Cofachique: Allen County's First Town and Its Bleeding Kansas Downfall

Cofachique was the first town established in Allen County, Kansas, staked out in eighteen fifty-five along the Neosho River near present-day Iola. It was named for an Osage chief who had been particularly helpful to early settlers. For about two years Cofachique was the only town in the county and served as its original seat of government, with several stores doing steady trade.

Then the troubles of Bleeding Kansas caught up with it. The town had a reputation as a pro-slavery stronghold, and the tensions between its residents and the Free-State settlers who dominated the surrounding countryside proved fatal to the town's commerce and cohesion. Within four years most of the buildings had been moved or abandoned, the county seat moved to Humboldt, and the site returned to farmland.

By eighteen fifty-nine Cofachique had essentially ceased to exist. Today the name survives in local historical memory as a reminder of how completely the Kansas territorial crisis could obliterate a settlement that geography and timing had given every reason to thrive.