Budgetown

Located on Short Creek just a mile or so west of the Missouri state line, Galena, Kansas, sprang up in the spring of 1877 as a booming lead mining town. Like most towns founded as mining camps, Galena, during its early years, was a wild, raucous place where whiskey flowed freely. A prohibition law that went into effect in Kansas in January 1881 put a damper on the liquor trade in Galena, as all ten of the town's saloons quickly went out of business. However, the new law couldn't slake the rowdy miners' thirst for liquor, and two enterprising saloon keepers found a way around the new law.
They simply moved a mile east and started a new town on the state line of Missouri, where liquor was legal. The original idea was to start a regular town where people would want to live, but that idea never quite got off the ground. Instead, the town became just a place for the miners to go and raise hell, and it mainly consisted of just a couple of saloons. At least one of the buildings, called a "double building," actually straddled the border, with the saloon portion in Missouri and the Kansas portion serving as a gambling hall, since gambling was still legal in the sunflower state but not in Missouri.
Officially named Dubuque, the new town became known as Budgetown or Budgeville, because "budge" was a slang term for liquor in the Old West. From the very beginning, Budgetown had a bad reputation, and the respectable citizens of Galena looked upon their new rival with disdain. Commenting on the new town in March of 1881, the Galena Miner suggested that the "b" in Dubuque be changed to a "p," and the name of the town would then "be about correct." A couple of months later, a resident of Neosho, Missouri, traveled to Galena and reported back to his hometown newspaper, the Miner and Mechanic, that there was not a drop of liquor to be found in Galena but that a new town named Budge had sprung up on the state line and the "eyes and feet of the thirsty Short Creekers turn that way as the sunflower expands its charms into the sun."
In late May 1881, just a week or so after the Neosho resident's visit, the Galena Miner gave its readers an update on Budgeville. According to the newspaper, the new town had failed to prosper as its founders had envisioned, and it was generally very dull. However, "There are seasons when there are wild times," the newspaperman allowed. The rural residents in the vicinity of Budgetown regularly complained to law enforcement of the indiscriminate discharge of firearms in and around the town, and they lived in fear that they might be hit by a stray bullet. The Miner concluded by reiterating that Budgetown as a business enterprise was a complete failure and would continue to be so as long as the sole object of those inhabiting the town was to "drink whisky and play cards."
 
Despite the negative publicity Budgetown received almost from its beginning, rumors persisted in the spring of 1881 that the new town on the border was booming and already had a population numbering as high as 2,000. In early June, the Miner once again felt called upon to dispel the rumors. The editor assured his readers that the only place in Budgetown where a person could buy groceries had recently closed and that there was nothing left in the town that was in the least attractive to anyone except those who desired to "get where they have almost unrestrained license. Budgetown will never be a place where men will want to take their families."
The Miner editor was right. Budgetown remained little more than a place to drink and raise hell for the next few years. In early 1884, Joe Thornton, whose brother ran a grocery store in Galena, took charge of the only remaining business in Budgetown, a "double building" straddling the state line. Unlike his brother, Joe had developed an unsavory reputation, and it didn't take him long to start getting into trouble again once he removed to the state line. His troubles culminated in the summer of 1885 when he shot and killed a Joplin city policeman and was hanged by a mob later the same evening. You can read more about Joe Thornton in by book Wicked Joplin. I also have another book in the works about notorious incidents in Jasper County history, and one chapter of that book will detail Thornton's noted criminal career.
Budgetown was still shown on maps as late as 1895 under its official name of Dubuque. It was located on the state line between present-day Seventh Street and Old Route 66, in the general area where the Phillips 66 State Line convenience store and gas station is situated.