Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Cherryvale Cherryvale, KS

Cherryvale is a city in Montgomery County in southeast Kansas, platted by the railroad in 1871 on former Osage Indian land and incorporated in 1880.

Cherryvale was named for its setting in the valley of Cherry Creek.

The townsite passed from the first settler, Abe Eaton, to the railroad company whose line became part of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which served Cherryvale for much of the 20th century.

The 2020 census counted 2,192 people in 874 households in Cherryvale.

In 1871 the Bender family built a cabin inn and store along the Osage Trail about seven miles northeast of the new town, and travelers who stopped there began to disappear.

When the Bender cabin was found abandoned in 1873, searchers discovered a blood-soaked cellar beneath a trapdoor and roughly a dozen graves in the garden; the 'Bloody Benders,' often called America's first family of serial killers, were never caught.

The Cherryvale Historical Museum's most popular exhibit is a glass case displaying the hammers believed to have been used in the Bender murders.

Cherryvale was also the hometown of two show-business stars: silent-film icon Louise Brooks and Vivian Vance, who played Ethel Mertz on 'I Love Lucy.'

Cherryvale is today the headquarters of the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad, a Watco short line operating about 511 miles of track in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Students attend Cherryvale-Thayer USD 447 schools, including Cherryvale Middle/High School, whose teams are the Chargers — a mascot the student body voted in 1969 to replace the old name, the Fighting Cherries.