City of Hutchinson history

To encourage settlement by sober, industrious persons, Hutchinson included a clause in the deed to each lot specifying that if liquor were sold or given away thereon at any time prior to 1875, the property and all improvements would revert back to the original owner.

Literary and musical societies were formed early, and in 1882 the Hutchinson opera house was built by public subscription on the northeast corner of First Avenue and Main Street.

A few years later, following the discovery of natural gas, a wave of prosperity swept southwestern Kansas and in 1887 Sam Blanchard of Hutchinson drilled the first well in the vicinity on a farm south of the city.

By 1888 almost a dozen salt plants were in operation in and near Hutchinson and the city's salt industry was permanently established less than two years after the mineral was discovered.

The monument, dedicated in 1919, is surmounted by the figure of Abraham Lincoln with life size figures of soldiers and sailors of the Civil War upon each corner.

In the 1920's oil wealth began to filter in from the south and west, and the plentiful supply of cheap natural gas fuel attracted many smaller industries.

Hutchinson Community College was founded in 1928.

The Purgatoire River enters the Arkansas just above the John Martin Reservoir (1948), near Las Animas, Colo.