Seward County is a county of the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat and largest city is Liberal. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 21,964. The county was formed on March 20, 1873, and named after William Seward, a politician and Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
History
For millennia, the Great Plains of North America were inhabited by nomadic Native Americans. From the 16th century to the mid-19th century, the region that became southwestern Kansas was part of the vast hunting grounds utilized by tribes such as the Pawnee, Osage, Comanche, and Wichita. Following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, early United States government expeditions explored the territory, frequently documenting the landscape as an arid expanse that became known as the "Great American Desert", which delayed early permanent Euro-American settlement.
In 1854, the Kansas Territory was organized, then in 1861 Kansas became the 34th U.S. state. During the Bleeding Kansas era (1854–1861), the violent ideological and political conflicts over slavery were concentrated almost entirely in the eastern half of the territory; the unorganized geographic area that would eventually become Seward County remained completely unsettled by Euro-Americans, devoid of permanent voting populations, and entirely unaffected by the guerrilla warfare, raids, or electoral fraud occurring along the Missouri border.
In 1873, Seward County was established, although it was administered from one of several neighboring counties until the county commissioners of Finney County organized Seward County as a municipal township of Finney County on June 10, 1885, with the temporary seat of government at Sunset City. The township was divided into two voting precincts - one headquartered at Sunset City and the other at Fargo Springs. The county was organized on June 17, 1886, with Governor John A. Martin designating Springfield the county seat and appointing men from Fargo Springs as county officers as not to favor one town over the other. Rivalry between Fargo Springs and Springfield became so intense both towns sent armed bodies of men to the other to prevent their voters from reaching the polls, causing a disputed election in 1885. By 1910, hard winter wheat replaced broom corn as the primary regional cash crop. In 1914, a major flood destroyed the Cimarron River bridge leading into the settlement. Following the bridge failure, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad rerouted its regional operations through Liberal, which caused Arkalon to be abandoned; its post office closed in 1929. Subsequent drilling operations established the county as a major source of natural gas production. The labor demands of the plant led to a major demographic shift; the county population transitioned over the subsequent decades from predominantly non-Hispanic white to majority Hispanic, recording the highest percentage of Hispanic residents among all Kansas counties by the early 21st century.
21st century
On November 16, 2015, a significant tornado outbreak occurred across western Kansas, producing 17 tornadoes between 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. As part of this outbreak, a long-tracked wedge tornado touched down 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Liberal at 5:38 p.m. CST. The tornado traveled northeast for 51.26 miles (82.49 km) across Seward, Meade, and Gray counties, moving nearly parallel to U.S. Highway 54 along a path almost identical to a tornado that had occurred earlier that year on May 24. It borders Oklahoma to the south.
Adjacent counties
- Haskell County (north)
- Meade County (east)
- Beaver County, Oklahoma (southeast)
- Texas County, Oklahoma (southwest)
- Stevens County (west)