Ho For Kansas!
After the conclusion of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the late 1870s, it became clear to many Black southerners that, while slavery had been abolished, oppression, poverty, and violence persisted.
Many migrated to northern cities, where jobs and opportunities were more accessible. Others hoped to move West, where they could build communities – by Black Americans for Black Americans – from the ground up. There, they hoped to partake in a self-determined, agrarian way of life, outside of the systemic racism that was built into the fabric of almost every already established town and city in the nation.
Against this backdrop, two men – W.H. Smith, a Black reverend, and W.R. Hill, a white land developer from Indiana – founded the Nicodemus Town Company in order to promote the town to former slaves who lived and labored in the green fields of Kentucky and Tennessee.
Flyers about Nicodemus were dispersed to Black communities in the region. For just $5, residents could purchase a plot of land.
By early summer in 1877, several families had become the first settlers in the community, and by the end of the summer over 300 train tickets were purchased for a ride out west. Families packed what they could carry and boarded trains headed to Ellis, Kansas, the closest railroad station to Nicodemus. From there, settlers loaded up on wagons to travel 35 miles north to Nicodemus.
Nicodemus was framed as the “Promise Land” and the “Western Eden,” with rich soil and an enjoyable, mild climate. Anyone who has ever spent a winter or summer on the plains could tell you this is an exaggeration. After arriving, many of the settlers were disappointed. The land was nothing more than a treeless, dry prairie.
A sign from the historic site bears the following exchange:
“Where is Nicodemus?” settler Willna Hickman asked her husband Daniel upon arrival.
“That is Nicodemus,” he responded, pointing to several billows of smoke rising from underground dugouts.
The first winter was especially hard. Without any lumber, tools, or supplies residents were forced to make do by carving additional dugouts into the Kansas sod. Many only survived with the help of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, who provided meat, supplies and indigenous wisdom for surviving a harsh winter on the plains.
Despite these conditions, Nicodemus quickly became a bustling farming community of 700-800 residents. Each of the town’s businesses — which included several general stores, hotels, delivery companies, implement companies, doctors’ offices, churches, a school, a bank, and two newspapers, the Western Cyclone and the Nicodemus Enterprise — were established, owned, and operated by members of the community.