County Past
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Clay County, Kansas

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
5historic places
—earliest paper
1857formed
8,117pop. 2020
37cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 5 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1973. Most listings are in or near Clay Center, Wakefield.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Kansas is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Clay titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

2 of 5 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

5 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Auld Stone BarnWakefieldBuilding2001
Clay Center Carnegie LibraryClay CenterBuilding1987
Clay Center Downtown Historic District (Additional Documentation)Clay CenterDistrict2020
Clay County CourthouseClay CenterBuilding1973
Mugler Lodge SiteClay CenterSite1994

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Clay was formed in 1857 (1857-02-20) from unknown / original county.

CLAY created by Kansas Territory from part of Non-County Area 2 attached to RILEY.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Clay County population from 1860 to 2020 (Census historical series).

16k8,1541631860188019201940196020002020
1860188019001920194019501960198020002020
16312,32015,83314,36513,28111,69710,6759,8028,8228,117

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

37 cemeteries and 2 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 37 of 37 listed
NameLatLon
Appleton Cemetery39.52522-96.99751
Athelstane Cemetery39.17741-97.17529
Bloom Cemetery39.45187-97.27823
Brethren in Christ Cemetery39.48078-97.03461
Broughton Cemetery39.33098-97.05418
Center Mission Cemetery39.50948-97.07168
Central Cemetery39.50988-97.01594
Ebenezer Cemetery39.38666-96.99779
Fancy Creek Cemetery39.46666-96.99667
Garfield Center Mission Cemetery39.52452-97.12649
Gatesville Cemetery39.27224-97.00417
Gilbert Cemetery39.28522-97.06256
Green Cemetery39.42396-96.98856
Greenwood Cemetery39.39716-97.12508
Hayes Cemetery39.45156-97.08042
Hebron Cemetery39.32175-97.25883
Highland Cemetery39.21911-97.0127
Lincoln Cemetery39.42311-97.29352
Madura Cemetery39.18416-97.01196
Mizpah Cemetery39.20615-97.12436
Morganville Cemetery39.4731-97.18213
Norwegian Lutheran Cemetery39.5028-97.18241
Pleasant Hill Cemetery39.47427-97.12664
Pleasant Ridge Cemetery39.27874-97.18476
Pleasant Valley Cemetery39.24716-97.28876
Republican City Cemetery39.34332-97.16377
Riverdale Cemetery39.5107-97.29341
Rose Meron Cemetery39.21966-97.33472
Saint John's Episcopal Cemetery39.21961-97.07422
Sherman Cemetery39.532-97.22495
Shields Cemetery39.32044-97.35077
Swartwood Cemetery39.13253-97.34283
Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery39.49129-97.14702
Timber Creek Cemetery39.21809-96.9807
Wesleyan Cemetery39.22684-97.25724
Wilson Cemetery39.38-97.19002
Zion Lutheran Cemetery39.29279-97.1562
Historical populated places — 2 of 2
NameLatLon
Broughton39.32139-97.05335
Oscar39.5175-97.12752

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Clay County, Kansas

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.