A touring car passes through Keene, Kansas on Kansas Highway 4 in this photo circa, 1920. Photo Courtesy Ida Thomas.
The Keene Store opened at the intersection of K-4 Highway and Bradford Road in 1874. Notice in this view that when this photo was taken the store was two stories and had full storefront on the east side of the building as well as the north side. An early blacksmith shop is visible at the right. When this photo was taken, the road was still mud and the store had no gas pumps. Photo Courtesy Ida Thomas.
When this photo of the Keene Grocery was taken in the 1950s, the store had gas pumps very near the edge of K-4 Highway. By this time, the east addition to the store was just a one-story structure.
An unidentified an stands in front of the blacksmith shop at Keene, Kansas in this view, circa 1920. Notice that the Keene School is visible to the right, located quite near the blacksmith shop. Both buildings were located at the intersection of K-4 Highway and Missile Base Road.
The Keene School, District 56, located in the town of Keene, was built in 1886 and closed in the late 1960s with statewide consolidation. In this view, circa 1890, a large group of students are photographed in front of the two-room school.
This native stone home was constructed for Ambrose Wade at Keene, Kansas in 1875. Wade was a very prominent rancher and cattle producer in Wabaunsee County. This photograph was created as a tintype. Photo Courtesy Robert Beach.
Ambrose Wade moved to Keene, Kansas on March 28, 1868 where he settled with his wife Orra and his children, Harmon and Dolson. Wade served as a county commissioner, on the board of examiners and the state legislature. He was known as a successful cattle rancher, and in 1900 Wade owned more than 2,900 acres of land in Wabaunsee County.
Keene, Kansas is located on Kansas Highway 4 about five and a half miles west of Dover, Kansas. Some of the earliest settlers of Wabaunsee County settled a mile east of Keene in 1856 at a small settlement referred to as Fremont, Kansas. One of the earliest businesses in the area was a cheese plant, first owned by Ambrose and Orra Wade and later by Thomas Rutledge. In 1872 the town was moved further west, a mile from its original location and officially named Keene.
Categories: Blog, Early History
Flint Hills Special 
My Great Grandmother Florence Knight used to work at the Keene store.
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My great grandpa and grandma owned the Keene store for along time. Last name Allen. Buried in the Keene cemetery.
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Also My Grandfather Bill Bullington used to deliver meat to the Keened store when he worked for OHSE Meat Company in Topeka. AI always thought that it was kinda funny when my Great Grandmother Florence Knight told me that she knew My Grandfather Bill Bullington long before he was even my grandfather!!!
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My Great Great Grandfather, Boman (wife Agnes Henderson-Younker) Younker, settled with his family a mile south and about 1 1/2 miles west of Keene in 1869. One of his daughters was my Great Grandmother Euphemia Lemon Younker Smith (wife of Herb Smith). They bought 80 acres (and added to it over their lifetimes) adjoining Boman/Agnes’s farm to the west about 1901. They all did business at the Keene general store. Boman and Agnes are buried in the Keene Cemetery, very near to the church fence and near Hwy 4. Keene was important to those rural families, as there were only dirt tracks for roads/travel. By the way, Fred A. Seaman had a 160 acre farm catty-cornered from the one room school (SW corner – a pile of lumber lays on the ground there) on what is now Wildcat Hollow Road and Coyote Road – one mile south and one mile west of Keene. Fred founded Seaman High School in Topeka, and prior to that taught at Keene School, Alma Schools and Eskridge Schools. He was also Wabaunsee Co. Attorney for 2 years in 1901-02. Boman was a County Commissioner for 2 years in the 1880’s. Boman also fought at Gettysburg in the Civil War with the Indiana Mounted Cavalry.
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I attended the Keene school from 1939 to 1944. Before that time it was a two-room school. My parents bought all the groceries from the Keene store which Lon and Arlene Wright owned. On Saturday nights the neighbors would gather at the store to visit and us kids would have a blast playing outside. I either walked or rode a horse from where we lived 1 1/2 miles north of the school on the old Sawyer homestead. Once in awhile a brother and sister would pick me up in a horse and buggy. There was a switchboard just south of the store where I would go sometimes after school. I loved to watch them answer the calls by plugging into the board. Eventually there were no more students to attend the school so it was torn down which I hated to see. It was a beautiful old school. Interesting that the horse barn still stands. There is also a sign designating Keene as a historical site….can’t remember the exact words.
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