Junction City

History

Junction City is so named from its position at the confluence of the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers, which forms the Kansas River. In 1854, Andrew J. Mead of New York of the Cincinnati-Manhattan Company, Free Staters connected to the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company planned a community there called Manhattan (there was also a discussion to call it New Cincinnati). When the steamship Hartford delivering the immigrants could not reach the community because of low water on the Kansas River, the Free Staters settled 20 miles east in what today is Manhattan, Kansas. The community was renamed Millard City for Captain Millard of the Hartford on October 3, 1855. It was renamed briefly Humboldt in 1857 by local farmers and renamed again later that year to Junction City. It was formally incorporated in 1859. Among Junction City's residents is film director Kevin Wilmott, whose movies, including Ninth Street, are set in Junction City. Ninth Street specifically refers to a bawdy area of the community that was frequented by Fort Riley soldiers in the 1960s. In the 1980s a major initiative was undertaken to clean up the Ninth St. area. Timothy McVeigh rented the Ryder truck he used in the Oklahoma City bombing from an auto body shop in Junction City.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. The maximum temperature reaches an average of 45.9 days per year and reaches an average of 6.4 days per year. The minimum temperature falls below the freezing point an average of 121.8 days per year. }}

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  791
• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  754
• Red-tailed Hawk

  Buteo jamaicensis (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  672
• Turkey Vulture

  Cathartes aura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  634
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  505
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  464
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  437
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  429