History of The City of St. George.

St. George lies not far from the confluence of the Blue and Kansas Rivers. For centuries the area was used by many American Indian tribes as a hunting ground and as an area in which to work some cultivated crops, due to the enormously fertile ground along the rivers.

The earliest Europeans thought to have entered the area around St. George were French in 1724, according to an old publication entitled "A French Expedition Through Kansas." The earliest known American incursions to the area were the Long Expedition in 1819, followed by Fremont in 1842. Between that time, it is likely that additional Americans visited the area on their way to other places.

During much of the first half of the 19th century the area around St. George was firmly in the possession of the Konza Indians, although there were periodic incursions by Pawnee, who used the Republic and Blue River valleys as invasion routes into the fertile Kansas River Valley.

In about 1847 the Konza entered into agreements with the federal government which led to the removal of the tribe to the area south of Council Grove. In 1847 the Pottawatomie Reserve was created a few miles east of St. George, which led to the dominance of the Pottawatomie in the immediate area for over a decade.

After the founding of Fort Riley in 1853 steamboats were used for several years to haul freight past what is now St. George to the fort. All told, 34 of these boats plied the river from 1854 to 1866 with cargoes of freight and passengers.

In addition, the Oregon - California trail passed only a few miles east , while the Ft. Leavenworth - Ft. Riley Military Trail passed very close-by. The Smoky Hill stage trail from Kansas City to Denver also intersected the St. George area. There was a stage stop in St. George where teams were changed and passengers had a chance to refresh themselves. About 1866 many of these old trails began to be changed to roads. The first road created by the county was Flush Road, from Westmoreland to St. George.

St. George was platted in 1857 - the first town to be platted in what became Pottawatomie County. Since it was the first - it was also designated the original county seat - a status which it lost in 1862 to the town of Louisville.

The Union Pacific railroad reached St. George in 1866. In 1877 a ferry was at St. George across the Kansas river. By the turn of the century - some internal combustion powered vehicles had begun to appear. Old Highway 40 which ran through St. George, was paved for automobile traffic in 1928. It is still extremely easy to get from St. George to either Manhattan or Wamego via old Hwy. 40 - and- along the new four-lane US Hwy. 24.

Old-timers reported that the last buffalo was killed in Pottawatomie County in 1855, the last antelope in 1869 and the last turkey in 1875. Due to a decades-long state rehabilitation program the population of deer and turkey in and around St. George is very robust. Individual ranchers in the area have established several buffalo herds as well.