Shetland Ponies for Sale near La Harpe, KS

About La Harpe, KS

La Harpe was founded by the Fort Scott, Wichita & Western Railroad company (later the Missouri Pacific), and was platted in 1881. It was named after La Harpe, Illinois and they both commemorate a prominent French explorer of the southern Great Plains of North America, Bernard de la Harpe When natural gas was discovered in the immediate vicinity in 1899 the city began to grow more rapidly and soon rose to be a city of importance. It was incorporated as a city of the second class, and in 1910 had some of the largest zinc smelters in the world, two banks, an opera house, several good mercantile establishments, a newspaper, and all the municipal improvements usually found in cities of that class. The population that year was 2,080. Its post office, first opened in November 1881, was authorized to issue international money orders, and two rural routes supplied mail to the surrounding country.