Home > Achilles, Kansas

Over the years business in Achilles supported two general stores, including Hill General Store, a variety store, a blacksmith shop, barbershop, mechanics garage and creamery. These were lined along Main Street. These buildings are all gone. The blacksmith shop burned in 1922, and the hardware store was moved into Atwood and is used now for an antique shop. Several buildings were either moved or the wood was sold from the buildings. In about 1999 the last skeletal frame of a general store was burned, erasing all signs of Main Street. Now "Main Street" is part family garden, crop field, weeds, and overgrowth.

There were two houses actually in Achilles: Pearl (Hill) and Frank Bacon home and the Fields house. The Fields house remains; the Bacon home was moved. Off of Main Street stood a Methodist church, later moved to Atwood and used for a home. Also off Main Street stood the Achilles one-room schoolhouse, which is still standing and used for community events. Nearby Achilles Cemetery acknowledges many of the pioneers who settled the area.

In 1993 Achilles was still marked on Kansas State maps, but by 2001 it was no longer acknowledged on newly published maps.

Trivia

• Belle Starr's ex-husband hid out in a cave in the bluffs for a time
• Ancient rhinoceros fossilFor other uses of the term, see Fossil (disambiguation Fossils are the mineralized remains of animals or plants or other artifacts such as footprints. The totality of fossils and their placement in rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fos have been found in the area
• Two men, Henry Hill and Charlie Peeples , killed in a gunfight with each other, were buried in nearby Achilles Cemetery
• The last buffaloA buffalo is one of several species of bovine. It includes the Asian genus Bubalus among which are the water buffalo, the anoa and the tamaraw, and the African genus Syncerus most famous member of which is the Cape buffalo. The word buffalo is also often seen in the area was in about 1878Events January Cleopatra's Needle arrives in London January 9 Humbert I becomes King of Italy January 23 Disraeli orders British fleet to Dardanelles January 28 The Yale News becomes the first daily, college newspaper in the United States. January 31 Turk.