Olathe Fence Company with Fence Direct

Olathe is the county seat of Johnson County in Kansas. With a 2020 population of 141,290, it is the fourth-most populous city in both the Kansas City metropolitan region and the state of Kansas.

John T. Barton founded Olathe in the spring of 1857. He traveled to Johnson County’s center and staked out two quarter sections of property for the town site.[Citation required] “…the prairie was covered with verbena and other wild flowers,” he later told friends. I kept thinking that the land was lovely and that I should call the town Beautiful.”[Citation required] According to reports, Barton asked a Shawnee interpreter how to pronounce “Beautiful” in his own tongue. The interpreter said, “Olathe.”

Olathe was formed in 1857, and while it was not the first city in Johnson County, its quick expansion resulted in its designation as the county seat in October 1859. Rising national tensions over slavery resulted in frequent conflicts between abolitionist settlers and neighboring slave state Missouri. These skirmishes grew more violent and became a part of the larger battle known as Bleeding Kansas. After Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1861, the violence began to subside. Peace, on the other hand, eluded Olathe for many years. Union officials and local military forces established a military garrison in the city in 1861. It held a single company of troops as well as the local militia.