Abandoned Towns
Aerial view of the Elk Falls street grid among trees and fields, with the Elk River at upper right

Mill, lumber and company town

Elk Falls

A mill town of 513 people in 1880 that shrank to about a hundred. It calls itself the World's Largest Living Ghost Town, and keeps a waterfall, an 1893 iron bridge and a famous outhouse contest.

37°22′24″N 96°11′36″W · ≈960 ft

Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain). See the photographs in the gallery below.

Living town

Elk Falls is a small incorporated city with residents, 113 at the 2020 census and about 110 per a travel article of October 22, 2025. Homes are private. The falls and the old bridge are at the east end of Montgomery Street.

Overview

A living ghost town

Elk Falls grew up beside a waterfall on the Elk River in southeast Kansas. R. H. Nichols settled the townsite in February 1870, a post office opened that year, and in 1871 the young town was briefly the seat of Howard County. It lost that fight. Raiders from rival Boston carried off the county records in 1873, and when the county was split in 1875 the seat went to Howard.

A grist and flour mill built at the falls in 1875 gave the town its trade. Elk Falls reached 513 people in 1880, and in 1883 its school had more than 200 pupils. Then it slowly emptied. The mill closed late in the century, and by 1927 the town was down to 269. The 2020 census counted 113.

At some point a resident began calling it the World's Largest Living Ghost Town, and the slogan stuck. Artists moved in, and in 1996 the town added an Outhouse Tour to its fall open house. Elk Falls is a lived-in town, not an abandoned one: come for the falls, the bridge and the old buildings, and treat the houses as the private homes they are.

Video

A day at the 28th Outhouse Tour

A YouTuber drives into Elk Falls for the 28th annual Outhouse Tour. He watches tour buses unload, gets his voting button at the headquarters shed, where organizers count 21 entries that year and tell how the tour began in 1996, then walks the town from one numbered, decorated outhouse to the next before dropping his ballot in the voting booth.

Play “Amazing Journey | Annual Outhouse Tour | Elk Falls Kansas Celebration” from YouTube
“Amazing Journey | Annual Outhouse Tour | Elk Falls Kansas Celebration”, by Monk's Reflections on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube when you press play.

Timeline

Mill, county seat fight and slow fade

  1. R. H. Nichols becomes the first settler on the townsite. A townsite company lays out lots, and a post office opens the same year.
  2. The town takes the name of a waterfall on the Elk River and becomes the temporary seat of Howard County.
  3. After a disputed county-seat election, men from Boston, Kansas, raid Elk Falls and carry off the county records.
  4. Howard County is split into Elk and Chautauqua Counties. Howard, not Elk Falls, becomes Elk County's seat. E. A. Hall and L. J. Johnston build a three-story grist and flour mill at the falls.
  5. Population peaks at 513.
  6. More than 500 residents; the school has more than 200 pupils.
  7. An iron Pratt truss bridge over the Elk River is finished, at a cost of $2,000.
  8. The population is down to 269.
  9. Maude Frakes has local men build a rock garden of stone and concrete structures in her yard.
  10. A new highway through Elk Falls takes the traffic off the old bridge.
  11. A flood carries away most of the bridge's floor planks. The county condemns and closes it.
  12. The bridge is saved as a footbridge. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
  13. The Friends of Elk Falls add an Outhouse Tour to the town's fall open house.
  14. The census counts 113 people.

Two early settlers rest in the town cemetery: the educator Prudence Crandall, who had opened a school for Black girls in Connecticut in the 1830s, and her brother Hezekiah.

What's here

Falls, bridge and rock garden

The 1893 Pratt truss bridge behind its National Register plaque, August 2015
The 1893 Pratt truss bridge behind its National Register plaque, August 2015 · Photo: Jon Roanhaus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

The falls. The waterfall that named the town is at the east end of Montgomery Street, about three blocks east of the main street. Sources give its size differently: about 10 feet high and 100 feet wide in one, a 6-foot drop over a sandstone outcrop in another. A curved dam of cemented sandstone, built for the mill by Jo Johansen, a Swede from Minnesota, still stands at the falls.

The bridge. The iron Pratt truss bridge of 1893 crosses the Elk River at the falls. Floodwater took most of its floor in 1976, and since 1983 it has been a footbridge. A plaque on a stone at its end records its National Register listing.

The rock garden and pottery. Maude Frakes built a rock garden of stone and concrete pieces between 1930 and 1938, with stones brought from far away. Steve and Jane Fry bought the property south of the river in 2004 and restored it, and their Elk Falls Pottery, founded in 1976, moved into the restored mule barn there in 2016. A 2020 post quoting the pottery says the falls and the rock garden are free to visit. Its website was offline when we checked in October 2026.

The town. A travel article of October 2025 describes a few 19th-century buildings still intact, a few abandoned ones half hidden by vines, a few seasonal businesses and an RV park, and no restaurant, supermarket or gas station.

The historic maps trace the town. The 1885 sheet shows a dense grid north of the Southern Kansas Railroad by the Elk River. The 1962 and 1985 sheets show the same grid much more thinly built, with US 160 along its north side.

  • Elk River falls and stone mill dam
  • 1893 Pratt truss footbridge
  • Rock garden (1930s) at Elk Falls Pottery
  • Old commercial and church buildings
  • Town cemetery
USGS topographic map of Elk Falls and the Elk River
USGS The National Map, topo. The town grid and the Elk River.
Aerial view of the Elk Falls street grid with scattered houses among trees and fields
Aerial imagery, same area. Scattered houses on a grid much larger than the town now fills; the Elk River at upper right.

Every November

The Outhouse Capital

The Friends of Elk Falls Association runs a fall open house on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving. In 1996 someone joked that the town had a lot of outhouses, and the Outhouse Tour was born. About twenty residents and businesses dress up, build or move an outhouse each year, and visitors vote. Per a 2020 post, a map, a ballot and a commemorative button cost $1 at the Outhouse Headquarters downtown. The winner gets a stoneware chamber pot, the Outhouse Throne Award.

By that rule the 2026 tour falls on Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21. We found no announcement from the organizers, so check before you go.

Historic maps

Elk Falls on USGS maps, 1885–1985

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 Elk Falls, 1885
Sedan sheet, 1885, 1:125,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Independence is the nearest city with full services, about 54 minutes east on US 160. From Wichita the route runs east on US 54 and US 400, south on K-99 and east on US 160. Both end at 10th and Montgomery Streets.

USGS topographic map of the country between Independence and Elk Falls 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 Independence35.1 miabout 54 min
  1. Take North 8th Street to West Main Street (US 160).0.1 mi
  2. Follow US 160 west to Elk Falls.34.9 mi
  3. Turn left onto 10th Street to Montgomery Street.0.1 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • Both routes stay on highways to the edge of town and on town streets after that. The road is rated 2WD.
  • Elk Falls has no gas station or restaurant, per a travel article of October 2025. Fill up in Independence or on the way.
  • The bridge is closed to cars and open to people on foot.

Photos

Elk Falls in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Elk Falls?

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 Elk Falls

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

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Elk Falls": county, road rating, climate, best time to visit, remains, 1883 and 1927 population, the mill, the 1892 bridge vote and its cost.
  2. Wikipedia, "Elk Falls, Kansas", retrieved October 2026: first house and post office (1870), name, Prudence and Hezekiah Crandall, 2010 and 2020 census.
  3. Legends of America, "Elk Falls, Kansas – The Outhouse Capitol" (updated August 2026): first settler, county-seat fight, mill and dam, churches, 1880 peak, bridge history (1893, 1957, 1976, 1983, 1992, 1994), the slogan, the Rock Garden and pottery, the falls' location, the tour's timing.
  4. Lucy Woods, "Outside Wichita Is 'The World's Largest Living Ghost Town'...", Islands, October 22, 2025: population of about 110, the 6-foot falls, buildings, seasonal businesses, no restaurant, supermarket or gas station, RV park.
  5. Greg Disch, "Elk Falls Kansas", October 5, 2020, quoting Elk Falls Pottery: the falls' size, the Outhouse Tour's origin, format and $1 button, the Rock Garden, the Frys and the pottery, free entry to the falls and garden.
  6. Elk Falls Pottery website (elkfallspottery.com), checked October 29, 2026: offline.
  7. Monk's Reflections, "Amazing Journey | Annual Outhouse Tour | Elk Falls Kansas Celebration", YouTube, posted December 8, 2023: the video on this page; the 28th tour, 21 entries, buttons, ballots and the voting booth.
  8. 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

  • The 1893 Pratt truss bridge over the Elk River, behind a plaque recording its National Register listing, August 13, 2015: Jon Roanhaus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
  • Elk Falls in L. H. Everts' 1887 atlas of Kansas: the street grid, cemetery, Elk River and flour mill, with Longton and Oak Valley below: L. H. Everts & Co., Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
  • Sanborn fire insurance map of Elk Falls, December 1893: the business blocks on 7th Street, the Baptist and Methodist churches and the Elk Falls Mills by the river: Sanborn Map Company, 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): Sedan 1885, 1:125,000; Wichita 1955, 1:250,000; Elk Falls 1962, 1:24,000; Sedan 1985, 1:100,000.