Battle of Coon Creek

The post the wagon train was bound for was a teamsters' fort. Capt. William M. D. McKissack proposed a depot halfway between Fort Leavenworth and Santa Fe, and in April 1847 forty teamsters under Capt. Daniel P. Mann began building it; it was finished by late May and named for him. About 400 warriors attacked on June 19, 1847, and three defenders who went out during a lull were killed in sight of the walls. It was abandoned in summer 1848, and Fort Atkinson rose a few miles east in 1850.

What the plaque says

Battle of Coon Creek A battle between U.S. troops and Plains Indians occurred near this area along the Santa Fe Trail in 1848 and inspired stories and legends for years to come. An army train of 60 wagons was traveling through Comanche and Apache hunting grounds on its way to Fort Mann (about 6 miles west of here, near the present site of Dodge City) when the fighting began. The small com- pany of U.S. troops was armed with rifles and cannons against the larger group of Plains Indians, who had only bows and arrows. Eyewitnesses reported seeing an American Indian woman on horseback at the front of their line encouraging the men. Wearing a scarlet dress "decorated with silver ornaments," she "rode about giving directions about the wounded." The Indians sustained heavy losses during the conflict and when a courageous Apache teenager returned to recover the body of one of the fallen, U.S. soldiers held their fire. One legend said that young man was Geronimo, a future Apache leader. Erected by the State of Kansas

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Larned National Historic Site — 19 mi
  Nine sandstone buildings of 1866-68 on the Pawnee Fork, a post that guarded the Santa Fe Trail and served as the agency where the Plains nations came for the annuities promised at Medicine Lodge.
• Santa Fe Trail Center — 22 mi
  Pawnee County's museum and archive two miles west of Larned, ten buildings on ten acres that carry the story from the trail years into the town that grew up beside Fort Larned.
• Big Well Museum — 23 mi
  Greensburg's hand-dug well of 1887 and 1888, 109 feet deep and 32 across, and the half-ton Brenham pallasite meteorite that was pulled from the rubble of the old museum after the 2007 tornado.

More markers nearby

• Camp Criley 1872 — 12 mi
• Discoverer of Pluto — 20 mi
• Birthplace of Farm Credit — 21 mi
• Cannonball Stage Line Highway — 23 mi