Given its geographic location at the crossroads of America, Kansas understandably boasts a diversity of place names. Native Americans, blacks, the French, Spanish, Anglo-Irish, German-Russians, and other ethnic groups have left their stamp on Kansas along with westward-moving Americans. In Kansas the majority of the place names were chosen to describe, to acknowledge origins, or to commemorate. The descriptive include Smoky Hill, Pretty Prairie, and Saline. American migrants brought Pittsburg, Erie, Oberlin, and Manhattan; foreign immigrants, Toronto, Liebenthal, Clyde, Alexanderwohl, and Smolan. But, as elsewhere in the United States, most names were chosen to commemorate; places are named for Indians, postmasters, landowners, railroad officials, military heroes, local politicians, statesmen, judges, and presidents.
McCoy and Hults have included all 105 counties and their seats of government and all 629 incorporated places as listed in the 1980 U.S. Census. The remaining have been chosen because of historical, geographic, or geological interest.
Abundantly illustrated with humorous drawings by John Gruber, this handy place name gazetteer is both a valuable reference and a source of good fun.
