Profile of Cheney

The City of Cheney is a growing and vibrant town located just 20 minutes west of Wichita, the largest city in Kansas. Cheney's proximity to Wichita offers all the advantages of a large city while still maintaining a comfortable small-town atmosphere.

The 1990s growth in the Wichita area included Cheney, which has seen several new housing developments go up and a new high school opened in 1996. New businesses opened while others expanded. Today Cheney's business community includes restaurants, convenience stores, a grocery store, car dealership, golf course, and much more. Products ranging from clothing to airplane parts, farm supplies to financial services are available from Cheney businesses. Health services include a doctor's office, dentist's office, chiropractor and a pharmacy.

Cheney and the surrounding area are home to well over 2,200 people. Life in Cheney offers many opportunities to stay busy, with sports leagues for children and adults, classes and personal enrichment opportunities through the Cheney Recreation Commission, a community theater, public library, municipal pool, bowling alley, and more. Cheney is home to the traditional midwestern events like the Sedgwick County Fair and the Western Sedgwick County Arena Saddle Club annual rodeo.

The quiet, relaxed pace is popular with families raising children. Crime is almost non-existent, with rates far below that of large cities like Wichita and national averages. Homes are affordable, with buyers able to get more for their money. The tax base has remained steady while the community has been able to build and expand its schools, remodel a downtown building for a new city hall, build a new water tower and a first-class golf course, and continually promote business and residential growth.

More information:

Population and Household Statistics

Building permits issued

 

History

Like many midwestern towns, Cheney owes its birth and early development to the railroads. Chartered in 1883, the town was named for Benjamin Price Cheney, a railroad official.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Cheney had a very self-sufficient local economy. Businesses included several general stores, hardware stores, competing banks, a hotel, shoe store, photographers and a furniture store, plus an undertaker, coal yard and harness shop. Of course, some of these types of businesses are no longer around anywhere. Others have moved into the malls and shopping centers of big cities and their suburbs and are hard to find in any town the size of Cheney.

New types of businesses have sprouted up, catering to the needs of towns that are often referred to as "bedroom communities." Although many Cheney residents do work and shop in Wichita, Cheney has seen its business community evolve to meet the needs of its residents. Other businesses still thrive as they did a hundred years ago. The doctor's office, grocery store, farm supply, coop, and newspaper still offer many of the same essential services they did last century.

To read a history of early Cheney, written in the early 1900s, click here.

 

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