Hazelton, KS

Hazelton is a Barber County city founded in 1883 and named for the Reverend J.H. Hazelton. Its early business district included a church, school, bank, flour mill, stores, newspaper, and railroad station, giving the settlement the institutions of a small agricultural trade center. The city now sits within the farm and ranch country of south-central Kansas, with the Gypsum Hills shaping the wider Barber County landscape and Medicine Lodge serving as the county seat. Hazelton's history is legible in the scale of a place built around rail service, local commerce, and the needs of surrounding rural land.