Sunday, May 2, 2010

More history of Johnson County

I have a good friend who was kind enough to share another city in Johnson County-Lenexa. Howard Lee tells me Lenexa was platted in 1869 by a young man James Butler Hickok who had staked a claim of 160 acres on what is now the corner of 83rd and Clare. It was the Santa Fe Trail and wandered through the southeast part of Lenexa on it's way to Santa Fe. Later he became a scout for the Free-State Army and was eventually known as "Wild Bill Hickok". The railroad went thru the town and there was a depot. One of the residents was Blackfoot. She was the widow of Chief Blackhoof, who was the 2nd signer of the 1854 treaty that ceded 1.6 million acres of the Kansas Shawnee reservation.
Legends has it the town was to be called Bradshaw but he refused and the name was Na-Nex-Se. I appreciate Howard telling me why the town was named Lenexa.

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