Brief History from
wikipedia:
In 1854, the Kansas
Territory was organized. Allen County is
one of the 33 counties established by the
first territorial
legislature in August 1855, six
years before Kansas statehood in 1861. It
was named in honor of William Allen, a
United
States senator from Ohio. At the
time of its creation, Charles Passmore was
appointed probate judge; B.W. Cowden and
Barnett Owen were appointed county
commissioners, and William Godfrey was
appointed sheriff. The appointments were
temporary until the general election
in 1857. The four men were authorized to
appoint the county clerk and treasurer
thus
completing the county organization.
Richard J. Fuqua and
his family are considered the first white
settlers in the county, arriving in the
valley of the Neosho River
January 1855. Fuqua established a
post for trading with the neighboring
Indian tribes which became quite popular
with the Sac
and Fox Indians. B.W. Cowden and
H.D. Parsons arrived in March of the same
year and selected claims in the valley of
the
Neosho River, near the mouth of Elm
Creek. The next settlement was made near
the mouth of Deer Creek (so named for the
abundance of deer in the area) by
Major James Parsons, and his two sons,
Jesse and James, and a Mr. Duncan. The
population
grew rapidly through the spring and
summer of 1855, most of it located on or
near the Neosho River.
Many of the early
settlers were pro-slavery, but few slaves
were actually brought into the county. The
anti-slavery population
expressed such antipathy toward
their pro-slavery neighbors that slaves
within the county there were either freed
or taken
elsewhere in Kansas by their
masters. Immigration continued during the
summer and fall of 1856, though in reduced
numbers.
The first town and county seat
was Cofachique. In the spring of 1855
pro-slavery settlers from Fort Scott laid
out the town in a
hilly area east of the Neosho River
and south of the mouth of Elm Creek. The
territorial legislature passed an act in
July 1855
incorporating the Cofachique Town
Association. It was the only town in Allen
County for nearly two years and as such was
quite successful; but in 1857 other
towns were constructed and Cofachique began
to decline almost immediately. One of the
reasons for decline was accessibility,
the other was a lack of good well water.
Another possible contribution to the town's
decline involved tensions between the
pro and anti-slavery settlers. With the
development of neighboring towns Humboldt
and
Iola the town of Cofachique all but
disappeared by 1859. The county seat went
briefly to Humboldt in 1857 where it
remained
until 1865, but with the election of
that year Iola took the county seat and has
retained this designation to the present.
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