Two miles west is Troy, named for the famous city of Greek antiquity. Following the organization of Doniphan county in 1855 Troy was named the county seat and business began there in 1856. Initially it played a secondary role to such Missouri river towns as Elwood (across from St. Joseph MO), Iowa Point and White Cloud, but the coming of the railroad in 1869 made it more important than those communities which depended on the river for their economic life.
Presidential aspirant Abraham Lincoln provided a noteworthy day for Troy early in December, 1859, when he spoke on issues of national politics and the slavery question. In 1860-1861 the city was a station on an alternate route of the Pony Express which began in St. Joseph.
In 1872 Sol Miller, one of Kansas' most outspoken newspaper editors, moved his Kansas Chief, founded at White Cloud in 1857, to Troy. Miller's writing, uninhibited even for that day, frequently left his friends chortling and his victims fuming.
Among nationally prominent persons once a part of this community were C. J. "Buffalo" Jones, who in the 1880's helped save the buffalo from extinction, and Charles E. Whitaker, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1957-1962, whose birthplace was seven miles southwest of this marker.
Taken from a historical marker east of Troy, Kansas |
The Doniphan County Courthouse is undergoing renovations. 
