Records from Wyandotte County

Abstract: The majority of the records from Wyandotte County owned by the State Archives are on microfilm. They include information from the probate and district courts, the Register of Deeds, and the various cities that made up Kansas City, as well as Kansas City itself after these mergers. Types of records include documents pertaining to decedents' estate administration; marriages, births, and deaths; civil cases; deeds and related land ownership records; and naturalization records for individuals becoming citizens of the United States. There are also municipal ordinances and meeting minutes for cities such as Argentine, Rosedale, Armourdale, Wyandotte, and Kansas City. Paper records from this county include a 1966 ward and precinct map, showing the former township divisions in the county, as well as some legal records still in paper format from the district court.

Administrative History: Wyandotte County was named after a tribe of Native Americans who settled the area in 1843 after purchasing the land from the Delaware. The county was established under the Kansas Territory in 1859 and was the site of the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention, which created the fourth and final constitution under which Kansas became a state and under which the state continues to operate.

Kansas City is the major population center in the county, having been created out of the consolidation of Wyandotte City and Armourdale. The city has since absorbed other smaller towns, including Argentine and Quindaro. Bonner Springs and Lake Quivira are two other cities in the county (both partially located in Johnson County), and while the county had more townships at one time, specifically Wyandotte and Prairie, Wyandotte County now only has the Delaware township.

[Kansas State Historical Society. "Kansas Counties -- Wyandotte County, Kansas." http://www.kshs.org/genealogists/places/counties.php?county=WY (accessed 26 May 2009).]

[Kansas State Historical Society. "Wyandotte County." http://www.kshs.org/research/topics/kansasnewspapers/WyandotteCo.htm (accessed 9 June 2009).]

[Unknown. "Kansas City, Wyandotte County, Kansas History." http://www.kansastowns.us/kscityhist.html (accessed 26 May 2009).]