Antelope is an

unincorporated community 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 ...

Marion County, Kansas Marion County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat is Marion and its most populous city is Hillsboro. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 11,823. The county was named in honor of Francis Marion, a b ...

, United States. Antelope got its name from

antelope The term antelope refers to numerous extant or recently extinct species of the ruminant artiodactyl family Bovidae that are indigenous to most of Africa, India, the Middle East, Central Asia, and a small area of Eastern Europe. Antelopes do ...

grazing near where the first school was being built. It is located northeast of Marion, about 0.9 miles west of the intersection of

U.S. Route 77 U.S. Route 77 (US 77) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway which extends for in the central United States. As of 2005, Its southern terminus is in Brownsville, Texas, at Veteran's International Bridge on the U.S.-Mexico borde ...

(aka U.S. Route 56) highway and 250th Street along the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

History

Early history

For many

millennia A millennium () is a period of one thousand years, one hundred decades, or ten centuries, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting p ...

, the

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

was inhabited by

nomadic Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

Native Americans. From the 16th century to 18th century, the

Kingdom of France The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the Middle Ages, medieval and Early modern France, early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe from th ...

claimed ownership of large parts of

. In 1762, after the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...

, France secretly ceded

New France New France (, ) was the territory colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Kingdom of Great Br ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, per the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

19th century

In 1802, Spain returned most of the land to France. In 1803, most of the land for modern day Kansas was acquired by the United States from France as part of the 828,000 square mile

Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase () was the acquisition of the Louisiana (New France), territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. This consisted of most of the land in the Mississippi River#Watershed, Mississipp ...

for 2.83 cents per

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

. In 1854, the

Kansas Territory The Territory of Kansas was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until January 29, 1861, when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the United States, Union as the Slave and ...

was organized, then in 1861

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

became the 34th

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

. In 1855, Marion County was established within the

, which included the land for modern day Antelope. In 1887, the

Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway The Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway (CK&N) was formed in 1885 and Marcus Low, a former attorney for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, was its president. The CRI&P advanced the CK&N about twenty-five million dollars to begin cons ...

built a branch line north–south from Herington through Antelope to Caldwell. It foreclosed in 1891 and was taken over by Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway, which shut down in 1980 and reorganized as

Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas Railroad The Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas Railroad (OKT) was a railroad operating in its namesake states in the 1980s. OKT I The Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas Railroad was originally created on May 29, 1980, after the demise of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pa ...

, merged in 1988 with

Missouri Pacific Railroad The Missouri Pacific Railroad , commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad o ...

, and finally merged in 1997 with

. Most locals still refer to this railroad as the "Rock Island". A post office existed in Antelope from July 25, 1870, to June 20, 1988.

Geography

Antelope is located in the scenic

Flint Hills The Flint Hills, historically known as Bluestem Pastures or Blue Stem Hills, are a region of hills and prairies that lie mostly in eastern Kansas. It is named for the abundant residual flint eroded from the bedrock that lies near or at the surfa ...

and

of the state of

. between Marion and Lincolnville next to the

Area attractions

Antelope has one listing on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

(NRHP). * Amelia Park Bridge (

NRHP The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of sites, buildings, structures, districts, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

), 1 mile north-east of Antelope on 260th Street. * Island Field Ranch House (

), 1 mile east of Antelope on

. Childhood home of Alvin Silas Wight.

Education

The community is served by Centre USD 397 public school district. The high school is a member of T.E.E.N., a shared video teaching network between five area high schools. * Centre School; 2374 310th St, Lost Springs, KS; between Lost Springs and Lincolnville, east of U.S. 77 highway.

Media

Print

* '' Marion County Record'', newspaper from Marion. * '' Hillsboro Free Press'', free newspaper for greater Marion County area.

Infrastructure

Transportation

is east of Antelope. The Oklahoma Kansas Texas (OKT) line of the

runs through the community.

Utilities

* Internet ** Satellite is provided by

HughesNet Hughes Network Systems, LLC is an American telecommunications company that specializes in providing satellite-based communication services for consumer and enterprise markets. It is headquartered in Germantown, Maryland and provides satellite ...

, StarBand,

WildBlue Viasat, Inc. (formerly stylized as ViaSat) is an American communications company based in Carlsbad, California, with additional operations across the United States and worldwide. Viasat is a provider of high-speed satellite broadband services an ...

. * TV ** Satellite is provided by

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

Dish Network DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...

. ** Terrestrial is provided by regional

digital TV Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adv ...

stations. * Electricity ** Community and Rural areas provided b
Flint Hills RECA

Notable people

* Alvin Silas Wight, (1887–1949),

Kansas House of Representatives The Kansas House of Representatives is the lower house of the legislature of the U.S. state of Kansas. Composed of 125 state representatives from districts with roughly equal populations of at least 19,000, its members are responsible for craftin ...

,Kansas Legislators Past & Present
Educator, Farmer, his childhood home was the Island Field Ranch (

), see above.