Nichols Station

— Compiled by Betty Jane Wilson, Valley Falls Historical Society President.
Source: Nichols family history and from the pen of Lois Cleavinger Malm.

"Don't pull up our pegs," begged A.A. Robinson, head of an 1870 surveying party surveying the land of Wilby Nichols' Farm, located between Grasshopper Falls and Nortonville, for the Santa Fe Railroad. A previous survey, known as a gun survey for Santa Fe for a right-of-way from Atchison to Topeka was made in 1868, however, nothing was done about it, and, after a time, Nichols told his sons to pull the survey plugs.

"The railroad is really going through this time," promised surveyor Robinson.

Nichols, an iron worker from Pittsburg, Penn., had moved to Kansas, near Grasshopper Falls with his family in 1860. He bought 160 acres of land 3 1/2 miles south of Nortonville and settled on his farm for nearly 10 years before the advent of the Santa Fe. He consented to the survey request and proved his approval of the rail service by donating a right-of-way through his land 100 feet and also a site for a station known as Nichols' Station in his honor. The open-air flag stop station serviced the community.

The railroad road bed was graded in 1871 and track laid in the spring of 1872. A.A. Robinson and his surveyors, and, later, railroad crews laying track to Nortonville boarded at the Nichols' home located west of the station and track designated areas.The house was known as the "Old Nichols Homestead." It also housed the Ashcroft Post Office. The homestead began as a log cabin, later rooms were added, then siding, paint, a second story, and finally a large screened porch.

In time, the post office was no longer needed and closed. The stockyards and station were removed by Santa Fe with the discontinuance of rail service and eventually the old homestead was empty and met its fate in the 1960s when it was burned to the ground on Hallowe'en eve. The legend of an era became a page in the annals of Jefferson County and Kansas history.

The society museum will be open at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 16.