A Railroad Put Hamlin Six Miles From Neinda

Neinda began as a ranching settlement called Banner soon after Jones County organized in 1881. Its post office opened under the name Neinda in 1890, and a cemetery followed in 1891. Then the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway bypassed the community in 1902 and created Hamlin six miles northwest.

Hamlin's townsite started with 320 acres conveyed for the planned rail line. The town organized in 1905, and the railway arrived in 1906. By autumn 1908, more than 1,000 people lived there. Cotton compresses, gins, an oil mill, a grain elevator, an ice plant, and other businesses made Hamlin a shipping center.

Neinda did not vanish at once. In the 1920s it still had two churches, a school, a cotton gin, a doctor's office, pharmacies, stores, and a filling station. By the early 2000s, the cemetery, a 1905 church building, and Brown's Cash Store remained. Six miles and one set of tracks had produced two very different futures.