Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Neodesha, KS

Neodesha is a city in Wilson County, Kansas, near the confluence of the Verdigris and Fall Rivers.

The name Neodesha comes from the Osage word Ni-o-sho-de, translated as "The-Water-Is-Smoky-With-Mud."

The town began as a trading post established in October 1867 on the Osage Diminished Reserve, where the Osage allowed traders to operate because the nearest other post was more than thirty miles away.

Neodesha was incorporated on March 2, 1871, and its original plat was filed with the U.S. Land Office in July 1871.

The St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad arrived in 1879 and made Neodesha a division headquarters, building a roundhouse and repair shops that anchored the town's economy.

On November 28, 1892, driller William M. Mills struck oil on blacksmith T. J. Norman's garden plot at the edge of town; the well, named Norman No. 1, was the first oil well west of the Mississippi River to produce a commercial quantity of oil.

Norman No. 1 was the first well drilled in the vast Mid-Continent oil field, which spread across parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and neighboring states and became the nation's major oil-producing region through the late 1930s.

The Norman No. 1 well site is now a National Historic Landmark in a small city park on the bank of the Verdigris River, with a museum and a replica of the original 67-foot derrick.

A Standard Oil refinery that opened at Neodesha in 1897 was the first to process crude oil from the Mid-Continent Field, handling about 500 barrels a day.

Neodesha's population peaked at 3,943 in the 1920 census, and as of the 2020 census the city had 2,275 people living in 971 households.