Elkhart, KS

Elkhart is the Morton County seat in extreme southwest Kansas, near both the Oklahoma line and the Colorado border. The 2020 census counted 1,888 residents. The city was founded in 1913 along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, and the Santa Fe spur to Elkhart later reached toward Felt, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. Morton County moved its seat from Richfield to Elkhart in 1961, giving the town the courthouse, county offices, schools, and service businesses that organize the surrounding prairie.

Elkhart’s other map is the Cimarron Route of the Santa Fe Trail. About 33 miles of the route cross Morton County, and the Morton County Historical Society Museum keeps a Santa Fe Trail room with artifacts, a freight wagon, and a red caboose that stands for the railroad era. The 108,175-acre Cimarron National Grassland lies north of town, bringing Forest Service work, ranch country, hunting, and trail traffic into the county’s orbit. USD 218 keeps public education local. Elkhart is a county-seat town built around rail, prairie, and the long-distance routes that pass through the southwest corner of Kansas.