Cheyenne County, established in 1889, lies in rolling plains along the Kansas border. The town of Kit Carson became an early supply town on the Smoky Hill Trail, a gold rush and immigrant route that crossed the county. Live-Stock raising and dry-land farming have become the principal industries, and millions of dollars in winter wheat are harvested each year. In 1894 land near Cheyenne Wells was deeded to the state by the Union Pacific Railroad to use as an experimental farm. Here, John “Uncle Johnnie” Robinson and other state agricultural agents tried different dry-land crops, planted a successful orchard, and built several adobe buildings to demonstrate that farmers could survive here. The Cheyenne Wells (1968) and Sorrento (1976) oil fields have sustained the economy in recent decades.
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