Johnson County history

The federal census of 1860 was the first to include Johnson County.

After the western portion of the county was severed in 1867 to form Hood County, Cleburne, which was named after Gen.

James Stephen Hogg, who later became governor, was on the staff of Johnson County's first newspaper, the Cleburne Chronicle, established in 1868.

In 1881 Cleburne was connected by rail with Dallas.

In 1893 a site was chosen five miles east of Cleburne for an Adventist school.

In 1898 Santa Fe repair shops were opened in Cleburne.

In 1904, W.B. Strang began construction of an electric railroad.

Burleson, the closest community to Fort Worth, did not appear on the census rolls at all until 1920; in that year it had only 241 residents.

Shawnee Mission Rural High School published its first yearbook, The Indian, in 1923.

The Olathe Naval Air Station, charged with training pilots and serving as a supply center, opened in 1942 on 640-acres south of Olathe.

At its height in 1945, over 12,000 employees worked 24 hours a day making rocket propellant.In the decades following World War II, the county’s population exploded.

The county’s first indoor shopping center, Metcalf South, broke ground in 1967 at 95th & Metcalf.

Particular strengths include area construction projects, photos of the Legler Barn Museum, the Lenexa Centennial celebration of 1969 and early landowners.

The county's rapid development in the late twentieth century was reflected in the overall county population, which rose to 45,769 in 1970, showing an increase of 33 percent.

College Boulevard’s namesake, Johnson County Community College, was the first to move to the corridor when its new campus opened in 1972.

The only exception was in 1976 when Democrat Jimmy Carter won a majority of the county's votes.

Eventually the Keene Industrial Academy evolved into a junior college and then a full four-year institution, Southwestern Adventist College, which was renamed Southwestern Adventist University around 1996.