We just returned from a visit with my Aunt and her family in Wamego Kansas and I wanted to share with you some of the sites we saw while there.

Wamego is located just west of Manhattan Kansas in Northeast Kansas and is a lovely town with a population of 4246. It has a beautiful downtown, the historic Columbian Theatre, a wonderful Historic Museum Complex, beautiful city park, golf course, and of course the Oz Museum

Wamego has a rich history as detailed here:

Native Americans used the Kansas River as an area of settlement and avenue of transportation long before whites entered the area. The entire Kansas River Valley was home to the Konza tribe until the 1840's. Beginning in the 1840's major portions of the Pottawatomie Tribe occupied the area just to the east of Wamego. The names of our city and county are derived from the Pottawatomie Tribe.

Early European explorers included Coronado (1540), Major Long (1819), and Fremont (1842). The doomed Donnor Party traveled four miles north of town on the Oregon Trail on May 22, 1846, while Laura Ingalls Wilder and her husband traveled the reverse on August 11, 1894 on their journey from the family home in Walnut Grove, Minn. to Southern Missouri

Early settlers were known to use keelboats on the river prior to the Civil War. 34 steam ships plied the waters of the Kansas River between 1854-1866, although river navigation soon ceased when the state legislature declared the river non-navigable in favor of the railroad and bridge companies.

In the early 1860's the discovery of gold near Denver brought many through Wamego on the Smoky Hill Trail. In 1863 the Kansas Pacific Railroad began building the main line for passengers and freight bound westward across the plains. Seizing this opportunity, The Wamego Town Company founded and laid out a new town site - Wamego - along the proposed rail in 1866. Wamego was later incorporated in 1868.

There is so much more to this city than you would imagine and if you ever get a chance to visit you should!