Spearville, KS

Spearville was laid out on Dry Ridge, a section of the Santa Fe Trail, after the Santa Fe Railway deeded the townsite to the Arkansas Valley Town Company in 1873. The city took Alden H. Speare's name, though early documents bounced between Spearville and Speareville. The first permanent residents were a railroad section foreman and his family, whose eating house became a stop for train crews before much else existed between Dodge City and the Arkansas River. Today Highway 50 and Spearville USD 381 carry the practical load. Spearville is Ford County in railroad-and-prairie form, with a watering spot turned into a town.