Hudson, KS

In 1887, the townsite of Hudson was platted by Daniel Updegraff. He migrated to this area in 1886 from New York state where he had been associated with the Hudson Bay Company. He and his wife, Margaret, homesteaded in Hudson, KS building a sod house on a hill about 1/8 mile west of the present site of Hudson.  Updegraff formed the Hudson Town Company, a corporation chartered under Kansas state law on June 7, 1887.

On July 12, 1887, the Rattlesnake Post Office (originally located Southeast of Hudson) was moved to Hudson and changed its name to Hudson Post Office. 

On September 21, 1887, people of the Hudson townsite gathered in the post office building to discuss establishing a school. As a result of this meeting, District No. 75 came into being. The one room school house became a two room schoolhouse in 1906. The school lessons were conducted in English, even though this was a German settlement. School lasted 6 months, with a two week break at Christmas. Boys never started school until the corn was shucked in the fall.

In 1889, William Hallmann opened a hardware store in Hudson and handled coal and bought wheat. In 1897, he sold the hardware stock to Otto Sonderegger and enlarged the store for dry goods and groceries. He also built an ice cellar and cream skimming plant.

Sonderegger and Gustav Krug established the Hudson Milling Company in 1904 and built a small wooden frame flour mill with a daily capacity of 75 barrels beside the railroad tracks. Hallman built a new store constructed entirely for general merchandise. Soon a North and South Hudson developed with railroad tracks as a division line.

North Hudson consisted of the schoolhouse, Durham general Store (built 1904), flour mill, lumberyard, bank and the Hall and Delker Hardware Store. There was also the creamery and general store, two blacksmith shops, a greenhouse, an undertaker and furniture store, the Royal Hotel, a grocery and meat market, a livery, medical doctor offices and dentist offices, plus the “Little White House Saloon” and ice house.

South Hudson was known as “The Flats.” It had a barber, meat market, post office, hardware and general stores, drug stores, livery stable and dray service, bowling alley, café, hotel and saloon (along with a complete line of entertainment with can-can girls!).

In 1908, Hudson became incorporated with a population of 250 people.

In 1910, all of the “Flats” in South Hudson burned, virtually wiping out the business area there. But numerous fires occurred in Hudson between 1904 and 1921. The Hudson fire station wasn’t built until 1966.