MEDICINE LODGE PEACE TREATIES At Medicine Lodge Creek in 1867, as many as 15,000 Apaches, Kiowas, Comanches, Arapahos, and Cheyennes gathered with a seven-member peace commission escorted by...
FORT ZARAH To protect commerce on the Santa Fe Trail, the U.S. government established a line of forts from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Dodge. Fort Zarah, built here along Walnut Creek in 1863,...
PAWNEE ROCK We first rode nearly north about a mile to a remarkable Rocky Point . . .We rode upon the top which is probably 50 feet above the plain below, and from whence there is a charming view...
FORT SCOTT This western outpost, named for General Winfield Scott, was established by U. S. Dragoons in 1842. The fort was located on the military road that marked the 'permanent Indian...
FIRST REA PROJECT IN KANSAS At this site the first power pole for the Brown-Atchison Electric Cooperative was dedicated in special ceremony on November 10, 1937. Brown-Atchison was the first rural...
BLUESTEM PASTURE REGION This is one of the largest parcels of native grassland in Kansas. It is known popularly as the Flint Hills or the Bluestem prairies. For many centuries it belonged to...
TOWANDA - LAND OF MANY WATERS The town and township lie tucked in the pleasant valley of the Whitewater River, and take their name from the Osage Indian term 'many waters.' First settler was C. L....
CHASE COUNTY AND THE BLUESTEM PASTURE REGION OF KANSAS The vast prairie which surrounds this site is typical of the Bluestem pasture region more commonly known as the Flint Hills. Named for...
A LANDMARK OF DISTINCTION Cottonwood Falls has been the Chase county seat since both town and county were established in 1859. The first log cabin courthouse was replaced in 1873 by this stately...
BAXTER SPRINGS MASSACRE On October 6, 1863, Gen. James Blunt and about 100 men were met near Baxter's springs by William Quantrill and several hundred Confederates masquerading as Union troops. As...
BIG BASIN This marker stands within a geologic feature known as the Big Basin, which is a sinkhole or 'sink' about a mile in diameter and more than a hundred feet deep. Although it has...
CHEROKEE OUTLET The Cherokee Outlet or Strip south of here was opened to a land rush in 1893. This tract of land was 60 miles wide and stretched along the Kansas-Oklahoma border. Due to...
THE LEGEND OF GREENBUSH According to legend, in 1869, Father Phillip Colleton was caught at this site by a furious hail and thunderstorm. The frightened priest took refuge under his saddle...
DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER The 34th president of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower, grew up in Dickinson County. His parents, David and Ida Eisenhower, moved to Hope, about 10 miles west...
HISTORIC ABILENE At the end of the Civil War when millions of longhorns were left on the plains of Texas without a market, the Union Pacific was building west across Kansas. Joseph McCoy,...
ELWOOD Elwood, first called Roseport, was established in 1856. In its heyday scores of river steamboats unloaded passengers and freight at its wharves and every 15 minutes ferry boats crossed to...
TROY Two miles west is Troy, named for the famous city of Greek antiquity. Following the organization of Doniphan county in 1855 Troy was named the county seat and business began there in 1856....
BALDWIN Here, and for the next 300 miles west, Highway 56 roughly follows the old Santa Fe trail, and frequently crosses it. White settlement began in this area in 1854, the year Kansas became...
BATTLE OF BLACK JACK The 'battle' was part of the struggle to make Kansas a free state. In May, 1856, Proslavery men destroyed buildings and newspaper presses in Lawrence, Free-State headquarters....
LAWRENCE Lawrence was established in 1854 by the Emigrant Aid Company, a New England organization formed to prevent the new Kansas territory from becoming a slave state. When the first...