Downs, KS

Downs is a city in Osborne County, Kansas, born at a railroad junction. Major William F. Downs brought the Central Branch Union Pacific into the area in 1879, and the railroad laid out the town where lines split toward the north and south forks of the Solomon River. At its height as a division point, Downs had eighteen trains a day, a roundhouse for ten locomotives, a turntable, freight facilities, and a water tower. The railroad made the prairie town a service center for the wheat, milo, sorghum, alfalfa, and corn farms around it.

The steam-era buildings are gone, though freight trains still pass through on the Kyle Railroad. Waconda USD 272 ties Downs to nearby Cawker City: Lakeside High School remains in town, while elementary students attend Lakeside Elementary there. The nickname "Home of Sod & Stubble" points to the agricultural world around the tracks. Downs is a town where the old division-point layout still makes sense after the roundhouse disappeared: rail lines, school, and grain country continue to meet at the same prairie junction.