Stevens County is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

located in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

. Its

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

is Hugoton. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 5,250. The county is named for

Thaddeus Stevens Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792August 11, 1868) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, being one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Histo ...

, a Reconstruction era Pennsylvania politician.

History

In 1886, Stevens County was established. The first settlers came from McPherson, Kansas in 1885, originally naming their town Hugo after Victor Hugo, before changing it to Hugoton. Other early towns included Lafayette, founded by Quakers in 1886, and Moscow, established in 1887. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, a violent " county seat war" raged between Hugoton, which had been designated the temporary county seat, and Woodsdale. Incidents included arrests, kidnappings, and killings. The conflict culminated in the July 25, 1888, murder of Sheriff Cross of Woodsdale and three of his men in the Hay Meadow Massacre by Sam Robinson of Hugoton and his supporters. Robinson fled and was never tried for the murders. The issue was eventually resolved in 1887 when Hugoton became the permanent county seat, though tensions remained high for several years after. Natural gas was discovered in Stevens County in 1927, leading to the development of the Hugoton Natural Gas Area and transforming Hugoton into a major center of the natural gas industry. In the 1930s, the prosperity of the area was severely affected by its location within the

Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors (severe drought) and hum ...

. This catastrophe intensified the economic impact of the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

in the region.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (0.02%) is water.

Major highways

Kansas Highway 25 * K-51

Kansas Highway 51 * US 56

U.S. Route 56

Adjacent counties

Grant County Grant County may refer to: Places ;Australia * County of Grant, Victoria ;United States * Grant County, Arkansas * Grant County, Indiana * Grant County, Kansas *Grant County, Kentucky Grant County is a county located in the northern pa ...

(north) * Haskell County (northeast) * Seward County (east) *

Texas County, Oklahoma Texas County is a County (United States), county located in Oklahoma Panhandle, the panhandle of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Its county seat is Guymon, Oklahoma, Guymon. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 21,3 ...

(south) * Morton County (west) * Stanton County (northwest)

National protected area

Cimarron National Grassland Cimarron National Grassland is a National Grassland located in Morton County, Kansas, United States, with a very small part extending eastward into Stevens County. Cimarron National Grassland is located near Comanche National Grassland which ...

(part)

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 5,463 people, 1,988 households, and 1,457 families residing in the county. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

was . There were 2,265 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 83.01%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.93%

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.93% Native American, 0.24% Asian, 0.02%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 13.25% from other races, and 1.61% from two or more races. 21.73% of the population were

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race. There were 1,988 households, out of which 38.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.10% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 7.10% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.70% were non-families. 24.30% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.10% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.72 and the average family size was 3.27. In the county, the population was spread out, with 31.20% under the age of 18, 8.30% from 18 to 24, 27.80% from 25 to 44, 19.40% from 45 to 64, and 13.30% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 95.30 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.50 males. The median income for a household in the county was $41,830, and the median income for a family was $49,063. Males had a median income of $36,525 versus $22,803 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the county was $17,814. About 8.30% of families and 10.30% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 15.10% of those under age 18 and 4.70% of those age 65 or over.

Government

County

Stevens County is governed by the Stevens County Commissioners. The current members are Joe D. Thompson, Tron Stegman, and Shannon Crawford.

Presidential elections

Stevens County is overwhelmingly Republican. It has not been won by a Democrat at Presidential level since

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of John F. Ken ...

won by fourteen votes in 1964. In fact, the last Democrat to crack thirty percent of the county's vote was

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

in 1976, and since Carter only

Michael Dukakis Michael Stanley Dukakis ( ; born November 3, 1933) is an American politician and lawyer who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history and only the s ...

during the

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

and farm crisis-influenced 1988 election has received so much as twenty percent.

Laws

The Kansas Constitution was amended in 1986 to allow the sale of alcoholic liquor by the individual drink with the approval of voters, either with or without a minimum of 30% of sales coming from food. Stevens County is one of 35 counties in the state that allows for the sale of liquor by the drink without the minimum food sales stipulation.

Education

Unified school districts

* Moscow USD 209
Hugoton USD 210

Communities

List of current townships / incorporated cities / unincorporated communities / extinct former communities within Stevens County.

Cities

* Hugoton (county seat) *

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Ghost towns

* Feterita * Woodsdale

Townships

Stevens County is divided into six townships. None of the cities within the county are considered ''governmentally independent'', and all figures for the townships include those of the cities. In the following table, the population center is the largest city (or cities) included in that township's population total, if it is of a significant size.

References

;Notes