Turner (Kansas City, Kansas)

Turner is a historic community and school-district identity on the south side of the Kansas River in Wyandotte County, now within Kansas City, Kansas. Known first as the Farmer post-office community (1859), it took the name Turner in 1879, was heavily affected by the Great Flood of 1951, and was annexed by Kansas City, Kansas between late 1965 and early 1966 while retaining a distinct local identity and Turner USD 202 schools.¹

Overview

County / city	Wyandotte County; part of Kansas City, Kansas (annexed 1965–66)1
Earlier names	Farmer (post office from 1859); renamed Turner September 23, 18791
1910 population (historic)	about 2001
Major roads	I-435, Turner Diagonal, K-1321
Schools	Turner USD 202 (consolidated 1961 from Turner, Junction, Oak Grove, Morris, Muncie)1
Mascot	Golden Bear (adopted 1886)1

History

Border-war settlement

Euro-American settlement of the Turner area is described from 1856, when John Farmer arrived from Indiana; a sawmill followed and was sold to Charles Lovelace of Kentucky in 1857.¹ During the Bleeding Kansas / border conflict period, settlers endured raids; secondary local history notes homes along what became Swartz Road among those attacked.¹

The community’s post office opened under the name Farmer in 1859. On September 23, 1879, postmaster Robert M. Hester changed the name to Turner (alternate family lore credits a road engineer named Turner).¹

Railroad and early 20th century

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe corridor linked Argentine, Turner, and Kaw Valley; secondary accounts place a circular turnaround platform for the Farmer/Turner station near 55th Street, the community’s main commercial axis.¹ Population around 1910 was about 200; by 1912 the place had general stores, a school, money-order post office, and telegraph/express service.¹ The 1903 Kansas River flood reached Turner; the post office was discontinued in 1958.¹

1951 flood and annexation

Parts of Turner were hit by the Great Flood of 1951; the flood contributed to construction of the Highland neighborhood for people displaced from Argentine and Armourdale.¹ Between late 1965 and early 1966, Kansas City, Kansas annexed Turner; the community kept its own school district identity and local character.¹

Golden Bear schools

Turner USD 202 consolidated five old districts (Turner, Junction, Oak Grove, Morris, Muncie) in 1961 and today includes Turner High School, middle school, multiple primaries, and a sixth-grade academy.¹ The Golden Bear mascot, adopted in 1886, draws on local legend of a great golden bear in the hills south of the river west of the Methodist Mission, a story tied in local retellings to the era of the Old Grinter Ferry (see also grinter-place).¹²

Sources

See also

• argentine-kck
• edwardsville-ks
• 1951-flood
• grinter-place
• Wiki

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia — “Turner, Kansas.” — asserts: Wyandotte / KCK community; Farmer post office 1859; rename to Turner Sept 23, 1879 (Robert M. Hester); John Farmer 1856 / Lovelace mill 1857; border-war raids; ATSF Argentine–Turner corridor and 55th Street platform; 1903 flood; ~200 people in 1910; 1912 commercial sketch; 1951 flood and Highland; annexation late 1965–early 1966; post office discontinued 1958; USD 202 consolidation 1961; Golden Bear 1886; road infrastructure (I-435, Turner Diagonal, K-132); street-name history notes. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷

2. Betty S. Gibson, Pride of the Golden Bear (Kendall Hunt, 1981), ISBN 0-8403-2397-2 — Class B offline/print source heavily cited by the Wikipedia synthesis for local detail. WorldCat/library search: title + ISBN. ↩