Nicodemus National Historic Site United States

Legendary

Founded in 1877, the historic site preserves the once bustling African American town.

Photo by Chris

When the first settlers arrived on the Kansas prairie in September 1877, there was no town waiting for them. No houses, no trees, no shade. Just tall grass stretching to the horizon.

Many families spent their first winter living in dugouts, holes carved into the ground and roofed with sod. Some looked at the empty plains and turned around.

Those who stayed built Nicodemus, the oldest surviving town founded by Black settlers west of the Mississippi River.

The town started with a plan. Rev. W.H. Smith, a Black minister, joined W.R. Hill, a white land developer, and five other Black men to form the Nicodemus Town Company in April 1877.

They printed flyers and visited churches in Kentucky, inviting formerly enslaved families to move west. Kansas was appealing because it had been a free state, home to the abolitionist John Brown.

The flyers promised more than the land could deliver. But the settlers who pushed through made it work.

By the mid-1880s, Nicodemus had about 700 residents. It had two newspapers, three general stores, three churches, a bank, and an ice cream parlor.

Then the town needed a railroad, and it never came. Town leaders invested $16,000 trying to lure three different rail companies, and all three laid their tracks somewhere else.

Businesses moved south to be near the trains. People followed, and Nicodemus began to empty.

It never died completely. Families stayed on, and one of them raised a football star.

Veryl Switzer was born in Nicodemus in 1932. He was an All-American at Kansas State, and in 1954 the Green Bay Packers picked him fourth overall in the NFL draft.

He played two seasons for the Packers, served in the Air Force, and later came home to farm the land his family had held for generations.

Congress made Nicodemus a National Historic Site in 1996. Descendants of the original settlers still live here.

Start at Township Hall, the visitor center, then follow the walking tour past the five historic buildings. Look for the St. Francis Hotel, which later became the Switzer family home. Visit during the last weekend in July for the Emancipation Celebration, held every year since 1878.