Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Galena, KS

Galena is a city in Cherokee County in the far southeast corner of Kansas, named for galena, the bluish-grey lead sulfide ore discovered in the ground beneath it.

Galena exploded into existence in the spring of 1877 after two young men found lead-rich stones on a German farmer's land, and within two months the boomtown held nearly 3,000 people.

Galena was incorporated as a city in May 1877, only about two months after the lead discovery, and at the height of the mining boom its population was estimated at between 10,000 and 30,000 people.

Two rival mining companies platted rival towns divided by Short Creek: Empire City to the north and Galena to the south.

Galena was part of the Tri-State Mining District, and by 1904 more than thirty mining companies were operating in and around the town before the mines finally closed in the 1970s.

The 2020 census counted 2,761 people in Galena, down from 3,085 residents in 1,198 households in the 2010 census.

Galena is the eastern gateway to Kansas's share of historic U.S. Route 66, which crosses only about 13 miles of the state, and Kansas was the first state to pave its entire portion of Route 66, in 1929.

A rusty 1951 International Harvester boom truck parked at the Cars on the Route station in Galena, once used to lower equipment into mine shafts, became the inspiration for Tow Mater in Pixar's 2006 film Cars.

Pixar's artists also drew on Galena's old Front Street buildings and their painted advertising murals when designing the fictional town of Radiator Springs for Cars.

The Galena Mining and Historical Museum, housed in the town's relocated Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad depot, displays mineral specimens, mining equipment, and a model of the Grand Central Mine.