Blair

Blair is a farming community on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line and Farm Road 126, four miles southwest of Merkel in northwestern Taylor County. The area was settled in the 1890s, and in 1897 it became the center of school district number 32, which included the schools of Patterson and Center Point. In 1904 these schools were consolidated as Blair school, named for Watt Blair, a prominent member of the community. The next year a post office was opened, and in 1910 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe built through the community. The school was moved closer to the tracks soon after the railroad came through. A new two-story schoolhouse was built a few years later; it was also used for Baptist, Methodist and Church of Christ services. By 1914 Blair had telephone service and two general stores, a grocer, and a population of fifty. The population declined to twenty-five in the 1920s, and the post office closed in 1926. Blair's fortunes picked up in the 1930s, and its population had increased to 125 by 1940, when it also had two churches, a school, and eight businesses. The school consolidated with the Merkel system in 1944, and by the 1950s the population was once again estimated at about fifty. From 1968 through 2000 Blair had an estimated twenty-five inhabitants. Its last store closed in 1975, and the train station was also shut down. In 1984 the community consisted of a few scattered dwellings. During the early 1990s the annual Blair Reunion was still being held each October; however, like almost everything else of Blair, the reunion had been moved to nearby Merkel.