Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Hardtner Hardtner, KS

Hardtner is a small incorporated city in Elwood Township, Barber County, in south-central Kansas, sitting just one mile north of the Oklahoma state line.

Hardtner was founded in 1887 and named for Dr. John Hardtner, a local landowner, and its first post office opened in July 1887; founder Jacob Achenbach helped organize the town, which was not incorporated until 1911.

By 1908 Hardtner's residents decided they needed a railroad to survive, so they built their own line east to Kiowa, and when a Santa Fe superintendent tried to block the crossing with his private rail car, he backed down after hearing that some 45 local cowboys were ready to riddle the car with bullets.

On June 2, 1929, a slow-moving F2 tornado struck Hardtner and was photographed so well as it crept along that it produced some of the highest-quality tornado photographs taken up to that date.

The 2020 census counted 167 people in 79 households in Hardtner, down from a peak of 385 residents in 1920, packed into only about 0.3 square miles.

Hardtner has a humid subtropical climate with hot, humid summers, and its median resident age in 2020 was about 45.5 years.

Hardtner is served by South Barber USD 255, and its former Hardtner High School, whose mascot was the Tornadoes, was closed through school unification.