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Aubry-Stilwell

Aubry-Stilwell was, for the most part, built on the site formerly occupied by Spring Hill’s Old Town. The site was first surveyed and organized in 1858 with the post office established on June 21, 1860. The post office would remain open until it was permanently abandoned on August 20, 1888. Aubry was named after the famous Canadian, French, Santa Fe Trail trader, Francis Xavier. Aubry.

Aubry-Stilwell’s brief history was eventful and violent. The town became an important crossing point for raids into Kansas during the Civil War. Quantril passed through the town either in route to raiding Kansas or on returning from a raid. His second incursion through the town was after raiding Olathe. This incursion eventually led to the Company D, 11^th Regiment of the Kansas Infantry to be stationed at Aubry.

Aubry-Stilwell’s history is also tied to the raid on Lawrence, Kansas. Aubry resident Mr. Treble warned of an impending raid by Quantril into Kansas, nevertheless, the warning went unheeded and Quantril entered into Kansas conducting his bloodiest raid in Lawrence. Despite the fact that Mr. Treble’s warning went unheeded, Mr. Treble was murdered briefly following the event.

In 1888 the Missouri Pacific Railroad laid tracks one-half mile east of Aubry. The plan had been to run the tracks through Aubry, but the plan changed on account of the “hilly terrain” which surrounded the town. As a consequence of the tracks being runned one-half mile east, the town relocated near the tracks and became known as Stilwell.

Stilwell’s post office was established on June 22, 1888. The town’s relocation was on the settlement first known as Mt. Auburn. The town’s name was adopted in honor of Arthur E. Stilwell.

Sources:
Andreas, A. T. History of the State of Kansas. Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1883. p. 645.
Barnes, Elizabeth. Historic Johnson County: A Bird's Eye View of the Development of the Area. Shawnee Mission, KS: Neff Printing, 1969. p. 41-42.
Blair, Ed. History of Johnson County, Kansas. Lawrence, KS: Standard Publishing Co., 1915. p. 168-169.
Tebbe, Anita M. The Community of Aubry-Stilwell. Stilwell, KS: Anita M. Tebbe, 1980. p. 94.

Aubry Township History

More from 'History of Johnson County'

Stilwell, one of the new towns that has grown up in the southeastern part of Johnson county, is located on the Missouri Pacific R. R. 10 miles from Olathe, the county seat. The railroad was the making of the town, which has a good public school; several churches and general stores, a blacksmith and wagon shop, implement and hardware house, lumber yard, express and telegraph facilities, and a money order postoffice with one rural route. In 1910 its population was 200. Being the only large town in the southeastern part of the county it is the shipping and supply point for a rich agricultural district and does considerable business. The town was formerly known as Mount Auburn, the name having been changed by act of the legislature, approved March 2, 1889.

Page 766 from volume II of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar. Transcribed July 2002 by Carolyn Ward.

Stilwell’s Round Barn

Built to last “a thousand years,“ the Raymond P. Brinkman barn east of Stilwell is a rare historic building from the early 20^th century.

In 1911 Raymond and Ruth Brinkman left an affluent life in Kansas City, Missouri, to try farming acres of land from the pioneer Case family, built a house on the south side of the Stilwell-Ocheltree road, established “Sweetbriar Farm.” In 1968, at the age of 87, Brinkman admitted that “when we came, we were tenderfeet. Neither of us knew the difference between a pitchfork and a threshing machine. But we got it in our heads that farm life would be wonderful.”

The Brinkmans constructed a round horse barn in 1912 on the north side of the road. It costs $1,600 and was built in fourteen days by John C. Long's crew, the same crew that built the R.A. Long residence (now the Kansas City Museum). The barn is 48 feet in diameter and 33 feet high. The conical roof was covered with 35,000 shingles. The interior of the barn has twelve stalls. The hay loft had a mechanical hay fork and an elevator to hoist oats and corn to second-floor bins with chutes distributing the grain to the feeding floor. When the high stone walls began to fail in the 1930s, Brinkman had them reconstructed in 1940.

Brinkman found the plans for a round barn in a farm magazine in 1911. As he said, “I liked the idea of a central work area surrounded by stalls. I used it for a horse barn. At one time we had 24 Percheron horses.” Sweetbriar Farm was primarily a livestock farm where the Brinkmans raised purebred Shorthorn cattle and Hampshire sheep. In the 1920s the farm was a showplace with many visitors from Kansas City. Mr. Brinkman gave up active management of the farm in 1939 and rented the property for several years. He sold the land where the the barn stands to James and Stella Ragan in 1947. Later, the tract was platted in 1979 as Sweetbriar Estates.

Now the round barn is vacant and threatened by neglect. Although the roof is deteriorated and the walls are unpainted, the barn still retains its historic architectural integrity.

--ALBUM vol. 7, no. 4 (fall 1994)