Country United States County Seward Time zone CST (UTC-6) Elevation 798 m | State Kansas Platted 1888 FIPS code 20-02290 Area code 620 | |
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Arkalon is a ghost town in Seward County, Kansas, United States. It was located northeast of Liberal on the west side of the Cimarron River.
History
After the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway built through the area in 1888, a townsite sprang up and platted in 1888. The town was named Arkalon for Arkalon Tenny, the father of the first postmaster of the town. A post office called Arkalon was established in 1888 and remained in operation until 1929.
The Arkalon News newspaper was published from April 1888 until December 1892. In 1891, a one-room school house was opened for children. A large stockyard was erected for shipping cattle to market. While the nearby river held promise for the early settlers, they soon found that the bottom land next the Cimarron River was too sandy for farming and flooded too often. By the 1920s most of the early settlers had left, leaving only the railroad and stockyards behind.