Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Elkhart, KS

Elkhart is a young city by Kansas standards — it was founded and incorporated in 1913 as a new town along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in the state's far southwest corner.

Elkhart, Kansas, was named after Elkhart, Indiana.

Elkhart is the county seat and largest city of Morton County, but it only won the seat in 1961, after a decades-long county-seat fight with Richfield that the Kansas Supreme Court finally settled.

Elkhart's southern edge is literally the Kansas-Oklahoma state line, and the Kansas-Colorado border is just 8.5 miles to the west.

The 2020 census counted 1,888 people in 729 households in Elkhart.

Elkhart was hammered by the Dust Bowl: its population plunged 39 percent in the 1930s, from 1,485 in 1930 to 902 in 1940, and Morton County is considered the Kansas county most devastated by the Dust Bowl, losing nearly half its people that decade.

Some of the Dust Bowl farmland abandoned around Elkhart was bought by the federal government and became part of the Cimarron National Grassland, which preserves Santa Fe Trail landmarks in Morton County such as Point of Rocks and Middle Spring.

Elkhart has a cool semi-arid climate with only about 18 to 19 inches of precipitation a year, yet its recorded extremes run from -22 degrees to 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Local students attend Elkhart USD 218 schools, and Elkhart High School's teams are the Wildcats.

Elkhart's notable natives include writer Sanora Babb and Glenn Cunningham, the distance runner who once held the world record for the mile and won silver at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.