Chillicothe — The Little Town That Time Forgot
Townsite speculation was a major activity on the 19th century frontier. A landowner would declare the existence of a town on his property, list its (often fictional) assets and start selling business and residential lots to eager buyers. Things did not always work out, of course, and many “towns” quickly faded away. Chillicothe, once located on land southwest of the current intersection of Shawnee Mission Parkway and I-435, was one such site. It is of particular interest because the developer was a Shawnee Indian.
The 1854 treaty between the U.S. government and the Shawnee tribe opened the way for the first big wave of real estate development in Johnson County. The treaty provided for an allotment of 100 acres to each member of the tribe. While some Shawnee farmed their land, others established town sites or otherwise engaged in land speculation.
Around 1859, William Morgan Donaldson tried to promote building a town on his property. He named the place Chillicothe after a band of the Shawnee tribe. Donaldson was a Shawnee blacksmith who also happened to be the son-in-law of Chief Joseph Parks and adopted son of John Penny, a former chief.
Chillicothe was in a well-traveled location along the road from the south to Leavenworth. The route took travelers through Chillicothe on the way to the Bluejacket ferry across the Kaw River. The townsite was also along the Westport-to-Lawrence road, one route of the Kansas Stage Company. Donaldson is believed to have opened a hotel at Chillicothe to serve stagecoach travelers.
Few written records exist to document the establishment or development of the Chillicothe site. Supposedly a Shawnee council house and perhaps a tribal pay station had been located there. In 1978, before construction of I-435 in the area, local tradition, scattered written references and the remains of a stone foundation were enough to warrant an archeological survey of the site. Investigators from the Kansas State Historical Society found over 1,800 artifacts including dishes, bottles and fragments of pipes. Evidence was inconclusive as to the exact nature of any structures or their uses.
Little is know about why or when the little settlement disappeared. One factor may have been the red tape involved in Shawnee land transactions. In order to buy or sell land, a tribal member was required to obtain certificates from two chiefs and the Indian agent attesting to his or her competency. The certificates then had to be sent to the Interior Department for approval. The whole process tended to be so slow that many purchasers did not want to go to the trouble of dealing with Shawnee property owners.
--ALBUM vol. 17, no. 2 (spring 2004)