Greeley County, Kansas

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In 2009 Greeley County and the City of Tribune merged to form the Unified Government of Greeley County. Government offices are located at 208 Harper Street, Tribune, KS 67879; phone: 620-376-4256.

Beginnings [1]

Greeley county, named for Horace Greeley, was the last county in Kansas to be organized (July 9, 1888). Tribune was designated as the temporary county seat by the governor in July, 1888, and the voters made it the permanent center of government on November 6, 1888.

Greeley county had been organized in 1888 on the basis of census returns from mid-1887 which had shown 2,638 inhabitants. 1887 was a boom year for many of the western Kansas counties; many new settlers were taking up homesteads, and the population figures jumped. But by the time the courthouse was finished the boom had collapsed. Economic reverses and repeated crop failures had caused many settlers to lose their confidence and abandon the land they had so eagerly settled a few years earlier. Greeley county's population had dropped to 1,400 by 1890.

  1. Kansas State Historical Society, Old Greeley County Courthouse, Tribune, Greeley County, KS, nomination document, 1976, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

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