Riley County history

He organized a town company to help hold his property and founded Randolph in 1857.

Keats was founded from the start of a town named Wildcat, begun in 1860.

"District Schools Had Their Beginning Here, May 9, 1862." Manhattan Mercury.

Failing that, and with the Morrill Act approved by Congress, the school became one of the first land grant colleges in the United States under the act in 1863 as Kansas State Agricultural College.

The development of the Kansas Pacific (Union Pacific) railroad through Manhattan and Ogden in 1866 gave these towns the stimulus for growth.

The town of Union was established in 1870.

Later, in the 1880's, the county saw rapid railroad development, with most roads radiating from Manhattan.

Leonardville became a town of third class in 1885.

Cleburne town builders also anticipated the railroad, founding it in 1886 and naming the town for John C. Cleburne, Superintendent of the line.

Keats was founded in 1887, laid out by the railroad, named by a railroad official with whom the poet was a favorite.

The second resort, Manhattan Beach, also called the Eureka Lake Resort, was built by C.P. Dewey in 1899 on an elbow lake of the Kansas River.

The flood of 1903 destroyed the lake and resort was later sold.

The 1908 flood changed the course of the Blue and Kansas Rivers creating Hunter's Island south of town on the Kansas River and moving the Blue River east away from the edge of Manhattan.

First recommended in the 1930's, the project saw renewed interest after each flood.

The 1951 Kansas River flood was one of the worst floods in United States history, to that time, in terms of property damage.

Built to the Rocky Ford Dam in 1874, Michner Condray laid out the town of Stockdale in 1873 anticipating the trains. It was abandoned in 1958 with the Tuttle Creek project.