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Peabody is a city in Marion County, Kansas, United States. It is named after F.H. Peabody, of Boston, former vice-president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Peabody is well known in the region for its Independence Day Celebration on July 4, and its historic 1880s downtown main street. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 937. It is located between Newton and Florence along U.S. Route 50 highway.

History

Early history

For millennia, the Great Plains of North America were inhabited by nomadic Native Americans. From the 16th to 18th centuries, the Kingdom of France claimed ownership of large parts of North America. In 1762, after the French and Indian War, France secretly ceded New France to Spain, by the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

19th century

In 1802, Spain returned most of the land to France, keeping title to about 7,500 square miles. In 1803, most of the land for modern day Kansas was acquired by the United States from France as part of the 828,000 square mile Louisiana Purchase.

In 1854, the Kansas Territory was organized under the provisions of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, then in 1861 Kansas became the 34th U.S. state. In 1855, Marion County was established, which included the land for modern day Peabody.

In 1864, the first settler in the Peabody area was W.C. Coble, from North Carolina, who set up ranch headquarters about 2+ miles east of the current city of Peabody (now section 36 of Catlin Township). The first settlement made in the area was in September 1870, by a colony of settlers from Wisconsin. In October, more settlers arrived. During the first month, the colony officers laid out a town on the north-half of section 4 township 22 and surveyed it into lots. The town was named Coneburg after the town company president John Cone. The town site was located between the current 9th Street and Division Avenue. During the winter of 1870, some of the settlers returned east to get supplies and bring out their families. In 1871, while the other settlers were gone, dissatisfaction arose in the community and it began to break up. Claim jumping of the Coneburg town site and nearby land started to occur, thus causing a legal mess.

In 1870, T.M. Potter homesteaded the south-half of the same section of land. In spring of 1871, he and five other men started the Peabody town company. Since the land title for the Peabody town site had no legal disputes, businesses immediately moved from Coneburg. In June 1871, the town of Peabody was platted, and it included the land where the railroad was built on June 9.

A post office was established in Coneburg on January 25, 1871 then moved to Peabody on October 30, 1871.

In April 1872, during legal disputes, Coneburg became North Peabody . A revised plat of Peabody was made in July 1875 and a supplemental plat of North Peabody was made in April 1878. Because of the disputes, the street that ran down the middle of the border between the two towns was called "Division Avenue." The two towns merged into the city of Peabody in 1879.

The town of Peabody was named in 1871 after F.H. Peabody, of Boston, formerly vice-president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway company. In May 1874, Mr. Peabody visited the new town, at which time he announced he would donate money for a library building, furniture, books, periodicals and landscaping if the Peabody township would secure four town lots for the site. The contract for construction was awarded in spring of 1875 and was opened to the public in June 1875, and the following February 1876 the state legislature authorized the township to levy a tax to support the library. The structure housed the library facilities until 1914 when a new Peabody Township Carnegie Library was constructed on the old location.

In 1871, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway extended a main line from Emporia through Peabody to Newton. In 1996, it merged with Burlington Northern Railroad and renamed to the current BNSF Railway. Most locals still refer to this railroad as the "Santa Fe". The first depot was built south of the tracks, then later a train wreck destroyed it, so a second depot was built on the north side of the tracks. In 1873, three westbound trains (9:05am, 1:00pm, 8:30pm) and