Plainville, KS

Plainville is a Rooks County city on the north-central Kansas plains, named for the open setting around it. Washington Irving Griffin settled near the Paradise Flats freight trail in 1877, and the town grew as roads, wheat, and later oil connected the area to wider markets. The Saline River runs south of town, where the Bemis-Shutts oil field became one of Kansas’s larger producing fields. Plainville’s map still brings together prairie, river valley, grain country, and small-town streets.

Plainville USD 270 operates two schools, while City Park, Township Lake, and Max Malin Memorial Ballpark give residents places for swimming, basketball, baseball, and summer gatherings. The town’s downtown and Township Hall sit within a broader farm community that reaches toward Hays, Stockton, and other Rooks County towns. Oil remains part of the area’s industrial memory, but present-day life comes through school schedules, ball games, farm roads, local businesses, and the seasonal changes of the plains. Plainville is a working Kansas town with a river valley below it and open country in every direction.