Abandoned and dying towns in the US (Wichita, Kansas City: homes, high school)

[MFA2013]

I'm working on my masters thesis on the economy and modern US ghost towns. I am interested in abandoned and slowly dying US towns due to rapidly declining population. Any suggestions in KS or MO?

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by MFA2013

I'm working on my masters thesis on modern ghost towns. I am interested in abandoned and slowly dying US towns due to rapidly declining population. Any suggestions in KS or MO?

A complex number of reasons exist regarding why the population in the rural Great Plains is declining so rapidly. The core of this perpetual centennial decline in KS is concentrated along the Nebraska border as well as NW Kansas. The vast consolidation and mechanization of agriculture over a long period of time in this region has resulted in only a few big players remaining with smaller farms going out of business. When consolidation on a large scale occurs the economy can not really grow because fewer people are needed on the farms and jobs become more scarce. It becomes a perpetual cycle. Basically, these isolated counties continue to exhibit "cycles of aging." This is because the population continues to age along with high levels of out-migration among middle aged people and younger to larger urban centers. The out-migration from the frontier counties in rural KS often leads to small levels of growth in the regional center towns like Hays, Salina, Hutchinson, Dodge City, Liberal, Garden City, etc. The bigger pulls in terms of in-migration remain the Kansas City metro area through Lawrence corridor, Manhattan, and Wichita.
In conclusion, your search could possibly focus on frontier counties in the Plains that are defined by the Census Bureau as having seven or fewer people per square mile. Nearly all the counties that are classified as frontier or nearly frontier have largely had declining populations for a very long period of time along with many ghost towns and abandoned homesteads. I have a good amount of personal experience with these issues due to the fact that my relatives own and operate a large ranch in rural NW Kansas north of the Russell area.

[cp1969]

Originally Posted by MFA2013

I'm working on my masters thesis on the economy and modern US ghost towns. I am interested in abandoned and slowly dying US towns due to rapidly declining population. Any suggestions in KS or MO?

Get a map and start throwing darts at it. You can't miss.

The only towns growing in Kansas are the major cities and some, not all, of the little towns roughly within a 60 mile radius.

Pretty much everything else is dead meat on a stick.

[AnywhereElse]

I'm agreeing with ap1969. We live in southeast Kansas and you can take your pick of cities here - Fort Scott would be a good choice as most of the population is retirement age and it is not being replaced since they frown on progress. If you can be more specific in what you are looking for, we might be able to help you narrow it down. We have lived in other KS towns and a few across the country - no place like Fort Scott as it is "unique".

[Roccaluma]

This information is kind of old. In the eighties I lived in Sterling Kansas. Afew times I went through Alden. It was dying then. After I got out of the army and visited my grandma in kansas we went by Alden, this was in 95 or so, it was like a war zone or ghost town. The high school was shut down and the gym had fallen in, it was brick and it looked bad. The post office had closed and the grocery went out of business.

[thriftylefty]

Originally Posted by Roccaluma

This information is kind of old. In the eighties I lived in Sterling Kansas. Afew times I went through Alden. It was dying then. After I got out of the army and visited my grandma in Kansas we went by Alden, this was in 95 or so, it was like a war zone or ghost town. The high school was shut down and the gym had fallen in, it was brick and it looked bad. The post office had closed and the grocery went out of business.

I think this is right, With the government's plan to start shutting down post offices, I would look at the proposed list of post office closures. IMO This would be the beginning of the end for a town. I would be interested if there was a certain hierarchy of things that begin to close for a town to officially be called dead,
I have found Churches are the last to go.

[itsMeFred]

Originally Posted by thriftylefty

with the government's plan to start shutting down post offices, I would look at the proposed list of post office closures. IMO This would be the beginning of the end for a town. I would be interested if there was a certain hierarchy of things that begin to close for a town to officially be called dead,
I have found Churches are the last to go.

Nah. I just looked at the list and the only ones on there in the Plains and West are redundant POs in the "large" cities. Omaha, Fargo, KC, Denver, etc.


So far as I can tell, towns start the true downward slide when the school closes because now there's nothing to anchor families. And having lived near a lot of dying small towns, the bar is the last to go. Once the town watering hole is gone, it's going to dry up and blow away.

I want to say it was at Arthur, NE where the town's bar caught fire one night and burned to the ground. It was literally a community effort to rebuild.
Not because there are so many drinkers so much as a community can't exist without a gathering place.

[thriftylefty]

Originally Posted by itsMeFred

Nah. I just looked at the list and the only ones on there in the Plains and West are redundant POs in the "large" cities. Omaha, Fargo, KC, Denver, etc.


So far as I can tell, towns start the true downward slide when the school closes because now there's nothing to anchor families. And having lived near a lot of dying small towns, the bar is the last to go. Once the town watering hole is gone, it's going to dry up and blow away.

I want to say it was at Arthur, NE where the town's bar caught fire one night and burned to the ground. It was literally a community effort to rebuild.
Not because there are so many drinkers so much as a community can't exist without a gathering place.

I never thought about that, when the school closes the town's population is aging, and the"gathering place" is different for each town, I was out in western Kansas once and was invited to a hamburger joint for beer. It didn't look like much but by 10:00 pm seems people of all ages and walks of life drove in from miles around to hang out .