Belle Plaine, an incorporated city of the third class in Sumner county, is located on the Ninnescah river at the junction of the Missouri Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads, 12 miles northeast of Wellington, the county seat. The population in 1910 was 849, a gain of 298 during the preceding ten years. Belle Plaine has two banks, a weekly newspaper (the News), good public schools, flour and planing mills, churches of the leading Protestant denominations, an opera house, telegraph and express offices, a telephone exchange, and is an important shipping point and trading center. From its international money order postoffice three rural delivery routes supply mail to the surrounding country.