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Antonino Town and Post Office

Address: Antonino Rd. & 210 Ave.
Antonino, KS

About this Exploration:

By the 1890s and 1900s, more Catholic German-Russians from Munjor bought land and started farms in Lookout Township. Travel across the pastures and prairies to weekly church services in Munjor grew difficult, and so local landowners donated twenty acres for a new townsite, with five of those for church use.

Founded 1905, Antonino was named for St. Anthony and began as a daughter village of Munjor, several miles to the east. By the 1920s, Antonino had 50 to 60 homes, a union-owned store, a post office, two schools, a church and convent, and a dance hall and tavern. Though it never incorporated, Antonino was home to a thriving community known for its talented musicians and devout people unified by faith. Rural families kept small houses in Antonino for winter use, elders' retirement, and for children to be proximate to school. After World War II, the town got a modern facelift as older homes were torn down or moved and were replaced by newer houses. As the advent of automobiles made transportation easier and fewer families lived on farms, Antonino gradually lost population.

The former post office, located diagonally from the church, rests on lots where men once gathered to get mail, shop at the union store, converse about the weather, and share information about relatives in Munjor and back in Russia. The post office building, opened in 1950, once housed a gasoline station and candy store. Since its closing in 1981, it has been privately-owned property.