Abilene

Abilene, city, seat (1861) of Dickinson county, east-central Kansas, U.S. The city lies along the Smoky Hill River.

Settled in 1858 and known as Mud Creek, it was named about 1860 for the biblical Abilene (which means “grassy plain”). Development was slow until Joseph McCoy, a cattle entrepreneur and later mayor of Abilene, selected it as the northern terminus of the Texas cattle drives in 1867, the year the Kansas Pacific Railroad reached this point. At their peak in 1871, cattle drives over the Chisholm Trail brought some 700,000 cattle and more than 5,000 cowboys into Abilene. With the prosperity of the cattlemen came an era of lawlessness. The famed gunman Wild Bill Hickok served as the town’s marshal in 1871 and is reputed to have killed more than 50 alleged lawbreakers during his brief tenure. The appearance of homesteaders and fenced ranges discouraged the Texas cattle trade, much of which was diverted to Wichita. Winter-wheat cultivation was introduced in Abilene in the mid-1870s and remains economically important. Abilene is still a shipping point for livestock, as well as for grain and other agricultural products, and it has some light industry.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower spent his boyhood in Abilene, and he is buried in the Place of Meditation at the Eisenhower Center, which also encompasses his family home and library. Other popular attractions include the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Greyhound Hall of Fame, dedicated to the history of the dog since ancient times. Inc. 1869. Pop. (2000) 6,543; (2010) 6,844.