Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Aurora, KS

Aurora is a small city in Cloud County, Kansas — this is the Kansas Aurora in north-central Kansas, not the larger Auroras of Colorado or Illinois.

Aurora was named by settlers who came from Aurora, Illinois, and the town sprang into existence in 1888 as businesses moved in from the nearby settlement of St. Peter.

Aurora was incorporated in 1910, the same year the census counted 269 people there, when the town had a bank, a Catholic church, stores, a money-order post office with two rural routes, and telephone, telegraph, and express offices.

The area's roots are French-Canadian: settlers arrived in Aurora Township in 1870, missionary priest Father Louis Mollier began offering Mass in residents' homes in 1873, and the township's first church was built in 1875.

Aurora's first post office was established in 1886 under the name St. Peter, reflecting the Catholic settlement that later moved its town and church to Aurora in 1892.

In 1887 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway built a branch line through Aurora on its way to Superior, Nebraska — a line that passed to today's BNSF Railway when the Santa Fe merged with Burlington Northern in 1996.

Aurora's population peaked at 275 in 1920, and a school founded in 1904 was staffed by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia.

The 2020 census counted just 56 people in Aurora, in 13 households and 7 families, packed into only 0.10 square miles — one of the smallest incorporated cities in Kansas by land area.

Aurora is served by the Concordia USD 333 school district, whose high school teams in nearby Concordia are the Panthers.