The ghosts of Kanona, Kansas

There isn’t a soul left in Kanona.

It’s nearing sunset on a winter day and downtown is eerily quiet—except for an animal scurrying in the brick bank building. The glass is long gone, making it the perfect home for vagrants.

The bank is one of the few buildings still standing in this former farming community. Main Street is just a path for farm implements. A few old homes hide in the overgrowth of trees. The weather-beaten school hasn’t seen youth since the 1960s.

The Decatur County ghost town is reminiscent of many rural towns that were birthed, bustled then died with progress on the Kansas prairie.

“It’s hard to imagine, back then, that it would be a ghost town,” said Ivis Hanson, who lived and farmed near Kanona for most of his 96 years of life. “Kanona was quite a bustling town at one time.”

In the early 1900s, 125 people called Kanona home. Main Street was lively with a general store, hotel and barber. Ray and George Vernon converted the livery barn to a garage and sold Nash cars. The Woods brothers operated a hardware store.

Hanson, who now lives in Oberlin, made a trip through Kanona 15 years ago. He hasn’t been back.

“I just drove through to look at what was left of it,” he said, later adding. “I have a lot of happy memories there.”

5,000 ghost towns

There are more than 5,000 Kansas ghost towns, according to the Kansas State Historical Society. Pioneering settlers had dreams for each one.

They dreamed of churches, schools and a vibrant business center. They dreamed of a railroad and maybe even securing the county seat.

And, of course, they had high hopes for people.

Today’s ghost towns show a drastically different picture. Some are broken buildings with a few residents. Some just have a cemetery left. Others are just wide-open spaces along a highway or county road.

Kanona is typical of many of these towns, said Ethel Johnson Taylor, who wrote about Kanona’s history in the county history book.

Taylor, in her 80s, lives in Hays but grew up on a farm just outside of Kanona.

Kanona can trace its beginnings to a post office, then called Altory, which opened in 1881, according to Taylor’s research.

But a townsite began with the building of the Burlington and Southwestern Railroad. Anselmo Smith platted Kanona in June 1885.

Kanona sprang up quickly, with a general store, blacksmith, livery and lumber company. There was a flour and feed mill business. John Himmelberger erected the Kanona House—a restaurant and inn.

The town seemed to shrug off blow after blow that tried to bring it to its knees. It survived the depression of the 1890s when many families left. But, as the economy improved, by December 1901, Kanona was booming again.

Boom to bust

For a while, the town’s energy continued. The Kanona State Bank formed in 1915, with capital stock of $10,000, according to Taylor. A frame building was constructed, followed by a brick building in 1919.

The area was one of the first to get telephone service and a central office with a switchboard operator opened. In 1906, the white-framed Kanona Methodist Episcopal Church opened its doors.

Kanona, however, was no match for progress.

The downward spiral began right before the nation entered the Great Depression. With the auto’s inception, Kanona couldn’t compete with nearby Oberlin, the county seat.

Much to the happiness of the town’s mothers, the pool hall, which opened in 1921, burned down. The bank failed in 1926 and the brick building was turned into a grocery store.

There was a little life left in Kanona in the 1930s when Hanson was attending school there.

He remembered a teacher bringing a radio to school so the students could listen to the 1935 World Series between the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs. Area hero, Elden Le Roy Auker, was a pitcher for the Tigers.

There still was a fuel station, grocery and elevator, he said. The man who had a hardware also sold some farm equipment. The Hansons shipped their cream from the depot.

In 1949, a tornado struck the school, Taylor said. While residents rebuilt, Kanona was on its last leg. The post office closed in 1955. The church closed in 1958.

“My sister and her husband were the last people married in that church,” Taylor said.

Unification closed the school in 1966.

Local resident Gilbert Brown made a gallant effort to keep Kanona alive, she said. He started purchasing lots and soon owned most of the town. But he couldn’t entice merchants to return to Kanona.

Close-knit community

Elisabeth Orr can see Kanona from her family’s farmhouse window.

She never knew it as anything but a dilapidated town. Her father, Gary, would tell her of a different Kanona.

He was a little boy when the tornado struck the school. While waiting for the school bus the next day, someone drove by and told him the school was gone.

Orr said her father would often scare her about going to Kanona as the town had several abandoned wells.

Today, the townsite is on private property and is largely owned by the Bricker family. Jan Sater said her late husband purchased it for more farm ground.

“He was just fascinated by it,” she said. “He wanted to clear out some of the trees.”

He died 12 years ago and never got it done, she said.

There are still a few relics of the past left at Kanona. An old meat counter still sits inside the bank building. A green chalkboard hangs in the school.

The grain elevator has survived, Taylor said.

Yet, while Kanona is fading fast, Taylor remembers a close-knit community.

She attended school and church here. She was a member of the town’s Stick To It 4-H Club. Each year in June, there would be a children’s day picnic next to the Big Timber Creek.

There were sad times, too. She said she can still see the church congregation on a Sunday in 1944, singing the song “Until We Meet Again.”

Local boy Ed Cilek died at sea near Normandy, France, in June 1944.

Residents used to gather for the Kanona reunion, Hanson said. But even that has been forgotten.

“It so sad to see it that way,” Hanson said of his hometown. “It is nothing but a ghost town.”

Amy Bickel can be reached at 620-860-9433 or [email protected].