Barber County, Kansas

Kiowa, the second largest town in Barber county, is located on the Medicine Lodge river, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and the Missouri Pacific railroads, 21 miles southeast of Medicine Lodge, the county seat. It has 2 banks, an opera house, 2 newspapers (the Journal and the News-Review), over 100 mercantile establishments, telegraph and express offices and an international money order postoffice with five rural routes. The population according to the census of 1910 was 1,520, which is almost double the population of 1900. Kiowa claims to be the first town in which Carrie Nation (q.v.) ever "smashed" a saloon. (Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, 1912, edited by Frank Wilson Blackmar, Volume 2, Page 76)