Labette County Courthouse ~ Oswego, KS
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 37° 09.912 W 095° 06.448
15S E 312880 N 4115278
Pierre Labette was an early trader in southeast Kansas; a creek was named for him. Later, the county was named for the creek.
The early history of Labette County was marred by a mysterious and murderous family named Bender.
Waymark Code: WMA8B7
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 12/01/2010
Views: 2
The Bloody Benders
On the high prairie a mile northwest, beyond the nearby Mounds which bear the name, the Bender family ~ John, his wife, son, and daughter Kate ~ in 1871 built a small house. Partitioned in two rooms by a canvas cloth it had a table, stove and grocery shelves in front. In back were beds, a sledge hammer and a trap door above a pit-like cellar. Kate a self- proclaimed healer and spiritualist and reported to be a beautiful, voluptuous girl with tigerish grace, was the leading spirit of her murderous family.
The house was located on the main road. Travelers stopping for a meal were seated on a bench backed tight against the canvas. In the next two years several disappeared. When suspicions were finally aroused, in 1873, the Benders fled. A search of their property disclosed eleven bodies buried in the garden, skulls crushed by hammer blows through the canvass.
The end of the Benders is not known. The earth seemed to swallow them, as it had their victims.
Legally organized in 1867. County seat, Oswego. Originally part of Dorn county after Colonel Earl Van Dorn, of the regular army (he was also a Confederate officer), but changed from Dorn to Neosho in 1861 after name of the principal river in southern Kansas. Labette county has a peculiar history, not generally known, or at least not found in the books. Prior to the summer of 1866 all that part (and being the south half) of Neosho county, now comprising Labette, was sparsely populated. In the spring of 1866 there was a great rush of immigration to that locality, and the new settlers proceeded to organize a government of their own. They gave the name Labette (then writen La Bette), and called a convention, nominated a full set of county officers, and a representative to the State Legislature, and elected them at the November election, and started a county government--for all of which no authority of law whatever existed. The "Representative" so elected was Charles H. Bent, who reported at Topeka with a petition, "signed by John G. Rice and 224 other citizens of Labette county," asking that Mr. Bent be admitted to a seat in the House. He was admitted, and afterwards submitted a Bill to "organize and define the boundaries of Labette county," which passed, and was approved the 7th of February, 1867. The word La Bette is French, and signifies "the beet."