Some Robinson History
contributed by Denise Weibling Phillips

"Prior to 1860, Robinson was a part of the vast, unbroken prairie, sparsely settled by the hardy pioneers," wrote Virginia McCauley in a history of Robinson -- printed in the Robinson Index (newspaper) in 1938.

The settlers' cabins were located along the stream and their cattle grazed with the deer. Wood was scarce and valuable, there were troublesome Indians around and the slavery question provoked raids and robberies.

A store owned by the Pound brothers supplied gold seekers on their way to California. A schoolhouse/church was built in 1860, and a blacksmith shop (operated by Mr. Cheal) and a post office (H.O. McCauley, postmaster) appeared the following year. Sam Wade built a hotel about 1865. The town was named "Robinson" in honor of the first Governor of Kansas. It has also been recorded the town was named after a Dr. Robinson.

Incorporators of the Robinson Town Company were George S. Parks, O.H. McCauley, Ira H. Smith, J.P. McCauley and Albert D. Richardson.

Richardson attained national prominence during the Civil War, when as a war correspondent for the New York Tribune he was captured and imprisoned in a Confederate military prison. He escaped by bribing a guard, and later wrote a widely-read book, Seventeen Months in Dixie. He was reported killed in New York City by an "outraged husband."

The town of Robinson began on the hill south of the present townsite. When the Atchison, Topeka & Pike's Peak Railroad built a line from St. Joseph to Marysville, the town moved three-quarters of a mile to relocate near the tracks.

Like most towns, Robinson suffered several major fires. The most devestating occured in 1882 when a clerk named Baldwin dropped a match in the cellar of the Coon Meisenheimer store. Only one store and two houses in the business district survived this fire. In April 1924, a fire destroyed a large portion of the town's business district. At a later date, an elevator burned.