Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Baxter Springs, KS

Baxter Springs is a city in Cherokee County in the far southeast corner of Kansas, located along the Spring River at the edge of the Ozarks, with a population of 3,888 in the 2020 census.

The town is named for John Baxter, who settled 160 acres near the Spring River in 1849 and built a cabin and sawmill beside the springs; the city formally dates its founding to 1858 and was incorporated in 1868.

On October 6, 1863, Baxter Springs was the site of the Baxter Springs Massacre, when William Quantrill's Confederate guerrillas attacked Fort Blair and then a Union column under General James G. Blunt, killing nearly 100 Union soldiers who are buried in the Baxter Springs Cemetery.

After the Civil War, Baxter Springs became the first 'cow town' in Kansas, as Texas cattlemen drove herds north to its stockyards — the town's Stockyards and Drovers Association built corrals that could hold up to 20,000 head of cattle, and by 1875 the population was estimated at 5,000.

In 1926 Baxter Springs' main street, Military Avenue, was designated part of U.S. Route 66 — the Kansas stretch of the Mother Road is the shortest of any state, only about 13 miles long.

Just north of town stands the Rainbow Curve Bridge, the only remaining Marsh arch bridge on all of Route 66.

Outlaws repeatedly found Baxter Springs: the James-Younger gang robbed the Crowell Bank in 1876, and Bonnie and Clyde robbed a local grocery store on two consecutive Saturdays in 1933.

In the early 20th century Baxter Springs prospered from the tri-state lead and zinc mining district shared with Missouri and Oklahoma, before the high-quality lead ore was largely mined out by the 1940s.

The Baxter Springs Heritage Center and Museum packs about 23,000 square feet of exhibits — on the Civil War, mining, Native American history and Route 66 — into the small city.

Baxter Springs is the most populous city in Cherokee County, and it hosted annual Civil War soldiers' reunions beginning in 1883, twenty years after the massacre.