Abandoned Towns
Old photograph of a scattering of frame houses and barns on open prairie, with a line of trees and low hills behind

Railroad and road town

Diamond Springs

Santa Fe Trail travelers called its spring the Diamond of the Plains. A railroad hamlet of the same name grew up four miles south and faded after its post office closed in 1930.

38°33′27″N 96°44′40″W · ≈1,340 ft

Photo: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Not verified

We found no dated visit report. Our sources describe a couple of private homes, a few stone ruins and an old cemetery on what is now ranch land, and the spring itself on private property about four miles north. Look from the road and the cemetery, and don't cross fences without permission.

Overview

Two places with one name

The name belongs first to a spring. Santa Fe Trail traders used it from the 1820s, and in 1827 the surveyor George Sibley called it the Diamond of the Plains. By 1849 a mail company kept a stone station there. Bushwhackers burned it in May 1863, killing the keeper, and the stage stop moved to Six Mile Creek, named for its distance from the spring.

A second Diamond Springs grew up about four miles south of the spring, along what became the Santa Fe Railway's Strong City and Superior line. It got a post office in 1868 and shipped for the farms and ranches around it, but it stayed tiny: 27 people in 1910. The post office closed in 1930, and the land went into a large ranch.

This guide is about the second place, the hamlet on Diamond Creek. Its few residents, stone ruins and old cemetery sit in open Flint Hills grassland. The spring, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is on private ranch land.

Timeline

From trail spring to rail stop

  1. George Sibley's survey of the Santa Fe Trail names the spring Jones Spring, for Ben Jones, who found it.
  2. Re-surveying the trail, Sibley calls the spring "the Diamond of the Plains" and has the name marked on an elm beside it.
  3. The Waldo, Hall and Company mail line opens a station at the spring: two stone buildings, a blacksmith shop and large corrals.
  4. A Diamond Springs post office opens, with George C. Newberry as postmaster.
  5. The bushwhacker Dick Yeager raids the station. The keeper, Augustus Howell, is killed and the station burned. It is never rebuilt, and the stop moves to Six Mile Creek.
  6. A new Diamond Springs post office opens in August, at the later settlement south of the spring.
  7. The settlement, a station on the Santa Fe Railway's Strong City and Superior line, has 27 people.
  8. The post office closes.
  9. The spring, about four miles north of the settlement on private land, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

What's here

Stone and grass

Diamond Springs public school on a real-photo postcard mailed September 9, 1907
Diamond Springs public school on a real-photo postcard mailed September 9, 1907 · Photo: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Legends of America describes the townsite as marked only by a couple of private homes, a few stone ruins and an old cemetery. Visit Emporia places the cemetery at the townsite and says its headstones go back to the 1870s. About a quarter mile south of the cemetery, near a bend where the road turns north, it notes a couple of piles of limestone rubble from old buildings.

The historic maps show the hamlet on the railroad by Diamond Creek. The 1955 sheet names Diamond Springs beside the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line, with a quarry to the west and Burdick and Wilsey on the roads around it. The 1985 sheet still prints the name beside the tracks and Diamond Creek.

The spring itself rises in a concrete cistern and is piped to a stock tank on the Diamond Spring Ranch, about four miles north. A marker stands there, but it is on private land.

  • Stone ruins and limestone rubble
  • Cemetery with headstones from the 1870s
  • A couple of private homes
  • Railroad line through the townsite
USGS topographic map of the Diamond Springs townsite on Diamond Creek
USGS The National Map, topo. The townsite by Diamond Creek and the railroad.
Aerial view of gravel roads meeting beside a railroad line, with a few farmsteads, fields and grassland
Aerial imagery, same area. Gravel roads, the railroad running diagonally, and a few farmsteads.

Historic maps

Diamond Springs on USGS maps, 1955–1985

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Diamond Springs, 1955
Hutchinson sheet, 1955, 1:250,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Council Grove, on US 56, is the closest town with services, about 42 minutes northeast. From Wichita the route runs north on I-135 and east on US 50, then north on US 77 and county roads. The last miles of both are on county roads.

USGS topographic map of the country between Council Grove and Diamond Springs with the route drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Council Grove19.8 miabout 42 min
  1. Take West Main Street (US 56) west out of Council Grove.9.8 mi
  2. Turn left onto 1800 Road and follow it south, through a short stretch as North 1st Street.4.0 mi
  3. Turn right onto Z Avenue.4.9 mi
  4. Bear left onto Bb Avenue (RS93).0.7 mi
  5. Turn left onto Diamond Creek Road, then right to the townsite.0.3 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • The townsite is reached on county roads. The road is rated 2WD; we have no dated report on its surface, so check conditions after rain.
  • Legends of America's directions start from US 56 about 13.5 miles west of Council Grove and turn south toward the railroad crossing. They differ from our route; follow the route map.
  • The site has no services. Council Grove has full services.

Photos

Diamond Springs in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Diamond Springs?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Diamond Springs

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Kansas index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Diamond Springs": county, road rating, climate, best time to visit, remains.
  2. Wikipedia, "Diamond Springs, Kansas", retrieved October 2026: name from the Santa Fe Trail spring about four miles north on private property, 1930 post office closing, coordinates.
  3. Wikipedia, "Diamond Spring (Wilsey, Kansas)", retrieved October 2026: the spring's National Register listing (1976) and coordinates.
  4. Legends of America, "Diamond Springs, Kansas – Oasis on the Santa Fe Trail" (updated October 2026): the 1825 and 1827 surveys, the 1849 mail station, the 1859 and 1868 post offices, the 1863 raid, the railroad line, 1910 population, the ranch, ruins, cemetery, the spring's cistern and marker on private land, directions.
  5. Legends of Kansas, "Extinct Towns of Morris County, Kansas" (updated May 2025): Diamond Springs as one of the county's extinct towns, with a stone building still standing at the site.
  6. Visit Emporia, "Diamond Springs Cemetery", read October 2026: cemetery location, 1870s headstones, the limestone rubble south of the cemetery.
  7. Elevation from a USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Status checked against the sources above on October 29, 2026.

Photo and map credits

  • Houses and outbuildings of Diamond Springs on open prairie, in an undated photograph from between about 1880 and 1920: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
  • The two-story frame public school at Diamond Springs, on a postcard mailed September 9, 1907: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
  • Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
  • Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Hutchinson 1955, 1:250,000; Council Grove 1985, 1:100,000.