The A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) Church formed in Nicodemus in 1879 and met in different buildings until they obtained this building from the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in 1910, which had built it in 1885. The A.M.E. Church worshipped here until around the 1950s when it closed due to a declining congregation. The restored building is open to the public during site business hours.
The First Baptist Church was the first church in Nicodemus, organized in 1878 by Reverend Silas Lee. The congregation met in private residences, a sod church, and a smaller limestone church until this building was built in 1907. The First Baptist Church served not only as a religious meeting place, but also a community building. The congregation built a new church north of this building in 1975 and are still active in Nicodemus.
Nicodemus is the longest-lasting black homesteader colony in America. In 1877 six black entrepreneurs in Topeka joined with a local white developer to form the Nicodemus Town Company. They located their town in the Solomon River valley in north-central Kansas. Most who stayed filed homestead claims. By 1899 they had received 114 homestead patents, making them owners of 18,126 acres. Nicodemus still stands as a small village and is designated as a National Historic Site.
The remains of the only remaining western town established by African Americans during the Reconstruction Period following the Civil War are preserved today as Nicodemus National Historic Site.
Nicodemus residents saw education as foundational to their community and organized School District No. 1 in 1879, the first in Graham County. After the previous 1887 schoolhouse burned down in 1916, the District No. 1 Schoolhouse was built in 1918 and used by the district until it closed in the early 1960s.
The St. Francis Hotel has lived many lives: first as a place of business operated by early settlers Zachary and Jenny Fletcher, then as private residence and restaurant of the Switzer family. The original two-story limestone structure was built in 1881 and was a successful hotel in Nicodemus. The Switzer family bought the building in 1921 and built several additions while they lived there.
Built from 1937-1939 as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project with local limestone, the Nicodemus Township Hall has served as a central meeting place for the community for decades. Representing the pillar of self-determination in African American communities, this building hosted everything from voting and township meetings to dances and roller-skating. It currently houses the site's visitor center.
