny village was once considered the “most important hay shipping station” in Wilson County. During the hay season, thousands of tons of prairie hay were hauled in by horse-drawn wagons and shipped out in box cars all over the United States. Cattle, too, were herded in on foot from neighboring farms and shipped across the country.

In the spring when train loads of half-starved Texas longhorns arrived, usually at night, residents close to the stockyards were kept awake by the constant bawling. In the morning the cattle were taken to the pastures northwest of town and fattened until fall, then shipped to market. Some, however, were so emaciated they died before reaching the pastures.

Buxton, situated on the Kansas prairie 10 miles southwest of Fredonia, in Duckcreek Township, was established in the fall of 1886, when the Santa Fe Railroad was built through that corner of Wilson County. Since blocks laid off for a town by representatives of the Ark Valley Town and Land Co. ran parallel to the railroad tracks, Buxton sits at an angle.

At the height of its population, the town of Buxton included the railroad depot, two churches, several hay barns, stockyards, a telephone exchange, blacksmith shop, several stores, a hotel, and the post office.

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Duck Creek Township History by Vella Olinger Smith, 1941, 1966, 1969

On Dec. 6, 1941, Vella Olinger Smith, the wife of Buxton farmer and major hay dealer, Harry Wylie Smith, Sr., compiled a history of Duck Creek Township through research of early writings and personal interviews of some of the early residents and descendants.
Below is what Vella added at the end of her published paper, over eighty years ago:
"And so endeth the writing of this rambling account. And in the years to come, if some curious person thumbing through the musty pages of this Historical Society’s archives, should chance to come upon these scribbled lines, I trust that he will think not of the style in which they were written but rather the thought back of it all, and that he, too, will pay tribute to those brave souls, who “sowed that we might reap”. –Vella Olinger Smith"

[Vella Olinger Smith’s son was Harrison W. Smith, Jr. His wife was Virginia, who worked at the welfare office and their daughter is Lynn Smith, FHS Class of 1969.]