Salina Post proudly presents Flashback Friday in partnership with the Smoky Hill Museum. Enjoy a weekly tidbit of local history from the staff at Salina Post and the Smoky Hill Museum as we present "Salina-Flashback Fridays."
By SALINA POST
The city of Salina has 28 unique parks, with more than 1,000 acres of parkland across town, and Indian Rock Park is one of the city's first.
Situated next to the horseshoe-shaped Lower Smoky Hill River Falls in town, Indian Rock Park stands as a pillar to history just before Salina's founding in 1858.
This park has a 1.2-mile nature trail with very scenic overlooks, including one that overlooks the rock the park is named after. Tradition says the rock marks the site of the Battle of Indian Rock in 1857, the last significant skirmish between the Kansa, Delaware and Potawatomi Native nations.
Throughout the 1800s, various Native American groups lived in the region now known as Kansas. The federal government moved displaced Native Americans from the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes region to reservations in eastern Kansas.
Many Native Nations comprise the nomadic bands of people who made their homes in and around Salina, including the Pawnee, Kaw, Kiowa and Arapaho, but other Native Nations called the Great Plains their homes by the mid to late 1800s.
Central Kansas was home to most Great Plains Native Nations' hunting grounds, with the Smoky Hill River providing a vital source of fresh water to the nomadic communities.
The individual communities of these nations often fought to protect their food sources, lands and lifestyles from fellow Native Nations or American settlers.
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According to the Smoky Hill Museum, the Smoky Hills and Salina region was a crossroads providing food and water sources for migrating animals like bison. This caused conflict between Native hunting parties east of the Salina region and hunting parties west of Salina.
In 1857, the Battle of Indian Rock took place right here in Salina between the Great Plains Native Nations and the Eastern Kansas Native Nations.
While many different tribes lived in what would become Kansas, these tribes participated in the Battle of Indian Rock, according to records from the Smoky Hill Museum.
Eastern Kansas Native Nations:
Kaw
Pottawatomie
Delaware
Great Plains Native Nations:
Cheyenne
Arapahoe
Sioux
A first-hand account
Christina Campbell, one of the first settlers in Salina, recalls the story as told to her by the Native Delaware peoples:
"The Delawares and Pottawatomies were on a big hunt some 200 miles west of Salina and were surprised and attacked by a powerful force of Cheyennes, Sioux, and Arapahoes. They were driven back in a running fight to Dry Creek, just west of Salina. Ere they sent runners for the Kaws, who had two large hunting parties nearby.
The wild Indians finally drove the civilized tribes out of cover of the "Dry" creek, with great loss. They fell back across the river to the hill east of Salina, where they were reinforced by the two bands of Kaws with some rifles they had secured at their reservation at Council Grove.
Here the Cheyennes attacked riding in circles, while others, hidden in the grass, were shooting arrows at the civilized Indians, who sought the shelter of the rocks. Behind the great rock itself, the Kaws, who had rifles, were doing good work at short range.
The Cheyenne chief finally drew back, and with a large number of warriors, charged the rock cavalry style, even though the Cheyenne were outnumbered. He made five successive charges, each at a great loss. Upon the final charge, he was killed, leaving a fearful toll of dead and wounded in his own ranks, without inflicting great damage to his foes.
At length, badly beaten, the wild tribes withdrew, leaving the ground covered by their dead."
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William A. Phillips, one of Salina's town founders, told this story in the Junction City Union newspaper on May 7, 1857:
"As the buffalos were scarce east of the line of the Saline and Solomon, they crossed the threatened "deadline" and were camped on the spot where the old graveyard stood and between the mounds of the upper mill. The Cheyennes who were then camped near Cow Creek, learned of the intrusion, and as they at that time maintained a little army of soldiers, some three hundred picked men, most of this force was sent against this band of Pottawatomie hunters. The Cheyenne warriors came in on the ridge that skirts the bend of the Smoky to the southeast, coming down over the upper hill, and attacked just as the day was breaking. It was a surprise and a massacre rather than a fight. A few of the Pottawatomie warriors seized their rifles and tried to hold their enemies in check, while the others fled north across the Smoky Hill River. In the attack one woman and two children were killed, besides a number of men. The precise loss of the Pottawatomies has been variously stated, but fourteen in all were buried on the hill near the spot where they were encamped."
Later, leaders of the City of Salina saw the significance of the site, and planners dedicated the area to the historic site and founded it as a city park, all surrounding the large rock formation on its trail.