Standing alongside US Highway 24 in Kansas, is the small town of Nicodemus. Freed Slaves from Kentucky began their journey West after the Civil War. Newspapers and handbills ran adds for all colored people to leave for Kansas. That they could do so for $5 and begin a new life for themselves and their families. The adds were over exaggerated. This is where they stopped. Founded in 1877, the town was laid out be a black preacher and a white town planner. Reverend W. H. Smith and W. R. Hill were these two men. Fighting the blazing heat in the summer and the harsh cold of the winter, the town succeeded to grow. It is the only remaining black town west of the Mississippi river to be settled in the 1800’s.
The settlement included two newspapers, three general stores, at least three churches, a livery stable, hotels, a bank, a school, and a literary society among many homes. It even had an ice cream parlor. It was an all black Western Frontier town right in the middle of a treeless prairie. By 1885, the town was booming. It had grown very quickly in eight years. However, when the railroad passed them up, the population started to decline. The railroad claimed there wasn’t enough people in the town for them to go through.
The First Baptist church was founded about 9 months after the town was first laid out by the Reverend Hickman. At the time, it was just a dugout with a sod structure over it. By 1880, a small one room sanctuary was built on the site. The original promoter of the town was W.R. Hill was responsible for laying out the streets and location of many of it’s structures.
In 1996, Congress established the Nicodemus National Historic Site. The Community Center built in 1938 hosts the Visitor’s Center today. There are less than 40 individuals that live in Nicodemus today. Most of them 70 or older. Many of them are direct descendants of the free slaves that founded the town.
Four of the original buildings are still standing. Every year in July on Emancipation Day, the town has a celebration that brings back some of the descendants. They have a parade, food, and a celebration with the descendants of the town.
The story of Nicodemus is one of a struggling group of American citizens that fought against all type of hardships to succeed. They had battled oppression, slavery, lack of an education, economic slavery, travel hardships, and climate to succeed. They relied on their general knowledge and perseverance to make a living.
Before, the Civil War, Kansas had entered the Union as a Free State. To many slaves in exile, this was an opportunity to be successful. The slaves from Kentucky decided to take the chance.
Nicodemus is a great place to learn about African American Heritage. School students make annual visits to learn about the history and courage of the first Black settlers west of the Mississippi. If you are on vacation and traveling through Kansas, an off the side trip to the town would be well worth your visit.
Lastly, in 2002, President Bush declared February as National African American History Month. This would provide a great opportunity to take a look back at a small Black community that overcame hardships to succeed. Had it not been for the railroad passing them up in 1888, they might have even been an even bigger success story.
