Victoria, Kansas

Victoria is a city in Herzog Township,

History

[[File:No._47._General_view_of_Victoria_Railway_Bridge_over_North_Fork_of_Victoria_River._(6862286050).jpg|thumb|left|

Victoria Station, 1873.<br/>Robert Benecke<br/> In the distance just to the right of the bridge over North Fork of Big Creek is the station, Victoria Manor. In 1867, this was the location of Campbell's Camp.]]

The town site originated in the 1867 construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway into western Kansas to connect St. Louis to Denver and to open the land to settlement. The railroad's sudden rerouting and construction west of Junction City was opposed by a Cheyenne military society who attacked the Campbell camp who were establishing a bridge grade across the North Fork of Big Creek at this location (pictured). Commanded by Captain George Armes, the immediate U.S. military response resulted in the Battle of the Saline River, which was followed by two years of open conflict.

Victoria Colony

George Grant was a Scottish entrepreneur who had established wealth and a clientele that counted the British nobility. In 1873, George Grant arrived in Kansas leading a party of 30 young adults and youth of Scottish and English nobility, including some remittance men sent away by their families to live on stipends. Founding the first of several organized transatlantic settlements in Ellis County, Grant intended to create a ranching community, some lesser nobles of the party hoping to establish large estates in the frontier. Notably, this group brought a herd of thoroughbred Aberdeen Angus cattle, some from Queen Victoria's own stock. Including four bulls, this herd is credited with establishing the American Angus breed.

The colony occupied a roughly 10 mile-wide swath land sections from the tracks south to the Smoky Hill River.

With the settlement named Victoria to honor the Queen, the Kansas Pacific Railroad immediately constructed a relatively elaborate stone station-hotel for the colony. At Grant's specification, the Victoria Manor had accommodations befitting gentry waiting for completion of their new homes. The ground floor held a ballroom intended for community gatherings. Over 200 Britons arrived in the following years.

Grant brought British architect Robert William Edis to the colony to design his manor house and to lay out his dream town. Grant's Villa became a historic landmark, but the ultimate Victoria plat was an unprepossessing 3 by 3 grid of square blocks. The home families of the remittance men learned of this and reduced the stipends, driving these colonists to leave. Having lost his fortune, Grant's sudden death in 1878 Grant was buried before the steps of the St. George Church, which would never be consecrated. After Grant's death, the Victoria townsite was platted in 1880 by remaining colonists, particularly Margarat Grant Dunan, niece, caretaker, and executor of the George Grant estate. As the other Volga German villages were formed, Herzog's Roman Catholic settlers built a series of churches which culminated in the construction of St. Fidelis Catholic Church, known as "The Cathedral of the Plains," in 1911. When the German's first arrived at the station, Rev. Laing relates, there was only the station-hotel and one other building in Victoria. Herzog grew rapidly and later adopted the station's name. Herzog and the smaller Victoria merged to incorporate under the name Victoria in 1913.

Such were the numbers of German-Russian settlers in Ellis County and adjoining Rush County, such was their adoption of western Russian farming practice and community structure, and such was their adoption of Russian dress and elements of Russian language, Kansans referred to these settlements as "Little Russia". And such was the importance of Herzog that was soon referred to as "Russia Minor".

A traditional religious community, Herzog's Catholic services were first held in the open around an erected cross, then in the home of Alois Dreiling after it was constructed. A typical two-story, four-room I-frame prairie farmhouse, attendance soon was too much for the flooring to withstand and a wood framed addition was built onto the home to hold church services. This addition is marked as the second church, first Catholic church, built in the county. The growing community soon overwhelmed this facility.

The only Catholic in the Victoria Colony, Sir Walter C. Maxwell had high interest in Herzog and completed a stone church for the town in 1877. This church was overcrowded almost as soon as it was finished.

The Kansas Pacific Railroad donated 10 acres of land for the community's religious use in 1879. Father Anthony Mary, who had previous led the construction of many churches, arrived and in November, 1881, and began construction on the original St. Fidelis Church at Herzog. Seating 600 parishioners, construction began in 1880 and the church was consecrated 1884.

Even as this church was completed, it was soon insufficient for the needs of the town and the Catholic villages at large and the Basilica of St. Fidelis, "The Cathedral of the Plains," was constructed over 1908-1911.

Victoria Auxiliary Field

In 1942, the U.S. Army built Walker Army Airfield three miles northeast of Victoria. During World War II, thousands were stationed at the airfield, most for training in operation of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber aircraft. The military closed the base in 1946. In 1949, after the formation of the United States Air Force, that service designated the base "Victoria Auxiliary Field", but never operated the facility.

Bypassed by the Interstate

Originally, the Golden Belt Road followed by U.S. Highway 40 passed through Victoria. In 1966, construction of Interstate 70 was completed through Ellis County, bypassing the state highway designation and routing its traffic to the north of the town.

The city lies roughly north of the Smoky Hill River in the Smoky Hills region of the Great Plains. The city sits on the eastern side of the North Fork of Big Creek, part of the Smoky Hill River watershed.

Demographics

2010 census

As of the 2010 United States census, there were 1,214 people, 496 households, and 316 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 530 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 98.5% White, 0.3% American Indian, 0.2% African American, 0.1% from some other race, and 0.8% from two or more races. Hispanics and Latinos of any race were 0.5% of the population.

There were 496 households, of which 29.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.4% were married couples living together, 3.8% had a male householder with no wife present, 6.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.3% were non-families. 33.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.30, and the average family size was 2.93.

Originally, Victoria was within the organized Victoria Township. However, Victoria Township merged into an enlarged Herzog Township, which had previously absorbed Walker Township and a portion of Saline Township.

Victoria lies within Kansas's 1st U.S. Congressional District. For the purposes of representation in the Kansas Legislature, the city is located in the 40th district of the Kansas Senate and the 111th district of the Kansas House of Representatives.

Victoria Grade School (Grades Pre-K-6)
Victoria High School (7-12)

Infrastructure

Transportation

Interstate 70 and U.S. Route 40 run concurrently east-west roughly one mile north of Victoria. K-255 runs north–south from I-70 to Victoria's northern city limits.

Utilities

Water distribution, sewer maintenance, and trash removal are the responsibility of the city government. Midwest Energy, Inc. provides electric power. Local residents primarily use natural gas for heating fuel; service is provided by Kansas Gas Service.

Culture

thumb|right|The Basilica of St. Fidelis (1997)

Events

The Herzogfest is Victoria's annual community festival, held to celebrate the city's ethnic German heritage. Held in August, it includes music concerts, a tractor pull, games for children, and other local entertainment. There is delicious food from the German heritage and other vendors.

Points of interest

The Basilica of St. Fidelis, known as "The Cathedral of the Plains", is located in Victoria. Local Roman Catholic residents, having outgrown a series of church buildings as their population grew, began construction of the church in 1908. William Jennings Bryan gave the church its nickname during a visit in 1912. In June 2014, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salina dedicated the church as a minor basilica, renaming it the Basilica of St. Fidelis.
Grant Cemetery is a preservation of the gravesites of George Grant and a few others dating to the 1880s on the grounds of the St. George Church, founded by Grant. Every 50 years, the American Aberdeen-Angus Breeders' Association commemorates the 1873 establishment of the first Aberdeen Angus herd in the United States. For the centennial in 1973, Hays artist Pete Felten Jr. installed a limestone sculpture of a Black Angus.
Railroad Workers Cemetery is a preservation of the gravesites of a party of workers who were killed in 1867 while excavating the approaches to the railroad bridge just to the north. They were killed by Cheyenne Dog Soldiers who rejected the treaty permitting the construction, this action triggering the Battle of the Saline River.
St. Fidelis Cemetery contains over 100 traditional German iron cross grave markers, the most iron crosses of the cemeteries in the Volga-German settlements. This cemetery also has a number of gravestones that were carved from the region's unusual Fencepost limestone by John Linenberger.

Notable people

Notable individuals who were born in and/or have lived in Victoria include:

Monty Beisel (1978- ), football linebacker
Lucy Isabella Buckstone (1857-1893), actress
Nate Dreiling (1990- ), football linebacker
James "Scotty" Philip (1858-1911), American bison rancher
Theodore McCarrick, laicized American cardinal of the Catholic Church and former Archbishop of Washington, D.C.

Sister cities

Kubelstein, Scheßlitz, Germany

References

External links

Victoria - Official Website
Victoria - Directory of Public Officials
USD 432, local school district
Saint Fidelis Catholic Church "Cathedral of the Plains", photos.
Historic Images of Victoria, Special Photo Collections at Wichita State University Library