Editing Chase, Kansas (section)

==History==
[[File:Stouffer's Railroad Map of Kansas 1915-1918 Rice County.png|thumb|left|1915 Railroad Map of Rice County]]
For millennia, the land now known as Kansas was inhabited by [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]].  In 1803, most of [[History of Kansas|modern Kansas]] was secured by the United States as part of the [[Louisiana Purchase]].  In 1854, the [[Kansas Territory]] was organized, then in 1861 [[Kansas]] became the 34th [[U.S. state]].  In 1867, [[Rice County, Kansas|Rice County]] was founded.

In 1878, [[Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway]] and parties from [[Marion County, Kansas|Marion]] and [[McPherson County, Kansas|McPherson counties]] chartered the [[Marion and McPherson Railway Company]].<ref name="MarionCountyBook">''Marion County Kansas : Past and Present''; Sondra Van Meter; MB Publishing House; [[LCCN]] 72-92041; 344 pages; 1972.</ref>  In 1879, a branch line was built from [[Florence, Kansas|Florence]] to [[McPherson, Kansas|McPherson]]; in 1880 it was extended to [[Lyons, Kansas|Lyons]] and in 1881  was extended to [[Ellinwood, Kansas|Ellinwood]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZIwpAAAAYAAJ |title=Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners for the Year Ending December 1, 1886 in State of Kansas; Kansas Publishing House; 1886 |year=1886 |accessdate=2012-05-20}}</ref>  The line was leased and operated by the [[Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway]].  The line from Florence to [[Marion, Kansas|Marion]] was abandoned in 1968.<ref name="Abandon Railway 1968">{{cite web|url=http://www.abandonedrails.com/Marion_to_Florence |title=Railway Abandonment 1968 |publisher=Abandonedrails.com |date=1968-10-14 |accessdate=2012-05-20}}</ref>  In 1992, the line from Marion to McPherson was sold to [[Central Kansas Railway]]. In 1993, after heavy flood damage, the line from Marion to McPherson was abandoned.  The original branch line connected Florence, Marion, [[Canada, Kansas|Canada]], [[Hillsboro, Kansas|Hillsboro]], [[Lehigh, Kansas|Lehigh]], [[Canton, Kansas|Canton]], [[Galva, Kansas|Galva]], McPherson, [[Conway, Kansas|Conway]], [[Windom, Kansas|Windom]], [[Little River, Kansas|Little River]], [[Mitchell, Kansas|Mitchell]], Lyons, Chase and Ellinwood.

Chase was laid out in 1880 when the railroad was extended to that point.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_5zdAAQAAMAAJ | title=Biennial Report of the Board of Directors of the Kansas State Historical Society | publisher=Kansas State Printing Plant | author=Kansas State Historical Society | year=1916 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_5zdAAQAAMAAJ/page/n380 273]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=History of the State of Kansas: Containing a Full Account of Its Growth from an Uninhabited Territory to a Wealthy and Important State|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofstateof00andr|year=1883|publisher=A. T. Andreas|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofstateof00andr/page/760 760]}}</ref> The city was named after a railroad official.<ref>{{cite book|last=Capace|first=Nancy|title=Encyclopedia of Kansas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TSFZV1bcgOQC&pg=PA150|date=1 June 2000|publisher=North American Book Dist LLC|isbn=978-0-403-09312-0|page=150}}</ref> The first post office in Chase was established in 1881.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kshs.org/geog/geog_postoffices/search/county:RC |title=Kansas Post Offices, 1828-1961 |publisher=Kansas Historical Society |accessdate=22 June 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131009133151/http://www.kshs.org/geog/geog_postoffices/search/county%3ARC |archivedate=October 9, 2013 }}</ref>