Xenia ( ) is an
unincorporated area
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in
Franklin Township,
Bourbon County, Kansas
Bourbon County is a county located in Southeast Kansas. Its county seat and most populous city is Fort Scott. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 14,360. The county was named after Bourbon County, Kentucky, the former home o ...
, United States.
History
Settling in the Xenia area in 1856, the year after Bourbon County was organized in 1855, were John Van Syckle, Samuel Stephenson and Charles Anderson.
John Van Syckle and his father laid out Xenia's village plat in 1858. The community was named after
Xenia, Ohio
Xenia ( ) is a city in Greene County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Located in southwestern Ohio, it is east of Dayton, Ohio, Dayton and is part of the Greater Dayton, Dayton metropolitan area as well as the Miami Valley region. As o ...
. The younger Van Syckle opened the village's first store, offering general merchandise.
Xenia gained a post office on November 29, 1858, when the Peru (Linn County) post office was moved to Xenia. Peru, which is now a ghost town, had a post office from August 5 to November 29, 1858. As well as being Xenia's first merchant, John Van Syckle became Xenia's first postmaster.
The first church building was built in 1876 by the Methodists.
In 1878, Franklin township was Bourbon County's fourth-most populous, at 1,474. The county seat of Fort Scott had 5,081 residents. Scott Township had 2,036. Marion Township, just south of Franklin in the county's west end, had 1,676.
In 1910, Xenia had a money-order post office and population of 115. Xenia Post Office closed Aug. 31, 1926.
[Robert W. Baughman's Kansas Post Offices, May 29,
1828-August 3, 1961, published by the Kansas Postal History Society, an affiliate of the Kansas Historical Society.]
Currently, it consists of a few houses, no businesses or service.
Geography
Located at an altitude of 1,047 feet (317 m),
Xenia lies in Bourbon County's northwestern corner, along
K-65, west of the confluence of the
Little Osage River
The Little Osage River is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 31, 2011 tributary of the Osage River in eastern Kansas and western Missouri in the United States. Via ...
and
Limestone Creek, about 18 miles northwest of
Fort Scott.
References
Further reading
External links
Grand Lodge of Kansas A.F.&A.M.Xenia Baptist Church* Bourbon County maps
CurrentHistoric
- KDOT
{{Authority control
Unincorporated communities in Bourbon County, Kansas
Unincorporated communities in Kansas