A Brief History of De Soto Founded in 1857, the City of De Soto will celebrate it’s sesquicentennial anniversary in 2007. Named for the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, several families of settlers first established the town around a steam saw mill on the Kansas River. Originally, Shawnee was the town’s main street, along which various business ventures, including a grocery store, blacksmith’s shop, boarding house and ferry service took root. Abbott’s Hall, built by it’s namesake in 1865, was host to the small town’s dances and other social activities until the turn of the century. The stone building, still situated at the Southwest corner of Peoria and 83rd Streets, is now home to a local museum. De Soto became a third class city and established a mail route in 1902. The lives of De Soto’s founding families continued on much the same as those of other small, riverside communities of that time, with modest increases in population, throughout the first three decades of the 20th century. In spring of 1942, plans to hurriedly construct a munitions plant on a 9,080 acre site to the Southwest of De Soto were announced. The 100 million dollar project soon brought a fantastic number of workers to the area. A May 1943 article from the Kansas City Star reported a town rapidly growing, with a population increase from 400 to 1,000 persons in under a year. This sudden overflow in population put a great strain on housing and other resources in the city. Many original residents prospered during this time, buying property and starting new businesses. Production flowed steadily at the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant until the plant went on standby in March 1948, with small scale production following shortly after. Many of the plant’s previous employees stayed on in De Soto, commuting to work in nearby cities, helping to establish it as a “town of homes”. Dot Ashlock-Longstreth, author of the book “De Soto, Kansas is 100 Years Old 1857-1957”, penned these words almost fifty years ago: “Hundreds of fine people have been added to our community, and with Kansas City and Lawrence edging closer and closer, someday, in the not too distant future, we’ll be caught in between, one the of little communities, in a connecting link between the two towns.” History, compliments of De Soto City Clerk's Office |
- 'A LITTLE TOWN'
If you have lived in a little town, you know whereof I speak;
The houses from each other on a shady, graveled street.
The friendly yards are not confined by picket fence or hedge,
The dogs and children overlap and so do flower beds.
The little town where you can greet your neighbor every day,
And talk about the news of war and politics and trade;
Opinions of the weather and the latest joke you’ve heard.
A little town where people call you by your given name
And know your daily habits and the make of car you drive.
Where your absence on vacation is an item for the press;
Where births and deaths and weddings are important, and good luck
As well as grave misfortunes, is the deep concern of all.
If you have lived in a little town, you know whereof I write-
A little town, where lamplight glows across the tranquil night.
(Billy Cooper in the New York Times - 1957)
Taken from Dot Ashlock-Longstreth’s book,
“De Soto, Kansas is 100 Years Old
1857-1957”
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THE BRIDGE BUILDER
An old man, going a lonely way,
Came at the evening, cold and gray
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide.
The old man crossed, in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him.
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow-pilgrim near
“You are wasting your strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way.
You’ve crossed the chasm deep and wide,
Why build a bridge to span the tide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head.
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”
Dot Ashlock-Longstreth
March-June 1957
