Wathena, KS

Wathena is a Doniphan County city west of St. Joseph, Missouri, named for a Kickapoo chief who lived on the site. Chief Wathena had cleared a corn plot here by 1852; Milton Bryan and other promoters bought the townsite in 1856, and the first post office initially carried Bryan's name before changing to Wathena. The St. Joseph and Denver Railroad reached town in 1860, and Wathena incorporated as a city in 1873. The local story is right there in the name: a chief, a cleared patch of ground, a railroad, and a town built around a promise to remember him.