Wathena, Kansas.
Typical home $184,077 (+10.9% in a year). St. Joseph, MO-KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$584 (+153%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $18,102 +11%
- $165,974$184,077 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $57,912 +46%
- $126,164$184,077 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Wathena$966
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Wathena, KS rose 10.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Wathena, Doniphan County, Kansas
Wathena is a city of 1,246 people in Doniphan County. Half its households earn more than $87,222 a year and half less, against $74,028 across Doniphan County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 84% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 16% are rented. Unemployment in Doniphan County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Doniphan County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Wathena is a small city where most homes are lived in by their owners, and the share is higher than in many towns of its size. Residents are older than in most of the country, and household incomes run above the county's, with relatively few people living below the poverty line. Homes here are typically priced modestly, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and farming also employing many. Across Doniphan County, some of the largest workplaces are Highland Community College, Snorkel and Elanco Elwood. The county has added jobs over the past year, though unemployment has edged up a little, and the typical trip to work is fairly short.
Things to do. Lake Contrary is in or beside town, and the Pony Express Museum and the Glore Psychiatric Museum are each a short drive away. Lewis and Clark State Park, a protected area, is a longer drive. Winters are cold, summers are warm, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
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- 614households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What people in Doniphan County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Doniphan County had 2,817 jobs in 2025, 1.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 17°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 67°. About 35 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the St. Joseph Rosecrans Airport weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Doniphan County
- Highland Community CollegeTwo-year college343
- SnorkelConstruction machinery manufacturing141
- Elanco ElwoodPharmaceutical preparations manufacturing136
- KGE Industries135
- M CONWater main and line construction111
- Riverside SchoolsSchool district81FTE
- Doniphan West SchoolsSchool district56FTE
- Midland Steel CompanyStructural steel, fabricated, manufacturing53
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 694 people in all across the county; Wathena has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- TornadoesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Wathena’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Doniphan County and the St. Joseph, MO-KS metro.
Wathena home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Wathena$184,077
- Kansas$246,055
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Wathena6
Zip codes with a Wathena address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Wathena — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Wathena
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 66087 | Troy | 2,027 | — | $172,392 |
| 66024 | Elwood | 815 | — | $112,238 |