Ghost Town of the Week: December 21st, 2014: Campus

At the time of posting this blog, I had visited Campus just two days ago! My stepfather had to make a work trip to a little place called Rexford, in Thomas County, to inspect some new housing being built there, so we decided to hit every little place along Old US 40 along the way. Campus, in the far western part of Gove County, was our last town before we headed north on US 83. There is an exit for "Campus Road" off of I-70, and the first thing you notice as you head north is a very large farming operation just south and east of the railroad.

Some of the Campus farming operation. Notice the three grain elevators. The business on the left was run by Western Plains Energy. It appears that most of the operation is an ethanol plant. 

But the old town is north and west of the railroad. There is a small amount of information online about Campus; it ran a post office from 1905 to 1935 and in 1910 it was reported to have "two general stores, lumberyard, blacksmith shop, farm implement store, church, school, depot, postoffice, elevator, stockyards and five residences"(1). The town was also reported to have a population of fifty. Not today.

The first thing you're greeted to in Campus is this long-abandoned house. It sits along the "driveway" to the only occupied house in town. However, this "driveway" used to be a city street.

On the southeast side of town sits a large abandoned house. You can't see it from this angle, but the words "DO NOT ENTER. YOU WILL DIE!" were spray-painted on the front of it. Continuing down the southernmost street you hit a farmstead that is the only occupied house in town. The farmstead has gradually taken over the entire western half of the old town. But there's more.

There are two more buildings still standing in Campus. One is another large abandoned house on the left, the other is a false-fronted building with a cattle stable on its right side. Was this a livery stable? A general store? Both? It's a mystery.

Another "street" does exist in Campus, and it leads you right up to the abandoned house and general store/livery stable/whatever it was. A third side street leads to nowhere in between the two buildings. Both of these streets were covered in corn stalks and grass when we were there. But the fact that remnants of a road network still exist in this Ghost Town fascinates me. You don't see that very often.

Google Maps view of Campus. The four buildings (and associated outbuildings) are about all that's left. There are no foundations or other ruins. You can see the faint remnants of a road network still left in the town. Note the street in between the north house and the false-fronted building; it leads to nowhere.

1. http://kansasoakland.blogspot.com/2012/05/campus-kansas-gove-county.html