Plains, KS

Plains is a Meade County city that began as West Plains and was platted in 1885. The best local orientation point is not a courthouse or depot but the street running through town: Albert Hempel and Don T. Edwards laid it out unusually wide in 1901–02, and the main street now measures 155 feet 5 inches from edge to edge. Simon Elliott's raised brick sidewalk runs down the middle, a practical bit of town-building that became Simon's Monument and a three-block walkway.

US 54 carries Plains into the southwestern Kansas road network, with Kismet and Hayne sharing Southwestern Heights USD 483. Plains Elementary is in town, while the junior-senior high school sits south of the highway between Plains and Kismet; the Mustangs serve as the school shorthand across the three-community district. Plains is in Meade County's semi-arid country, but the local identity is concrete and easy to spot: West Plains on an 1885 plat, a main street too wide to miss, and a school district that runs across town lines.