Labette, a little town in Labette county, is located on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas R. R. 6 miles northwest of Oswego, the county seat. It has telegraph and express offices, a money order postoffice with one rural route, and a good local trade. The population in 1910 was 261. There have been three towns in the county by the name of Labette. The first one was located by Gilbert Martin on the banks of the Neosho in Richland township in 1866. A trading point of considerable importance sprung up at this place. The second Labette was located in Richland township, just south of Labette creek. The promoters were G. A. Cooper, R. G. Tileston, L. D. Bovee, Allen Barnes, Gilbert Martin and Isaac Butterworth, and the town was founded in 1868. It was also known as Soresco. It was supposed that it lay in the line of the proposed Missouri, Kansas & Texas R. R. The present town of Labette is located in Liberty township. It was founded in 1870 with the avowed intention of making it the county seat. The promoters were Dempsey Elliott, J. S. Waters, James H. Crichton, W. A. Hodges, John W. Homer and W. J. Conner. It absorbed the town of Neola, about a mile and a half south, at which point a postoffice had been established in 1869 with J. W. Conner as postmaster. It was changed to Labette in 1870. The railroad company owned half the land and helped promote the new town, with the result that six months after it was started the population had reached the 600 mark, and there were fifteen business houses and many residences. On failing to get the county seat a depression occurred from which the town did not recover for a number of years. A newspaper called the Labette Sentinel was published during the first two years. The first school was taught by J. L. Williams and wife, in the city hail in the winter of 1871. In this same year Capt. Anderson started a brewery which failed later. A flour mill was located on the creek in 1875 by Williams & Bowen. Many of the buildings in Labette had been moved from other little towns, and most of them were moved away when the depression occurred.