Larned, the county seat of Pawnee county, is located northeast of the center of the county on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and the Missouri Pacific railroads, and at the confluence of the Pawnee and the Arkansas rivers. Its altitude is 2,002 feet. It is in the wheat belt of the state and is the trading and shipping point for a large agricultural and stock raising section. There are several blocks of substantial business houses, 2 newspapers (the Tiller and Toiler and the Chronoscope), 3 banks with a combined capital of $125,000 and deposits amounting to over $850,000, a fine city hall, an opera house, a hospital, a city park, waterworks, electricity for lighting and power, a fire department, a sewer system, all the leading church denominations, a creamery, 2 flour mills, a foundry, several grain elevators, etc. The city is supplied with telegraph and express offices and has an international money order postoffice with four rural routes. The population, according to the census of 1910, was 2,911, a gain of 1,328 since 1900.

Larned was founded in 1873. A newspaper called the Larned Press was established by W. C. Tompkinson in that year. A number of new additions in the next five years marked the growth of the town. In less than ten years it was an incorporated city of the third class with about 50 business establishments.