Ladore is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
in
Neosho County, Kansas
Neosho County is a county located in Southeast Kansas. Its county seat is Erie. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 15,904. The county was named for the Neosho River, which passes through the county.
History Early history
Fo ...
, United States.
History
The community was founded sometime between 1865 and 1867, twelve miles south of present-day
Erie and six miles north of
Parsons, and was located in section 27 of
Ladore Township. Its founding is credited to J. N. Roach, W. C. Dickerson and S. Rosa who initially settled on the name Fort Roach until it was changed to Ladore in 1869. The plat for the town was filed September 30, 1870 by the
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad.
According to an 1870 census, the town had a population of 839 and had grown to 1,060 by the year 1880. In 1870 the
Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad
The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad was a Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Southern Branch, it came to serve an exten ...
founded
Parsons, Kansas
Parsons is a city in Labette County, Kansas, Labette County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 9,600. It is the most populous city of Labette County, and the second-most pop ...
which quickly grew into a railway hub. This resulted in many citizens moving to nearby Parsons and on March 15, 1901, the Ladore post office closed as a result of the dwindling population.
Today, the only remaining vestige of the town is the Ladore Cemetery that is one-half mile east of
Lake Parsons.
The town is most well known for the lynching of five outlaw men (William Ryun, Patrick Starr, Patsey Riley, Richard Pitkin and Alexander Matthews) on May 11, 1870, by a group of up to 300 people after the men had robbed and beaten several members of the town and raped three teenage girls.
See also
*
List of ghost towns in Kansas
This is an incomplete list of ghost towns in the state of Kansas.
Causes
Many reasons exist as to why a community becomes abandoned (or nearly so).
*Transportation: With the development of major highways and interstates, people were willing ...
References
Further reading
"Ladore, KS Neosho County Lynching" ''The Guardian'', May 26, 1870.
External links
* Neosho County maps
CurrentHistoric
KDOT
{{Neosho County, Kansas
Ghost towns in Kansas
Geography of Neosho County, Kansas