De Soto is a city in Johnson and Leavenworth counties in the U.S. state of Kansas, and part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 6,118. De Soto was incorporated as a city on October 1, 1897.

De Soto was part of a large territory extending to present-day St. Louis that was occupied by the Osage people, who were relocated from east of the Mississippi River in the upper Midwest. After the Treaty of St Louis in 1825, the Shawnee were forcibly relocated from Cape Girardeau to southeastern Kansas near the Neosho River. Only the Black Bob band of Shawnee resisted removal, however by 1828 they too migrated west and settled in northeastern Kansas in and around De Soto along the Kansas River. Later in the 19th century, many cultures of Native Americans arrived in the area after being pushed west by European-American pressure following colonial expansion and later the discovery of Gold in 1849. Between 1829-1854 almost thirty tribes were assigned reservations in what would become Kansas Territory. The Shawnee Methodist Mission was built in the De Soto area to minister to the tribe. A reserve was established in Kansas and soon other Shawnee from as far east as Ohio would join the reservation. The Agency of the Shawnee Indians, also known as Lexington, was located on the southern edge of the city.

The city of De Soto was platted in the spring of 1857, named for sixteenth-century Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. In 1858, John Possum, a Shawnee man, and Hattie Possum sold 80 acres (32 ha) to John F. Legate, S. Todd and Stratton and Williams for $1,200. The next sale was 80 acres to the De Soto Town Company in July 1861 for $1,176. Major James B. Abbot is remembered as one of the town’s pioneer landowners and the builder of Abbot Hall. Today, Abbot Hall is one of two town museums.

With the construction of the 9,080-acre (3,670 ha) Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant south of De Soto, the city’s population boomed in the early 1940s during World War II. In May 1943, a Kansas City Star article reported “a town rapidly growing, with a population increase from 400 to 1,000 persons in under a year.” This sudden overflow in population put a great strain on housing and other resources in the city; however, many original residents prospered during this time, buying property and starting new businesses. Production flowed steadily at the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant until the plant went on standby in March 1948, with small-scale production following shortly after until its closure in 1993.

In 1943, nearby Sunflower Village was built to house workers for nearby Sunflower Ordnance Works. The west side “Old Village” had 853 dwellings in 1943, and the east side “New Village” had 580 pre-fab units that was completed by 1945. Housing, a school and traffic were filled and overflowing. Highway 10, the main street which is now currently 83rd Street. As people came in, it was getting harder to find room and places to room, bored and to dwell in, to a point that people were living in the chicken house and sleeping under quilts on the ground where the current Scout House is sitting on Wea Street. It was so unbearable that rooms that were rented out “by the shift” that other people were bring in trailers and tents. In 1955, the housing units transferred to Sunflower Ordnance Worker (SOW), then sold to private buyers. In 1961, Sunflower was sold to Quick Way Homes and renamed as Clearview City. In 1998, Clearview City was annexed by the city of De Soto, boosting the city’s population by 339 people.

In mid-July 1951, heavy rains led to a great rise of water in the Kansas River and other surrounding areas of the central United States, known as the Great Flood of 1951. De Soto, along the south side of the river, was severely damaged. The river crest at De Soto was 42.3 feet (12.9 m), the highest recorded on the Kansas River during the flood. Most of the downtown area was completely flooded, with over 4 feet (1.2 m) of standing water in some places.

Since the 2008 recession came to an end, growth in De Soto has steadily picked up, with substantial commercial development in the K-10 Business District.

The number of single-family building permits approved each year has more than tripled in the past decade, with 61 homes constructed in 2019, the city’s all-time record for housing starts. In 2019, the Kansas City Star reported that De Soto was, and is expected to remain the fastest-growing city in the Kansas City metro area.

After the closure of the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant in 1993, plans for potential development of the 15.5 square-mile lot south of De Soto began to make rounds around locals, plans for an Oz Entertainment amusement park consumed seven futile years, after which the land was transferred to the Sunflower Redevelopment Group in 2005. At that time, about 3,700 acres were transferred clean, but much of that land was targeted for open space, buffer and parkland. Another plan that was set to open in 2002 was the newly announced Kansas Speedway and Kansas City Wizards stadiums. Recently, a master use plan has been adopted by the cities of Olathe, De Soto, Johnson County, the State of Kansas and Sunflower Redevelopment Group. The master plan calls for high density housing, major commercial zoning, a “downtown” area for offices, high density commercial and civic uses, and land promised to The University of Kansas, Kansas State University and the City of De Soto, as well as land being reserved for the army reserves, parks and other public spaces. However, the cleanup is expected to be completed by 2038. Recently, The Kansas City Star reported that Kansas state lawmakers urged the acceleration of cleanup efforts of the lot and announced that the northeastern portion of the plant, closest to De Soto, would be ready for light commercial and industrial development by 2020.

Two local corporations, Great American Bank and Custom Foods, Inc., and one national corporation, Goodcents Deli Fresh Subs, are headquartered in De Soto. Huhtamaki Americas, Inc. and Engineered Air, two international enterprises, chose De Soto for their North American headquarters. In addition, Merck Animal Health, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of animal health supplies, selected De Soto for one of its four U.S. manufacturing facilities. Rehrig Pacific, a plastics manufacturer, chose De Soto to house their Midwestern U.S. operations. In 2019, Biodesix, a lung cancer research company, opened a testing and research laboratory in De Soto.

as of January 2020, the largest employers in the city are:

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