Union Centre Courthouse?

[W. Gray]

The first Elk County courthouse was on north Wabash just south of the senior citizens building.

The first projected location for the courthouse was on south Wabash where Penny's Pub is now. For some reason the location changed.

In mid 1875, when Howard City citizens were trying to determine if they wanted to build the courthouse at no cost to the county, a Mr. Barber of Union Centre decided to get involved. (Spelling Police: they used a different spelling back then for both the township and the town.)

He promised county commissioners donation of a house and lot in Union Centre and one thousand dollars if Elk County would locate the courthouse in his town. They turned him down.

A county courthouse is usually located in the county seat but that is not necessarily a requirement.

Independence, Missouri, is the county seat of Jackson County, Missouri; however only a minimal two-story courthouse annex exists in the town.

A much larger twenty-eight story main courthouse building in Kansas City fifteen miles to the west houses and administers county government.

The sheriff's office is in neither Independence nor Kansas City but is located in Lee's Summit.

[Janet Harrington]

Ah, Waldo.  I didn't know that someone wanted to build the courthouse at Union Centre.  I love it that you warned the Spelling Police, namely me, about the spelling of the word Center.  Thank you.

[W. Gray]

L. H. Everts, The Official State Atlas of Kansas, published in 1887, is one of the latest publications showing Union Centre as the correct spelling.

By the 1912 publication of Frank Blackmar's Kansas: a Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, etc., it was Union Center.

I do not know if British immigrants had an overwhelming influence on the spelling or whether it was just American custom to use the word Centre in the 1870s and that custom later changed.

Union Centre was created for Howard County and the majority of the foreign immigrants coming into Howard County were from British America, what we call Canada.

Boston was in Centre Township.