The first settlement of Greenwood County was made in the spring of 1856 by the colonists from Mississippi, who came with the avowed intention of helping to make Kansas an ally of the southern slave-holding states. The early rivalry that their efforts caused, and the severe drought of 1860, had an adverse effect on the settlement of the county. Intense settlement did not begin until after the Civil War. The county was named for Alfred B. Greenwood, the United States land commissioner who served under the administrations of Presidents Pierce and Buchanan.
In 1857 settlers came through this territory seeking water. A spring was found and one of the pioneers shouted “Eureka!” meaning “I have found it.” The settlers claimed 302 acres around the spring for a town site. And Eureka was chosen as the name for the town. The original town site at one time belonged to David Tucker and Levi Prather; however, Prather soon sold his half to Tucker; Ten years later, six men, including Edwin Tucker, David Tucker’s oldest son, organized the Eureka Town site Company, and were granted to charter on April 6, 1867. The town was incorporated on April 30, 1870.
The early pioneers lived in small, crude log cabins. The first building, other than a dwelling, was a schoolhouse built of short planks split from logs. Edwin Tucker was the first teacher. The building also served as a church and town hall, by 1868, Eureka had a total of thirteen houses, shacks and shanties, sheltering approximately fifty residents. In 1861, Edwin built a four room stone house for his bride. The home was known as the “mansion” because it was the largest house in Eureka. This house remains standing today.S
From the first, Eureka’s economy depended primarily on farming and ranching. The Flint Hills region is renowned for having some of the best grasses for feeding cattle. Early attempts at farming were plagued with setbacks, including droughts, grasshoppers, and hail storms. The drought of 1860 caused a number of families in the Eureka area to leave their farms. Gradually it became apparent that cattle, rather than crops, would provide a greater return over a period of time, and thus much of the cultivated land was sown back to grass.
As early as 1869, a group of Eureka business men drilled unsuccessfully for oil. In the year 1916, oil was discovered near Virgil, and the following year there was a big strike in Sallyards field. Feverish drilling activity continued, and other rick discoveries were made, including the Teeter and Aagard fields in 1921 and the Seeley, Burkett and Browning fields in 1922.
The first commercial business in Eureka was a general store. During the 1850’s, additional businesses were started, including a blacksmith shop. Dry goods and grocery stores, a drugstore, wagon shop, saw and grist mills and printing shop. The first bank was established in 1870. By 1878, the town boasted nineteen businesses.
Early building materials included logs, planks sand rock. A brick factory was opened on the south bank of Fall River, and the clay was dug across the river on the Branson farm. Native limestone was also used. The first courthouse, built in 1873, and the Christian Congregational Church (1888) are two examples of buildings using limestone.
A stage line was in operation in 1873, connecting Eureka with El Dorado and Emporia. The first railroad to serve Eureka was the Kansas City, Emporia and Southern Railway, built in 1879. By June 1882, the present Missouri-Pacific Railroad reached Eureka and continued to Reece, Sallyards, El Dorado and on west.
S. G. Mead began publishing a weekly newspaper, The Eureka Herald, July 3 1868. The newspaper office was first located in Fort Montgomery, a log cabin built during the Civil War because of a fear of Indian raids. Originally, a stockade had surrounded the cabin, but it was removed at the end of the war. The first local telephone exchange began in 1898.
Greenwood County was formally organized on March 14, 1862, at Janesville, the temporary county seat, being chosen over several other sites, after two elections.
