Basehor, Kansas

History

In exchange for extensive Delaware holdings in the state of Indiana, on September 24, 1829, the United States government ceded a large tract of land to the Delaware Indians. Basehor is built on a small part of this tract. The Delawares held this land, or at least parts of it, until the 1860s. On July 4, 1866, the Secretary of the Interior of the United States was offered for sale what was left of the Delaware lands, then referred to as the Delaware Diminished Reserve, for not less than $2.50 per acre. The Leavenworth, Pawnee, and Western Railroad Company subsequently bought all of the remaining land on January 7, 1886.

The first individuals to own the land upon which Basehor now stands were Thomas Salem and Mary Z. Towne (though William Henery Lewis, who surveyed for the railroad, bought an extensive plot of land to the northeast of Basehor around 1861 and homesteaded it right after the Civil War). The couple bought it from the railroad in 1873 and mortgaged it to Ephraim Basehor the same year. On January 9, 1874, the Townes sold the 160 acres (0.65 km2) to Basehor. Ephriam and Reuben's nephew William Mast later moved to Basehor and in 1896 married Margaret Towne, the daughter of the couple from whom they had purchased the land.

From the History section of Basehor, Kansas on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.