In Summer 1871, J. B. Corbett and Valentine Harbaugh, leaders of a place from Ohio, created Bunker Hill at a place on the Kansas Pacific Railway. The settlement was named after a Butterfield Overland Despatch station, built in 1865. That station was at the place before Bunker Hill was. County commissioners said Bunker Hill was the county seat in 1872. Two years later, a popular vote moved the seat to nearby Russell. Many Bunker Hill residents moved there too. This made it hard for the town to grow. By 1883, a small business community grew, including a hotel, flour mill, and several shops.