La Crosse, KS

La Crosse is Rush County's seat, a Kansas city where the 2020 census counted 1,266 residents. It was founded in 1876 and named for La Crosse, Wisconsin; county records later moved here from the temporary seat at nearby Rush Center. That county-seat role gives La Crosse more civic weight than its size suggests, with county business and local institutions serving a wide stretch of Rush County. Rush Center remains a nearby reminder of the county's first temporary seat.

The city's signature claim is a wonderfully specific one: La Crosse calls itself the Barbed Wire Capital of the World. The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum keeps that story in town, while the Pleasant Point One-Room School Museum preserves a different piece of rural life. La Crosse USD 395 operates the local schools, and Walnut Creek with Sand Creek around the southwest and south adds a low-water landscape to the map. Between county business, school routines, museums, and wire history, La Crosse has made its small-city scale part of its character.