Kaw Misson Lecture Series Features SFTA Speakers

The seventh program in the Kaw Mission Councils 2007 educational program series, Our Fabulous Flint Hills: Flora, Fauna, Flint, Fire, Folks & Facts will feature Clive Siegle, presenting “They Would Destroy All the Game They Could": The Flint Hills and the Great Kansas Buffalo Hunt. The program will be presented at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at the Kaw Mission State Historic Site in Council Grove, Kansas. All Kaw Mission Council 2007 programs are free and open to the public.

Dr. Siegle will discuss the impact of the Great Kansas Buffalo Hunt on the Flint Hills during the 1800s. Lying at the eastern edge of the Great Plains buffalo range, the Flint Hills hunts were a dress rehearsal for the ecological catastrophe to come, as both Anglo and Indian hunters began to compete for their teeming herds. History tells us that the systematic killing of the buffalo, which had become particularly destructive by the 1870s, left the species at the brink of extinction by the late 1880s. The remnants of herds on the Great Plains that had once totaled roughly 30 million were reduced to a few scattered thousands.

Clive Siegle is a former William P. Clements Fellow at Southern Methodist University. Although he holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs with a specialty in sub-tropical Africa from George Washington University’s Elliott School, the lure of bandits, cowboys, and Indians proved too much for him, and he returned to SMU after an extended stay in the business world to complete a Ph.D. in American history, where his teaching and research centered on the 19th century American Southwest. In addition to having taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses in anthropology and U.S. history, he has also taught for over a decade in SMU’s evening and continuing education program, where his courses have explored such topics as Indian tribes of the Southern Plains, the Santa Fe Trail, the Texas Rangers, bandits, gunfighters, cattle trailing and ranching, and the Indian Wars. He is currently the Association Manager for the Santa Fe Trail Association, and the Executive Director of the Zebulon Pike National Bicentennial Commission.

The eighth program in the Kaw Mission Councils 2007 educational program series will feature Leo E. Oliva presenting Santa Fe Trail Travelers’ View of the Flint Hills. The program will be presented at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 13, 2007 at the Kaw Mission State Historic Site in Council Grove, Kansas. All Kaw Mission Council 2007 programs are free and open to the public.

Dr. Oliva will look at what Santa Fe Trail travelers said about the Flint Hills in their journals and letters. These were some of the first accounts to provide people in other areas with descriptions of this beautiful region. He will include observations by traders, soldiers, government officials, and women. W. W. H. Davis traveled through the Flint Hills on a stagecoach to become U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Territory. Albuquerque merchant Franz Huning's wife, Ernestine, carried 10 canaries when she accompanied him with a trade caravan to New Mexico. Actor Matt Field traveled with traders for his own pleasure and wrote poetry to describe the land. Katie Bowen, wife of an army officer, wrote detailed letters to her parents in New England, always assuring them that she was safe in the Wild West. A few travelers wrote letters to newspapers in St. Louis and points farther east. Together these early travelers, most of whom mentioned their stop at Council Grove, provided interesting and informative details about the region.

Leo E. Oliva, a native Kansan, has been researching and writing about the Santa Fe Trail for more than 40 years. Holding degrees from Fort Hays State University and the University of Denver, he taught for 15 years before taking over a family farm near Woodston, Kansas, where he continues to research and write. He is the author of six of the eight volumes in the Kansas Forts Network series and wrote the history of Fort Union, New Mexico, for the National Park Service. He has written several other books and many articles, most dealing with the frontier army and the Santa Fe Trail. He is editor and publisher of the Santa Fe Trail Association quarterly, Wagon Tracks, now in its 21st year. He also edits and publishes the Solomon Valley Highway 24 Heritage Alliance quarterly, Solomon Valley Anthology. He has presented many programs about the Santa Fe Trail.

The Friends of Kaw Heritage, Inc., Kansas Historical Society, Santa Fe Trail Association (SFTA), SFTA Heart of the Flint Hills Chapter, and Morris County Historical Society sponsor the Kaw Mission Councils 2007 educational program series. Free refreshments compliments of FKH. For additional information contact the Kaw Mission State Historic Site at 620-767-5410, e-mail - kawmission@kshs.org. Reservations are recommended. The complete program schedule is available at www.kawmission.org.

Piñon Cañon Expansion Threatens Trail

In one of the most serious threats to the Santa Fe Trail in decades, the U.S. Army has proposed to expand their Piñon Cañon Maneuver Site to include huge new tracts of Trail-related acreage. Because the Army has not made an actual proposal, we do not currently know the extent of the threat to Trail resources, but based on several maps currently circulating, we believe that this project has the potential to pose a serious threat to fifty or more miles of historic Trail sites and trailbed.

Congress designated the trail with the intent of preserving the resources along the route for public recreation and enjoyment, and both of these missions would be compromised by the proposed Piñon Canon project.

The threat has attracted the attention of Colorado Preservation, Inc., one of the state’s premiere organizations promoting and advancing preservation programs. On February 8, the Santa Fe Trail in southeastern Colorado was named to their “Colorado’s Most Endangered Places” list for 2007 (for more on endangered places in Colorado, click here). Colorado Preservation, Inc. has also generously become our key advocate in submitting the threatened Piñon Cañon area to The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Most Endangered Places” category (for more information, click here).

Among the irreplaceable historic sites we have seen included on the expansion area maps that are circulating are the Iron Springs interpretive site and its prominent trail ruts, the Sierra Vista interpretive site, the Timpas interpretive site and Timpas Stage Station, and the Hole-in-the-Rock site and stage station. Hole-in-the-Rock was donated to the Archeological Conservancy in the 1990s specifically because of its historical significance and the wish of the donors to ensure its preservation.

"Sierra Vista, one of the threatened Trail landmarks."

Much of the area along 350 Highway retains extended stretches of scenic vistas that capture for the modern traveler a visual sense of nineteenth-century trail travel which will be entirely lost to view if the Army’s expansion plans are realized.

For more detailed information on this critical issue, visit http://www.pinoncanyon.com

Announcing the new website of THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF NEW SANTA FE - The Trailside Center is staffed by volunteers from the Historical Society of New Santa Fe and the Linden Hill Homes Association. Executive Director, Chuck Loomis