Howard was named the temporary county seat of Elk County, by law, when Howard County was divided by the state of Kansas and Elk County was formed in the north on June 1, 1875.
Elk Falls soon initiated a petition for an election to select a new county seat. Elk Falls, Howard, and Longton were in the running.
In an election on November 9, 1875, Elk Falls had 576 votes compared to 515 for Howard and 302 for Longton. Painterhood received two write in votes and Union Center received two according to the Elk Falls Elk County Ledger of November 11, 1875.
However, Elk Falls did not receive a majority of the total vote requiring another election on November 23 to decide between Elk Falls and Howard.
The Ledger of November 25, 1875, reported that Howard won with a vote of 828 to 703.
The first figure for the precincts below is the number of votes for Howard and the second figure is the vote for Elk Falls as reported by the Ledger.
Pleasant Valley, 36, 32
Liberty, 63, 7
Paw Paw 127, 0
Painterhood, 45, 41
Howard 219, 15
Union Center, 83,20
Greenfield, 25, 129
Wild Cat, 9, 74
Boston, 23, 21
Elk Falls 6, 244
Longton, 177, 115
Kentucky 15, 15
Western Park 61,2 [according to the Ledger, these results were thrown out by county commissioners due to "informality" in the returns]
Would anyone happen to know where Pleasant Valley and Kentucky might be?
Pleasant Valley School (#65) was in the NE 1/4 Sec 28 T28S R12E, somewhere in the vicinity of N 37.58712 W 95.97952, or about one mile east of Old Taylor (Tailor) Cemetery which is at N 37.58853 W 95.99880.
Kentucky? I have no idea. ??? There have been schools named Ohio and Illinois in the county so it's probably a school house. I'll keep looking.
Charles
I made a mistake above, I was in the wrong Range. Pleasant Valley School was somewhere near N 37.58638 W 96.09329, in the same section as Mt. Zion Cemetery.
While you are at it, have you ever heard of a place called Yosemite? In Chautauqua or Elk counties?
Prior to Howard County being divided there was some citizen talk of having a new county seat election with towns such as Longton and Peru supporting Yosemite.
Nothing ever came of it.
Never heard of Yosemite either, still haven't found anything on Kentucky, but did find something on the settlement known as McKey that we had discussed on another thread. According to Henrietta Mann, the Victor School (#64) designated the McKey community. This school was located in the NE 1/4 Sec 25 T28S R12E, or in the vicinity of N 37.58804 W 96.03423, or about two miles west of Old Taylor (Tailor) Cemetery.