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The File Manager for Kansas USGenWeb Archives Project is:
Debra Crosby (Temporary)

Return to the County Table or visit the Norton County KSGenWeb page.

NORTON County, lying in the northern tier, adjoining Nebraska, is the fourth county from the Colorado line on the west and the tenth from the eastern boundary-line of the State. Its climate and soil are similar to the neighboring counties of Phillips, Smith and Decatur. The soil has the same marvelous richness and capacity to resist drouth; there is the same scarcity of timber and absence of stone-coal, the same abundance of fine building-stone (magnesian limestone.) Like its neighboring counties, already named, Nortorn has numerous water-courses, the principal of which are the Solomon River, flowing east through the southern tier of townships, the Prairie Dog, through the central portion, and the Sappa, from southwest to northeast, through the northwest corner of the county. The Solomon has as tributaries, Cactus, Skull, Buck, Big Timber, Otter, Sand, East and West Elk creeks, and the Prairie Dog and Sappa both have numerous tributaries. Norton County's lands are divided as follows: Upland, 92 percent; bottom land, 8 per cent; forest (government survey) 1 per cent; prairie, 99 per cent. Elm, willow and cotton-wood timber may be found on the margins of the principal streams. ₁

Organized in 1872. County seat, Norton. In memory of Orloff Norton, Captain of Company L, Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry, killed by guerillas at Cane Hill, Ark., October 29, 1865. In 1873 the county was represented by one N. H. Billings, who, in consequence of his peculiarities, became a sort of butt of the Legislature. A member of the Senate at the time had the name of Norton changed to Billings, in two lines hidden in a paragraph of a Bill fixing the boundaries of certain counties. The next Legislature restored the name of Norton. ₂

1. William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas
published in 1883 by A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL.

2. History of Kansas, Noble Prentis, (Winfield: E.P. Greer. 1899)

Cemeteries
History - Directories
Description	File Size	Date	Submitter
Norton County Medical Directory 1920	3K	Feb 2009	Joy Fisher
Obituaries
Description	File Size	Date	Submitter
Duvall, Male Child 1891	1K	Dec 2007	Cic. Stetter
Photos of Tombstones - Mt. Hope Cemetery, Almena, Kansas (Partial Photos)
Photos of Tombstones - Norton Cemetery, Norton, Kansas (Partial Photos)

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