Volland, a Flint Hills trading community.

Abstract

Volland, Kansas, has a history typical of plains railroad towns created in the 1880s. This Flint Hills town was established at a point convenient for the railroad to meet its water and other service needs for the marketing area which this new town could serve also an important consideration. The Volland store was for many years the central gathering place for the community, providing a communications hub and social center as well as supplying all kinds of hard and soft goods. The decent made possible the convenient transportation of surplus areas, encouraging socialization in such crops as wheat and corn. Cattle shipping and contributed to the establishment of ranching as a primary source of income. When the railroad expanded, adding a second track, the Volland community prospered. But when the institutions--the railroad, schools, and store--which had heat the town a viable trading center broke down under increased pressures from such external forces as the popularization of the automobile, school consideration, rural to urban migration, and the introduction of the diesel incomative, the town soon died. Volland, typical of every town dependent or only one or two technologies could not withstand the loss of one. It like many other Flint Hills towns dependent on the railroad and agriculture was not large enough to survive the loss of the railroad. Today only shared memories keep the town alive.