Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Bluff City, KS

Bluff City is a small city in southeastern Harper County, Kansas, that took its name from Bluff Creek, which flows past the community.

The Bluff City townsite was platted on November 10, 1886, by the Border Line Town and Land Company, and the first lots were sold that same day — about $35,000 worth of lots sold within four weeks as roughly 200 men moved in with their families and began building.

Bluff City was incorporated in 1887, and James Glover, who pitched his tent on the townsite in October 1886, later served as the city's mayor for 16 years.

According to Kansas Historical Society post office records, the post office was moved from Bluff Creek on February 1, 1887, under the name Bluff, and both the town and post office were renamed Bluff City on January 28, 1890.

Bluff City's first newspaper, the Tribune, was printed in December 1886, and the later Bluff City News ran for more than a quarter-century before being sold to the Anthony Republican in 1956.

Bluff City was a station and shipping point on the Kansas Southwestern Railway and was described in 1910 as the principal shipping point between Anthony and Caldwell, with a bank, good public schools, churches, and well-stocked general stores.

Bluff City's population peaked at 307 in the 1910 census, but the 2020 census counted just 45 people in 21 households and 11 families across the city's 0.54 square miles.

Bluff City High School closed in 1967 because of school unification, and its former building went on to serve as a community building.