Exhibits
El Quartelejo Museum and Jerry Thomas Gallery and Collection
Maria DeGeer
It was a woman, Maria DeGeer, who founded Scott City. She and her daughter, Ida Eastman, were the first permanent settlers in Scott County.
They arrived in 1884, and with their own hands dug the four-cornered foundation of their claim house. Marie DeGeer, a widow from Chicago, was a remarkable woman. She was a writer, a feminist, a newspaper woman, and the first woman admitted to the Kansas Bar Association.
DeGeer was a strong advocate of the Temperance Movement. She came to this area looking for a place to build a model community, with no taverns and no brothels. She organized the first Town Company, and helped lay out the town.