DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker for Neinda Community in Jones County is the source of what I'm about to tell you, and it's a story worth the telling. Now, west of Skinout Mountain — and yes, that is the actual name, and no, I won't rush past it — west of that mountain, not long after Jones County organized in 1881, ranchers started putting down roots. They called their little settlement Banner.
A good, confident name for a place that had ambitions. Then came 1890, and with it a post office. The name changed to Neinda, and a man named John O'Brien took the job of postmaster.
The following year, 1891, a cemetery opened. Communities do that — they plant their dead before they've finished planning their living. Neinda was building toward something.
And then, in 1902, the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway came through the county. Came through — and kept right on going. The railroad bypassed the town, and six miles to the northwest, Hamlin rose up instead.
That's the kind of thing that has a way of changing the math on a community's future. The post office held on for a few more years, then closed in 1907. But here's where the story takes a turn you might not expect.
Neinda didn't fold. Not right away. By the nineteen-twenties, the place was running at full stride — a school, Methodist and Baptist churches, a cotton gin, a doctor's office, pharmacies, stores, and a filling station.
That is not a ghost town. That is a town. Only time has a longer memory than a railroad bypass.
By the early twenty-first century, three things remained standing in Neinda: the cemetery, which dates to 1891 and outlasted nearly everything else; the Neinda Baptist Church building, put up in 1905; and Brown's Cash Store Building, built in 1927. Three structures holding the outline of a place that once had every intention of lasting. West of Skinout Mountain, the land remembers Banner.
The marker remembers Neinda. And now, so do you.
What the marker says
Soon after Jones County organized in 1881, ranchers settled west of Skinout Mountain and established a community called Banner. In 1890, a post office named Neinda opened, with John O'Brien as postmaster. A cemetery began the following year. The Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway bypassed the town in 1902 (creating Hamlin 6 mi. NW), and the post office closed in 1907. At its peak in the 1920s, the community had a school, Methodist and Baptist churches, a cotton gin, a doctor's office, pharmacies, stores and a filling station. By the early 21st century, only the cemetery (1891), Neinda Baptist Church building (1905) and Brown's Cash Store Building (1927) remained in the once viable town. (2007)