Arkalon was founded in 1888 at the Cimarron River crossing of the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway, part of the Rock Island, as one of many Kansas towns established in hopes of becoming a railroad center. With cheap town lots, hundreds of people arrived, but deep sand hindered horse-drawn freight and the town never became a profitable marketing point. Although large stockyards sustained it for years, most of its population had gone by the 1920s. The railroad, hampered by a hairpin curve and repeated flooding on the Cimarron that badly damaged equipment and freight, rerouted several miles of track from the town in 1939 to use a bridge built there in Seward County, Kansas. Known as the Samson of the Cimarron, the 1269-foot bridge was regarded as an engineering marvel and helped speed Southwestern commerce to its destination while leaving Arkalon to oblivion. Thirteen miles southwest, Liberal was established on the railroad in 1888 and became the Seward County seat in 1892.