Cannonball Stage Line Highway

The town Green helped found carries his name. In 1887 work began on the Big Well, dug by hand and finished in 1888; the city drew water from it until 1932 and made it a tourist attraction in 1937. Then on the evening of May 4, 2007, an EF5 tornado damaged 95 percent of Greensburg. The city council answered by requiring every city building to meet LEED platinum standards, the first city in the nation to do so, and ten 1.25-megawatt wind turbines now supply the town's power.

What the plaque says

Cannonball Stage Line Highway Flamboyant and colorful, Donald R. "Cannonball" Green (1839-1922) ran a stage line connecting the railroad to towns across southwestern Kansas. Green started his first stage service in Kingman in 1876. It ran through Pratt to Coldwater and later to Greensburg, a town he helped found in 1886. Green's stage line served areas not reached by the railroad, and for a few years he also carried the mail from Wichita to Kingman. Known for their speed, Green's coaches were pulled by teams of six or eight horses which were changed every eight to ten miles. More than just a driver, Green was an advisor and teacher, sharing with passengers his knowledge of southwestern Kansas and the prairie landscape. As the railroads advanced, Green moved his stage service west but stage demand soon dwindled. In 1898 he took a claim in Oklahoma Territory when the Cherokee Strip opened. Although Green also served in the Kansas legislature, he was best known for his stage route between Kingman and Greensburg, the Cannonball Highway, which became U.S. Highway 54. Green died in Long Beach, California and is buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Wichita. Erected by Kansas State Historical Society & Kansas Department of Transportation

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Big Well Museum — 1.1 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.
• Fromme-Birney Round Barn — 14 mi
  A sixteen-sided horse barn of 1912 on the wheat country south of Mullinville, built for 28 draft horses and a French Percheron stallion and outdated by a tractor four years later.

More markers nearby

• Battle of Coon Creek — 23 mi