One of the most interesting subjects for the local historian is the rise and fall of town companies and towns, within the confines of Atchison county. Perhaps no county in the State, or for that matter, no county in the United States, has been immune from the visitations of town boomers. It is difficult in this enterprising age, with all the knowledge that we now have at hand, to understand how it was possible for anybody, though he was ever so enthusiastic, to conceive the idea that there was any future for many of the “towns” that were born in Atchison county in the early days. Yet, it is found that there was in the breasts of many promoters a feeling that Atchison county offered unlimited possibilities for the establishment and growth of towns and cities. One need only search the records on file in the office of the register of deeds in this county to discover numerous certified plats of towns which were born to blush unseen and waste their fragrance on the desert air. In some instances the records are quite complete and authentic, and contain much information with reference to the origin, growth and final decay of these nascent municipalities. In other cases nothing has come down to posterity, save the merest fragmentary data, of which the plat, containing the name of the town and of its organizer, its location and the number of blocks, streets and alleys, constitute the major part. Reference has heretofore been made to the founding and the organization of the city of Atchison, which became and now remains the county seat of Atchison county. The city played such an important part in the early history of the county that its story has been woven into the general fabric of this history, and therefore further reference to the city of Atchison will not be made in this chapter. SUMNER. Perhaps the most important, although not the oldest, town established in Atchison county outside of the city of Atchison was Sumner. A peculiar aroma of legendary glory still clings to this old town, which was located three miles below Atchison, on the Missouri river. Its founder was John P. Wheeler, a young man who came to the Territory when about twenty-one years of age, and who has been described as “a red-headed, blue-eyed, consumptive, slim, freckled enthusiast from Massachusetts.” Atchison at this time was a strong pro-slavery town, and no abolitionist was a welcome settler in her midst. For this reason Sumner sprang into existence. It was a dream of its founder to make Sumner an important forwarding point, one of its claims being the fact that it was the most westerly of any of the Missouri river towns in Kansas. In 1856 the site was surveyed and platted, and the name “Sumner” given the new town, in honor of George Sumner, one of the original stockholders, and not for his brother, the Hon. Charles Sumner, United States senator, of Massachusetts, as many people suppose.