What 'Olathe' Actually Means, and Why It Fits a City Full of Original Hardwood

When founder John T. Barton rode out onto the wildflower-covered prairie here in 1857, he reportedly asked a Shawnee interpreter for the word for "beautiful" — and that word, Olathe, became the town's name. Two years later it became the Johnson County seat, and it's now grown into the fourth-most-populous city in the entire Kansas City metro. What doesn't always keep pace with that growth is renovation: a real share of homes built near that original 1857-era downtown core still have their first set of oak floors, sometimes carpeted over decades ago and never revisited. If you're in one of those older neighborhoods, a quick check under the current flooring, see our refinishing page for what that inspection looks like, is worth doing before assuming replacement is the only option.