05/27/2026
This is a story about another ghost town near Douglass. It was called Haskin's Camp and was located west across the river from Gordon, then north. It became a booming oil camp when oil was discovered in the early 1900's.
HASKIN'S CAMP
Haskin’s Camp flourished and vanished northwest of Gordon. Much of it was located on the farm of Clark Haskin who was a member of the first casing crew. Clark Haskin, a Union army veteran from Vermont, homesteaded 390 acres in Walnut Township, Butler County Kansas in 1871. Haskin, a successful stock raiser, farmer and trapper, never dreamed that someday a town would be named for his family.
The Clark Haskin house was built of native limestone in 1884. It was two-story built in Section 20 and faces east on the north/south road that once was the main street of Haskin’s camp. Henry Thompson was the stone mason. Clark’s son, Charles Edward hauled the stone quarried from the hillside on the farm, with a team and sled. 1882 is engraved in the stone on a large barn Haskin built.
The house, built with three chimneys, three large rooms upstairs, three rooms downstairs plus a pantry and cellar was owned by descendants until 1982. At that time, Charles W. “Billy” Haskin sold it to D.E. Dunn, Jr., who has remodeled it.
Billy Haskin’s daughter, Gevelle, always wanted to be married in front of the house. Her parents sold the property before she married Jeff Runyan. They obtained the owner’s permission to be married in front of the house on April 21, 1995. It was fitting since she was the great-great granddaughter of Clark Haskin. The house made a beautiful background for her wedding photos. The house and barn remain landmarks at the Haskin’s Camp site. South of the Haskin house is a family cemetery. It has several ancestors including, Clark, his wife Almira, their son George, and an infant son of Herbert Haskin.
The Camp was the out-growth of the Oil Industry. The first producing oil well drilled in Butler County was on the Varner lease southwest of Augusta in 1914. It produced about one hundred barrels a day. Number six on the Varner lease in 1919 produced sixty thousand barrels of oil a day. The Varner lease was part of what soon came to be Haskin’s Camp.
In 1913, Charles Haskin signed a lease with Natural Gas. By 1918, Wichita Natural drilled wells, both oil and gas, including Haskin #17, Smith #26, Kirkpatrick #9, Hanes #10, Varner #16, and Love #21. The Love farm (Sec. 29) near Haskin’s Camp had a casinghead gasoline plant in operation by December 1916. The oil company became known as Empire Gas and Fuel Company.
It became necessary for Empire to build accommodations for their employees’ convenience. That is how Haskin’s Camp came into being. The Camp consisted of more than twenty-five company houses. Cellars were built for every few houses to provide shelter from storms and place for food storage. Rent for the houses was $5.00 per month.
The camp had a post office, a blacksmith shop, general store, bank, and fire house with a wagon, and a boarding house. The boarding house was busy around the clock. As one crew finished eating another was ready and waiting. A gas pump was installed when the Ford cars came on the scene. The Empire Gas Company, now Cities Service was the founder and operator of the oil camp.
Floral School was a one room school and had eight grades and about 120 pupils at one time. They held lots of activities at the schoolhouse.
They had some exciting times at the camp. The men played poker a lot for something to do and one night after the game came a knock at the door and a visit from the Klu Klux Klan. They invited John Bryde, a contractor and a large husky man outside to talk to him. He went out but holding a shotgun and a pistol in his holster and started blasting away. When that was empty, he fired the pistol at them and that really scattered them in a hurry. He didn’t hit anyone with the pistol but put a lot of buckshot into them. The Doctor was busy several days removing buckshot from the rumps of the Klan members.
Empire built several swinging foot bridges on the West bank of the Walnut River to be used by the employees as a short cut to the wells. June 1916, three men and two women came from Wichita in two cars loaded with beer and whiskey. They were at Ed Varner’s place talking with oil drillers who had gathered around. A man came up to them with a gun saying “Stick ‘em up”. He had to repeat the order, adding he meant business. All hands shot up in the air except the Miller woman. She thought he was kidding.
“Come on kid!” she said. “I’m not afraid of your old gun. A second time she dared him to shoot. The man grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and told her he was out for business. “Oh, to h---- with –” the woman did not get to finish her sentence. The man fired and she died almost instantly.
The other woman and J.A. Gillespie were near the swinging bridge when they heard the shot and the woman’s scream. They heard the man coming towards them after he had searched the party, further frightening them with a shot in the air. He was on them before they knew what was going on. He opened fire at the Snyder woman and the bullet struck her in the hip.
Gillespie grabbed for the gun and caught it. The holdup man first caught hold of Gillespie’s thumb with his teeth and almost severed it. Gillespie succeeded in wrenching the weapon from his hands and beat him. They man lay still and Gillespie thought he was either dead or unconscious and went for help. When he returned the man was gone.
Sheriff Newt Percell, Jim Crow and other officials were on the scene early. Bloodhounds were taken to the spot. The man was trailed to a chapel north of Rose Hill where the trail stopped. It was thought that someone gave him a lift into Wichita, and he was never apprehended. As a result of the fracas, the three men with the women were arrested and charged with white slavery and selling liquor.
One of the worst tragedies was the drowning of George Dennett on April 4, 1922. He attempted to cross the swollen Walnut River near the camp driving a horse hitched to a wagon. The bridge was under water. The south bank had washed out and when he struck that place the wagon overturned throwing Dennett and the wagon in the swift current. The strong current carried him a quarter of a mile downstream. He managed to get to get a foothold and started for shore and the men who witnessed the event were trying to get a long pole to pull him to shore. Just as he reached for the pole he slipped and disappeared into the strong current. He was later recovered. He was age 76 and employed by Empire as a teamster for three years. He was married twice and had a total of sixteen children between the two marriages.
Haskins camp remained until the mid-1930’s. When the oil was running out, most of the houses were moved and a few remained for years. Most of the land was returned to farming ground. Leases west of the Walnut River were considered Haskins Camp and leases East of the River were considered Browntown. Many reunions were held over the years as the residents wanted to keep in touch with each other and exchange pictures and not to forget their little oil town called Haskins Camp.
Sources: “Haskin’s Camp” by Roxie Olmstead, “Haskin’s Camp by Viola Dennett
Editor’s note: Thanks to Mary Baldwin for helping with the research. There is much more in-depth information about Haskin’s Camp at the museum.
The gentleman with the car is Raymond Duryea. The photo is labelled Haskin's Camp on the back, and we never knew where that was.
