Wabaunsee County

Wabaunsee County, Kansas
County
Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Newbury
Location in the U.S. state of Kansas
Kansas's location in the U.S.
Founded	1859
Named for	Chief Waubonsie
Seat	Alma
Largest city	Alma
Area
• Total	800 sq mi (2,072 km2)
• Land	794 sq mi (2,056 km2)
• Water	5.3 sq mi (14 km2), 7%
Population (est.)
• (2016)	6,891
• Density	8.7/sq mi (3.4/km2)
Congressional district	1st
Time zone	Central: UTC−6/−5
Website	County Website

Wabaunsee County (standard abbreviation: WB) is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 7,053. Its county seat is Alma. The county was created by the territorial legislature of Kansas Territory on March 25, 1859, and was named for a chief of the Potawatomi Indians.

For millennia, the land now known as Kansas was inhabited by Native Americans. In 1803, most of modern Kansas was secured by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The first white settlers in the area were said to have been a band of outlaws known as the McDaniel Gang.

In 1854, the Kansas Territory was organized and Wabaunsee County was created by the territorial legislature on March 25, 1859. The name used since 1859 is derived from the Potawatomi "Wah-bon-seh", meaning "dawn of day" literally, and it was the name of the chief of the Potawatomi Indians. Originally, the county was named Richardson, after William P. Richardson, a congressman from Illinois, who introduced the first Kansas and Nebraska Bill in the House of Representatives, which made certain Indian lands territories in 1854.

Also in 1854, the Beecher Bible and Rifle Church was established by a group of free-staters, who had rifles shipped to the church to be used in the free-state effort in boxes marked Bibles. Captain William Mitchell, Jr., a seaman who joined the Beecher Bible and Rifle Colony that settled in Wabaunsee, played an important role in the county settlement and with the underground railroad.

The county's first church, Wabaunsee Church of Christ, was founded in June 1857.

In 1861 Kansas became the 34th U.S. state, entering the union as a free state.