VGI Updates

Tampa was founded on 25 April 1887 along the Santa Fe Trail.

Volga German families settled in and around Tampa, Kansas.

Volga German families settled in and around Susank.

St. Peter was founded in 1894 by Volga German families from Ellis Co., Kansas. It was originally known as Hoganville, but its name was changed to St. Peter in honor of Peter Rome who donated the land on which St. Anthony's Catholic Church was built.

The first nine Volga German families to move from Ellis County to Hoganville were led by: John Richmeier, John Brungardt, Peter A. Romme, John Ingerthron, John Peter Knoll, Nickolaus D. Dreiling, Peter Rome, and Florian Dinkel.

The town of St. Marys, Kansas, straddles the county line between Pottawatomie and Wabaunsee Counties. It was platted 8 August 1866 and officially incorporated on 8 October 1869.

St. Marys is located about 20 miles northwest of Topeka and many families from the Volga German communities in Topeka moved to St. Marys over the years.

The town of St. Francis was officially founded in 1887.  Over the years, Volga German families have relocated to St. Francis from other towns in the area.

There are also many German families from the Black Sea who settled in Cheyenne County.

Sharon Springs was originally called Eagle Tail after the name of the creek running through the townsite, and traces its beginnings to 1869 when the railroad was being constructed across Wallace County. In 1886, the name was changed to Sharon Springs after the town in Schoharie Co., New York, from which the founders came.       

Located five miles northwest of Catharine, Severin was founded by former members of the Catharine parish. It is an unincorporated area of Buckeye Township in Ellis County, Kansas. Reverend Father Severin, in whose honor the town was named, was its first pastor.

The village of Schoental was on Eagle Creek, four and one-half miles north and one and one-half miles west of what later became the site of Otis. In Russia, the colonies of Schöntal, Schönfeldt, and Shöndorf were located near one another and immigrants from those three colonies settled near each other around Otis. Schoental was a predecessor settlement of Otis that did not survive after the railroad attracted settlement to the south.

Volga German immigrants founded the town of Schönfeld (Schoenfeld) in rural Barton Co., Kansas. Today, nothing remains of this settlement except for the cemetery.

The town of Schoenchen was founded by members of St. Joseph's Parish in Liebental who wanted to move the town to a place with a better water supply. Their efforts to move the town failed, but a group relocated anyway across the line into Ellis County. Originally the town was called San Antonio, but several wanted to name it after the colony in Russia from which they had moved - either Schönchen or Neu-Ober-Monjou. As a compromise the town was called Schoenchen and the church St. Anthony's, after the parish in Neu-Ober-Monjou.

The following were founding families of Schoenchen: