Valley Falls, KS

Valley Falls is a Jefferson County city built around the falls that gave the Grasshopper River its early name; the river is now called the Delaware. Free-State settlers platted the town in 1855, and the community carried that border-era politics into the Civil War years. Isaac Cody operated a sawmill here, and his son William—later known as Buffalo Bill—spent time in the town; Wild Bill Hickok also passed through while working for a freight company. Those stories sit behind a place that grew through mills, rail lines, hotels, and farm trade.

Valley Falls kept an economic role after the frontier years. Three railroads reached the town, and Meyer Creamery later produced powdered milk for the wartime market, becoming one of the area’s major employers. Today the service map is smaller but still local: farm businesses, elevators, repair work, and the downtown handle daily needs, while Valley Falls USD 338 operates an elementary/middle school and a high school in town. The Delaware and the old falls give the city its physical starting point; the schools and farm-service economy show how that river town continues to work in the present.