Lone Tree Incident

I was headed out to Liberal a couple of weeks ago. Nothing special, I’ve made the trip several times lately. I like to take highway 50 from Emporia through Hutchinson then out to Pratt and jump on 54 the rest of the way. I like this route because there are a lot of passing lanes and as I’m blasting along at 80, I mean 65 mph., I hate having to disengage the cruise control because I get stuck behind someone doing the speed limit. Come on man, I’m making good time and you’re slowing me down.
We blast down the highways in our air conditioned and heated vehicles as fast as we want while talking on our cell phones. We have technology to tell us the way. We have GPS systems to track every move we make. Locking your keys in your car is no longer a problem. All it take is a phone call and presto, you’re in. We entertain the kids with built-in DVD players, and video game systems. If that doesn’t satisfy them, break out the lap top. We’re in such a hurry to get there, if we do stop to eat it’ll probably be at a drive through at some fast food joint along the road.
We’ve all sped by those “Kansas Historical Markers” along the roads to wherever we’re headed. You know the one’s. They’re the one’s we usually look at in our rear view mirror and wonder what historical event could have taken place in that spot making it worthy of a marker. On this particular trip curiosity finally got the best of me and I stopped at the one I’d noticed along highway 54 just west of Meade for a quick look. Wow! I had no idea. The marker told a story called the Lone Tree Incident.
It was August 24, 1874. It seems that six men working for a surveying company in the area were ambushed by a band of renegade Cheyenne Indians led by Chief Medicine Water who was leading his warriors in attacks against the white settlers in the area. Some 27 settlers had been killed and many farmsteads had been burned to the ground. On this day the Indians had seen the survey crew coming and hid out of sight waiting for their chance to catch them by surprise. The men of the survey company did their best to out run their attackers that day. But in the end, they were only able to make about three miles before the Indians killed the oxen they were using to pull the heavy wagons loaded down with their equipment. In the end all six men were killed and three of them were scalped. Their bodies were found a few days later and were temporarily buried underneath a lone Cottonwood Tree about five miles south of the marker.
The attack that day became known as The Lone Tree Incident. And I’m sure it gave future settlers a special kind of creepiness as they passed through the area to wherever they were headed.
No, it wasn’t exactly the story I expected to read about that day as I pulled off the road for that quick look. But it did make me stop for a few minutes. I shut my truck off and just sat there listening. Listening to the wind blowing across the plains and wondering about the events of that day almost 180 years ago.
I’m glad I stopped by that marker outside of Meade that day for a couple of reasons. First, it was a fascinating story about some of the things people had to endure in those days. But mostly It made me glad I didn’t live back then.
I can live without an onboard computer to tell me the way, I know how to read a map. I’m not into the built-in DVD players and such. But I love blasting down the road at 80, I mean 65 mph. And if putting up with people driving the speed limit is the worst thing I have to deal with while I’m out on the plains of western Kansas, I’ll be probably be okay.
Kevin McGinty can be reached at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.net