Red Hills Voices from the Past

          I am afflicted with an insatiable appetite for history. 

In past blogs, I've posted about the very ancient history of the Red Hills in describing hundred million year-old fossils from the Cretaceous Period found in sandstone and shale deposits. For this post,  I'm skipping nearly all that geologic time frame straight to the age of humans. While emphasizing the early settlers and eventual ranching culture, I offer some insight to the hardships and perseverance of early pioneers as well as some obvious joy in early living in the Kansas Outback.

     The earliest humans of the Red Hills were plains tribes who fought over the rich hunting grounds of the area. In "Empire of the Summer Moon," S. C. Gwynne describes some of the travels of the Comanches into this area. Perhaps it was one of Quanah Parker's warriors who painted these pictographs on the ceiling of one of its caves.

         A marker identifies the final resting spot of a native American just
southeast of Ashland in Clark County.

The Lodi Cemetery southeast of Medicine Lodge
  bears gravestones from some of the first white settlers
of Barber County. 

The earliest birthday found in the Lodi Cemetery. 
Some distant relative obviously replaced and updated
the original headstone. Nicely done!

                               

Dora Reaves was less than a year old and one of the
earliest burials in Lodi. Was she one of the Jewish settlers
who came to this area as well as other parts of Western Kansas
during the 1880's? Jews from the east and Europe attempted to
make livings in a land very inhospitable at the time to humans
with severe droughts, floods, and winters through the 1880s. Google
"Kansas Jewish settlements" for some very interesting history! 
And see the reference at the end of this post.

           

Many Civil War Veterans homesteaded in Kansas. J. W. Rhodes
ended up in Barber County and eventually in the Lodi Cemetery.

The extreme weather that contributed to the Jewish settlements failures also put an end to the Comanche Pool. Still standing is most of the original commissary of this organization at Evansville in Comanche County. This was an organization of ranchers who pooled their herds in the open range in the early 1880's. As many as 80,000 head were grazed through the growing season in a huge area of 4,000 square miles in primarily Barber, Comanche and Clark counties in Kansas and extending into Woods County, Oklahoma. Scan the internet for more on this amazing early day open range grazing effort and see my reference at the end.

             

Thomas and Charles Watt met violent deaths from local
open range advocates when they were carrying a load of
barbed wire across southern Barber County. These graves
are in a very remote tract of red dirt prairie.

A local resident views the last standing headstone in the Nescatunga
Cemetery southeast of Coldwater, Comanche County. Many small
communities sprang up and flourished--for a while. Then they slowly
died or were moved at the mercy of railroads, county seat battles
and many other reasons of hard living in this country.

                                   

This homestead and settlement of several structures reside on a
ranch near the Medicine River. Reports are that it was still
occupied in the 1950's.

Some locals used the accommodations of area caves to distill spirits. These are remnants of
a still from, you guessed it, Still Cave in Barber County. First settlers searched for nearby water sources to build their first shelters which were dugouts into hillsides. Many times
springs from caves were highly desirable for homestead sites. Later, after a year or two,
these pioneers might find materials for log and rock cabins.

This rock cabin was reportedly owned by a former President, probably
Calvin Coolidge as per a local resident. It's in a very remote area north of the Medicine River
in a very secluded canyon next to a spring. 

Of all the violent deaths witnessed by the Red Hills, perhaps none are as
heart-wrenching as Rosa who died fighting a wildfire.  
A thoughtful rancher friend donated this
memorial near Thompson Creek in Kiowa County.

                                             

The cowboy heritage runs deep in the red soil of the Kansas Outback.
This is a more modern day depiction of this respect in the
Sun City Cemetery.

The people and places of the Red Hills offer endless opportunity for study and adventure. Reading on-line and library research is a great way to start. Going to some of these places completes the passion. For more extensive history of the Jewish settlements and the Comanche Pool, reference http://kancoll.org/books/harris/sod_chap09.htm . (Thanks to Dennis Angle for the reference.)

Locations of some sites not available due to consideration for private property rights. The Lodi and Sun City cemeteries are both accessible.