For many millennia, the Great Plains of North America was inhabited by nomadic Native Americans.

In 1803, the United States acquired much of the West and most of the land for modern-day Kansas as part of the 828,000-square mile Louisiana Purchase, at a cost of 2.83 cents per acre.

The preceding years had been filled with violence as settlers arrived on both sides of the slavery question; the residents voting for Kansas to enter as a free state were the majority.

[5] In the early 20th century, Crawford County was often referred to as the "Little Balkans", because of the many immigrants who came here from that area of Europe.

This area was the site of a number of illegal bootlegging operations, most of which were organized by immigrants in order to supplement their meager earnings as strip miners.

During his term, Governor Walter R. Stubbs of Kansas made it his mission to stamp out this practice.

[6][7] According to the criminal justice scholar Ken Peak, "The [Little] Balkans drove [Stubbs] absolutely nuts.

[7] On Sunday, May 4, 2003, a violent F4 tornado touched down in western Crawford County, several miles west of Frontenac at around 4:40 p.m.

As recently as 2008 it was carried by Barack Obama, being the only county he ever won between the urban limits of Dallas, Little Rock, Denver and Kansas City.

However, like all of the region it has shown a strong anti-Democratic trend in recent years, with Hillary Clinton's 34.91% – though more than she achieved in any rural white southern county – being the worst by a Democrat since 1924.

† means a community is designated a Census-Designated Place (CDP) by the United States Census Bureau.

The cities of Frontenac, Girard, Mulberry, and Pittsburg are considered governmentally independent and are excluded from the census figures for the townships.