Winfield founded in a 'new world', Winfield Daily Courier, April 6, 1990
Collection: Edwin C. Manning
Title
Winfield founded in a 'new world', Winfield Daily Courier, April 6, 1990
Subject
Manning, Edwin C.
Winfield Daily Courier
Winfield, KS
Sandbulte, Jane
Description
The article recounts the founding of Winfield, KS by Edwin C. Manning in 1869. A brief biography describes how he came to arrive in the area.
Creator
Sandbulte, Jane
Source
Winfield Daily Courier, Winfield, KS USA
Publisher
Winfield Public Library, Winfield, KS USA
Date
1990-04-066
Rights
Format
text/plain
Type
Clippings
Citation
Sandbulte, Jane, “Winfield founded in a 'new world', Winfield Daily Courier, April 6, 1990,” Winfield Digital Collections, accessed June 23, 2026, https://winfield.digitalsckls.info/item/231.
Text
April 6, 1990
Winfield founded in a ‘new world’
(Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series of articles about Col. E.C. Manning, who is considered to be Winfield’s founder. Reference materials and photos were provided by the Cowley County Historical Society.)
By JANE SANDBULTE News Editor
Col. E.C. Manning constructed the first house on Winfield’s origi-nal town site in 1869 at the present location of Long Lumber Co., which was recently acquired by the city for a parking lot. It seems like a good time to take a look backward at Winfield’s earliest history.
Manning was bom at Redford, N.Y., in 1838 and spent his early boyhood in Vermont before moving with his parents to Iowa. After teaching school for several years, Manning began traveling and settled in Marysville in 1859.
Besides going into the newspaper business, Manning fought with the Kansas Volunteer Calvary in the Civil War and later helped organize a regiment at Marysville for frontier protection. He reached the rank of colonel and used that title long after the regiment disbanded in 1865.
Manning and his family moved to Manhattan in 1866, but Manning decided a few years later to estab-lish a frontier store somewhere in the Walnut River valley in southern Kansas.
At the end of April 1869, Man-ning and two other men who were also looking for land left Topeka in a mule-drawn carriage. When they reached Augusta, the Walnut and White rivers were impassable because of heavy rain. The other men were discouraged by that time by the constant rain, mud and high
waters so returned to Topeka, but Manning was determined to keep going.
Excerpts from a lengthy autobiography written later by Manning and published in Carter’s Monthly magazine in June 1897 tell us of his
experiences:
“My first stop was at Douglass for the night. There were but five or six cabins in the valley along that twelve miles’ ride, and they were located in the timber. At Douglass a Mr. Douglass had a small store and
there were two or three other build-ings, but this place was civiliza-tion’s outpost, for only one and a half miles south lay the north line of the Osage Indian Reservation ...
“I obtained all possible informa-
(SEE: Winfield, page 12)
Col. E.C. Manning
Courier, Fri., April 6, 1990
Winfield owes its roots to E.C. Manning
(Continued from page 1) tion about the region beyond, and then set out alone to explore. By this time the month of May had arrived, and in my travels over Kansas and the west in the past ten years I had never seen so charming and inviting a country. It bore no scars of civili-zation ...
“I seemed entering upon a new world. Springs of pure water in abundance, beautiful streams, immense stretches of fine timber and a wonderful growth of grass everywhere upon the broad bottom lands gently sloping to the adjacent highlands, and plenty of rosin weeds everywhere, a sure indication of rich soil. I then and there resolved that somewhere in that beautiful valley I should find a
home.
“About six miles south of the Butler county line I found a one-story log cabin occupied by a German and full of United States commissary stores. I was informed by the occupant that the goods belonged to one Peter Becker who with two men in his employ were located about seven or eight miles down the Walnut river valley, erecting claim houses ... Without trail or guide I crossed the river about one mile below the present town of Winfield, and turning eastward about one mile I came upon him. He had a good mule team and wagon, two men, and two log cabins under construction.
“He took his team and men and an axe and came with me over to the
present town site of Winfield and assisted me in laying four small logs for a ‘foundation’ on a claim for myself... This was early in June of 1869.”
In October Manning began erecting a log cabin on his “claim” and kept in it a small stock of goods for trade with the Indians and settlers.
Manning’s first “deed” was an agreement signed (with an “x”) on Jan. 18, 1870, by Chetopah, a chief of the Indian tribe which occupied the territory. It read: “Received of E.C. Manning six dollars, for which I, Chetopah, a chief of the Osage Indian tribe, guarantee a peaceful and unmolested occupancy of 160 acres of land on the Reservation for one year from date.”
That “160 acres of land” actually
included only 40 acres as first platted and took in the land north of Ninth Avenue and west of Main Street. Earlier in January Manning had organized the Winfield Town Company at a meeting with several other settlers and was elected president and a director.
The town was to be located on a 40-acre plot on which Manning’s house stood. To pay for this land donated by Manning, the town company built him a two-story log cabin store with the top story to be used for public purposes. It was located on the northwest comer of Ninth Avenue and Main Street, and the town’s first school was held on the upper floor later in 1870.
According to Manning’s autobiography, the town got its name at
the suggestion of W.W. Andrews: “Mr. Andrews, having just returned from a wagon trip to Leavenworth, Kansas, where Rev. Winfield Scott, a Baptist, said to him: ‘If you are going to start a town down there and will give it my name, Winfield, I will come down and build a house of worship for you.’ We adopted that name and he came here subse-quently and, with some local aid, erected a house of worship, a stone structure ...”
In January and February 1870, Manning constructed what he called a “balloon framed residence” on what is now the southeast comer of the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Manning Street. He then moved his family from Manhattan to the “first dwelling house upon the original town site proper.”
Original Format
Paper
Title
Winfield founded in a 'new world', Winfield Daily Courier, April 6, 1990
Subject
Manning, Edwin C.
Winfield Daily Courier
Winfield, KS
Sandbulte, Jane
Description
The article recounts the founding of Winfield, KS by Edwin C. Manning in 1869. A brief biography describes how he came to arrive in the area.
Creator
Sandbulte, Jane
Source
Winfield Daily Courier, Winfield, KS USA
Publisher
Winfield Public Library, Winfield, KS USA
Date
1990-04-066
Rights
Format
text/plain
Type
Clippings
Citation
Sandbulte, Jane, “Winfield founded in a 'new world', Winfield Daily Courier, April 6, 1990,” Winfield Digital Collections, accessed June 23, 2026, https://winfield.digitalsckls.info/item/231.Text
April 6, 1990
Winfield founded in a ‘new world’
(Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series of articles about Col. E.C. Manning, who is considered to be Winfield’s founder. Reference materials and photos were provided by the Cowley County Historical Society.)
By JANE SANDBULTE News Editor
Col. E.C. Manning constructed the first house on Winfield’s origi-nal town site in 1869 at the present location of Long Lumber Co., which was recently acquired by the city for a parking lot. It seems like a good time to take a look backward at Winfield’s earliest history.
Manning was bom at Redford, N.Y., in 1838 and spent his early boyhood in Vermont before moving with his parents to Iowa. After teaching school for several years, Manning began traveling and settled in Marysville in 1859.
Besides going into the newspaper business, Manning fought with the Kansas Volunteer Calvary in the Civil War and later helped organize a regiment at Marysville for frontier protection. He reached the rank of colonel and used that title long after the regiment disbanded in 1865.
Manning and his family moved to Manhattan in 1866, but Manning decided a few years later to estab-lish a frontier store somewhere in the Walnut River valley in southern Kansas.
At the end of April 1869, Man-ning and two other men who were also looking for land left Topeka in a mule-drawn carriage. When they reached Augusta, the Walnut and White rivers were impassable because of heavy rain. The other men were discouraged by that time by the constant rain, mud and high
waters so returned to Topeka, but Manning was determined to keep going.
Excerpts from a lengthy autobiography written later by Manning and published in Carter’s Monthly magazine in June 1897 tell us of his
experiences:
“My first stop was at Douglass for the night. There were but five or six cabins in the valley along that twelve miles’ ride, and they were located in the timber. At Douglass a Mr. Douglass had a small store and
there were two or three other build-ings, but this place was civiliza-tion’s outpost, for only one and a half miles south lay the north line of the Osage Indian Reservation ...
“I obtained all possible informa-
(SEE: Winfield, page 12)
Col. E.C. Manning
Courier, Fri., April 6, 1990
Winfield owes its roots to E.C. Manning
(Continued from page 1) tion about the region beyond, and then set out alone to explore. By this time the month of May had arrived, and in my travels over Kansas and the west in the past ten years I had never seen so charming and inviting a country. It bore no scars of civili-zation ...
“I seemed entering upon a new world. Springs of pure water in abundance, beautiful streams, immense stretches of fine timber and a wonderful growth of grass everywhere upon the broad bottom lands gently sloping to the adjacent highlands, and plenty of rosin weeds everywhere, a sure indication of rich soil. I then and there resolved that somewhere in that beautiful valley I should find a
home.
“About six miles south of the Butler county line I found a one-story log cabin occupied by a German and full of United States commissary stores. I was informed by the occupant that the goods belonged to one Peter Becker who with two men in his employ were located about seven or eight miles down the Walnut river valley, erecting claim houses ... Without trail or guide I crossed the river about one mile below the present town of Winfield, and turning eastward about one mile I came upon him. He had a good mule team and wagon, two men, and two log cabins under construction.
“He took his team and men and an axe and came with me over to the
present town site of Winfield and assisted me in laying four small logs for a ‘foundation’ on a claim for myself... This was early in June of 1869.”
In October Manning began erecting a log cabin on his “claim” and kept in it a small stock of goods for trade with the Indians and settlers.
Manning’s first “deed” was an agreement signed (with an “x”) on Jan. 18, 1870, by Chetopah, a chief of the Indian tribe which occupied the territory. It read: “Received of E.C. Manning six dollars, for which I, Chetopah, a chief of the Osage Indian tribe, guarantee a peaceful and unmolested occupancy of 160 acres of land on the Reservation for one year from date.”
That “160 acres of land” actually
included only 40 acres as first platted and took in the land north of Ninth Avenue and west of Main Street. Earlier in January Manning had organized the Winfield Town Company at a meeting with several other settlers and was elected president and a director.
The town was to be located on a 40-acre plot on which Manning’s house stood. To pay for this land donated by Manning, the town company built him a two-story log cabin store with the top story to be used for public purposes. It was located on the northwest comer of Ninth Avenue and Main Street, and the town’s first school was held on the upper floor later in 1870.
According to Manning’s autobiography, the town got its name at
the suggestion of W.W. Andrews: “Mr. Andrews, having just returned from a wagon trip to Leavenworth, Kansas, where Rev. Winfield Scott, a Baptist, said to him: ‘If you are going to start a town down there and will give it my name, Winfield, I will come down and build a house of worship for you.’ We adopted that name and he came here subse-quently and, with some local aid, erected a house of worship, a stone structure ...”
In January and February 1870, Manning constructed what he called a “balloon framed residence” on what is now the southeast comer of the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Manning Street. He then moved his family from Manhattan to the “first dwelling house upon the original town site proper.”
Original Format
Paper