Town of Yesterday: Wilder
West of K-7 Highway and 47th Street is the former town site of Wilder, Kansas. Wilder was one of Johnson county’s early communities whose fortunes rose and fell with the nearby Kansas River.
Originally settled in 1877, Wilder flourished in the 1880s. Its early success was due to its prime location on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, as well as the fine riverbank soil. The fertile soil was ideal for growing potatoes and Wilder soon gained a reputation as the “potato capital of the nation.” Access to railroad meant Wilder’s bountiful potato crop could easily be shipped across the country. According to a 1952 Kansas City Star article, at its peak in the early twentieth century, Wilder produced an astounding 1200 freight carloads of potatoes in a single year.
Wilder boasted a post office, a general store, a two-room school and a depot by the turn-of-the-twentieth century. Sadly, the heyday of Wilder was short-lived.
Proximity to the river also meant trouble as flooding of the Kansas River was a constant concern for Wilder’s residents. Floods hit in 1903 and 1908 causing a great deal of damage, but the townspeople managed to resume their businesses and farming interests in the wake of the disasters. The 1951 flood was another story. On July 13, 1951 the raging river waters wreaked havoc on Wilder. Floodwaters reached second story windows, and currents literally swept buildings away. Cornfields drowned in 22-foot high water. The river, once hailed as part of Wilder’s success, ultimately caused its destruction.
Wilder never recovered from the flood of 1951. Only four families remained within two blocks of the original town. In 1952, the post office closed, and the depot and potato sheds faced the bulldozer. The general store and the schoolhouse survived as the only reminders of a once thriving community. Today, only a few houses mark the spot on the northern edge of the county where a town lived and died by the whims of the river.
--ALBUM vol. 16, no. 2 (spring 2003)