Frontenac

History

Frontenac was established as a coal mining town in 1886 in the Cherokee-Crawford Coal Fields in the western Ozark Plateau. A post office was opened in Frontenac in 1887. On the night of November 9, 1888, Frontenac suffered the worst mining disaster in Kansas history, when a coal dust explosion killed 44 miners. During the last decade of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century the town was populated primarily by immigrant families from eastern and southeastern Europe, predominantly Sicilian, Italian, and Slavic people from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its maximum population neared 4,000. It housed various ethnic lodges and drinking parlors despite the state's increasingly severe ban on the distribution, sale, and manufacture of alcoholic beverages. Coal mining remained the town's occupational base until World War II, when its economy began to change, as did the entire region's.

Geography

Frontenac is located in the Cherokee Lowlands, at the western edge of the Ozarks. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Frontenac has a humid subtropical climate, abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,797
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  1,520
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,387
• Red-tailed Hawk

  Buteo jamaicensis (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  1,108
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,060
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,022
• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  975
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  968

Most recent

• M 2.8 — 2014-11-13
  5 km WNW of Prescott, Kansas
• M 3 — 2014-10-01
  9 km SSW of Galesburg, Kansas