Last updated: March 18, 2023
Place
Crossroads and Development
NPS Photo/Daniel Cox
As the Plainville Branch of the Missouri Pacific Railroad moved westward, Mr. Fagan, a railroad surveyor, founded a town he named Fagan 1 ½ miles west of what is now Bogue. He anticipated the railroad would go through Fagan. Instead, the Missouri Pacific established a town to the east of Fagan that they named Bogue after Virgil Bogue, their civil engineer. In the end, the railroad went through Bogue. Fagan businesses moved to Bogue, and all that’s left of Fagan is a graveyard. By 1926, Kansas designated Highway 18, travelers can see remnants of the Sturgeon School Farm. In 1901, the state established it to teach Nicodemus youth farming practices. As a bonus, area farmers borrowed and rented farm equipment. The farm had a big house for Andrew Alexander, Jr., and his family purchased the farm. They lived there until the late 1980s when they sold it to a white family.