Kanopolis is a city in Ellsworth County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 443. It was built on the site of Fort Harker, a United States Army post that housed infantry and cavalry troops involved in the Indian Wars from 1867 to 1872.
History
Early history
For millennia, the Great Plains of North America were inhabited by nomadic Native Americans. From the 16th to 18th centuries, the Kingdom of France claimed ownership of large parts of North America. In 1762, after the French and Indian War, France secretly ceded New France to Spain, by the Treaty of Fontainebleau. In 1802, Spain returned most of the land to France, keeping title to about 7,500 square miles. In 1803, most of the land for modern day Kansas was acquired by the United States from France as part of the 828,000 square mile Louisiana Purchase. In 1854, the Kansas Territory was organized under the provisions of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, then in 1861 Kansas became the 34th U.S. state. In 1867, Ellsworth County was established, which included the land for Kanopolis.
Pre-Kanopolis
Fort Ellsworth was the first frontier fort established in the Kanopolis area. It was built by the United States Army in August 1864 at the junction of the Fort Riley-Fort Larned Road and the Smoky Hill Trail, near the Smoky Hill River. Its purpose was to protect construction of the Union Pacific railroad from Native American raids. In November, 1866 Fort Ellsworth changed its name to Fort Harker after the death of General G.H. Charles Harker, who was killed in battle in 1864.
By this time, the fort had grown in importance as a military staging post and supply depot for forts further west, and needed to expand to continue meeting its mission. As a result, on November 17, 1866, the Army ordered the construction of a new fort approximately three-quarters mile east of the current location. The original Fort Ellsworth was closed in early 1867, and the community of Ellsworth was founded in its place.
In January 1867, Fort Harker was relocated approximately three-quarters mile east of the old location to an open prairie about one mile north of the Smoky Hill River. This new location featured a "large, well-equipped" hospital," which housed those were ill. The hospital was surely busy, as about 200 people died in 1867 from cholera in and around the Fort Harker area. For the next five years, Fort Harker became one of the most important military stations west of the Missouri River.[cite the Guardhouse national register nomination] It used 700 soldiers and twice as many civilian employees, as well as 400 horses and mules. Additionally, the mail to all military posts down the Arkansas river, as well as many posts in Colorado and New Mexico, was supplied from Fort Harker.
Over the coming years, the threat of Native American raids in the region diminished as territory was secured and railroad construction moved west. No longer of geographic significance, Fort Harker was abandoned on April 2, 1872 and the war department ordered it to be closed shortly thereafter. Its garrison was relocated west to Fort Hays.</ref> In the winter of 1872-1873, Fort Harker briefly stationed troops once more before being deserted one final time. In the following years, Fort Harker became the "Fort Harker Military Reservation".
Kanopolis begins
In June 1880, the Senate passed bill S.194, an act disposing Fort Harker Military Reservation of public ownership and giving the 10,240 acre tract of land to the Interior Department for sale. A Dr. Hodge acquired the land and sold it to Col. Henry Johnson for $4,177.50 in August, 1881. In summer of 1885, a seventeen-member group of capitalists based in Ohio led by Ross Mitchell (president), F.M. Bookwalter (vice president), and John H. Thomas (treasurer) purchased 4,740 acres of the land, including Fort Harker and its buildings, for $71,000 from Col. Johnson. Imagining their newly acquired land would soon become a "Central Metropolis," and a future capitol because of its location, the group became chartered as the Kanopolis Land Company on March 15, 1886, with a capital stock of $500,000. They laid out land for 150,000 people, and shortly after, the town of Kanopolis was founded.