City of Cheney history

By the end of 1878 the settlers started their first school on a hill in a log building dubbed Fort Crunk with Miss Mary Cook walking over from her father’s homestead to teach the handful of students.

All three of these names, Depot Springs, Willow Springs, and Billings, existed in the span of a single year, between June and September of 1880.

A post office was officially established at Cheney January 24, 1881 with Jacob Peter Bettinger as postmaster.

The origins of the school date back to 1882, when Benjamin P. Cheney, in gratitude for the town's name, gave the town $10,000 to start the Benjamin P. Cheney Academy.

The town was started in August, 1883, when the railroad reached western Sedgwick County, and the entire town of Marshall moved to Cheney.

Cheney was the first seat of Spokane County, until it moved to Spokane in 1886.

In 1889, Cheney was awarded one of the state normal schools (a college for training teachers). The State Normal School at Cheney evolved into Eastern Washington University, which today remains the center of the city's cultural and economic life.

One, called the Jewett ranch school, was on a part of the famous Jewett ranch south of Cheney and was already integrated in the 1890’s.

Jonathan Edwards in 1900 in his Illustrated History of Spokane County. "It is clean, lighted by electricity, well-supplied with good water, both for domestic purposes and lawns.

Fred Reuter opened the Cheney Cheese Factory just south of town in 1903.

In 1907 Frank M. Martin opened his grain milling and storage business in Cheney.

View toward downtown Cheney from the Normal School tower circa 1908.

Auto owners in 1909 formed the Cheney Auto Club and spent much time driving over the area.

The Cheney Weeder Company was established in 1912 to manufacture the weeder.

New Normal School opened May 1915 and was later renamed Showalter Hall after Noah D. Showalter

Automobiles and improved roads made the freight and passenger business of the electric train unprofitable and the electric line to Cheney was discontinued March 23, 1922.

In July 1929, the Cheney Free Press reported: The depot is of the Spanish style in stucco with a tile roof.

Started in 1930, this fair is considered one of the best in Kansas with colorful parades, exhibits of fine livestock, garden and farm crops, flowers, baking, canning, handiwork, and art.

The Martin family sold the business to Nabisco in 1943.

Local men, Kyle and Cleve Wolfe, invented the rotary rod weeder, a farm tillage implement. It operated here until the mid-1950’s shipping weeders all over the globe.

Through consolidation with other school districts in the area, the Cheney public school district grew to be the largest geographic district in the state in 1960.

When the I–90 freeway by-passed the town in 1965, the struggle began against the easy access to the goods and services of the much larger Spokane.

The following historical information was taken from The Small Town and Its Future by Floyd R. Souders published in The Kansas Historical Quarterly Spring 1969.

The nearby Eastern Washington University Historic District (also known as the Washington State Normal School at Cheney Historic District) was established in 1992 and includes the university's oldest and most significant buildings.