Chouteau's Island

The major who camped near the island in 1829 later governed California. Among the traders Bennet C. Riley escorted that summer was Charles Bent. Twenty years later Riley was the seventh and last military governor of California, and in 1849 he called the election of delegates to a state constitutional convention and gave up civil authority that December 20. He died at Buffalo, New York, on June 9, 1853. Eighteen days later Camp Center in Kansas was renamed Fort Riley, a post he never served at.

What the plaque says

Chouteau's Island In the spring of 1816 Auguste P. Chouteau's hunting party traveling east with a winter's catch of furs was attacked near the Arkansas river by 200 Pawnees. Retreat- ing to what was once an island five miles southwest of this marker the hunters beat them off with the loss of only one man. In 1825 increased travel on the Santa Fe trail brought a government survey and Chouteau's island was listed as a turning off place for the dangerous "Jornada" to the Cimarron. For a time the river here was the Mexican boundary. When Maj. Bennett Riley and four companies of infantry, serving as the first military escort on the trail, arrived in 1829 with a west-bound wagon train the troops went into camp near the island. They spent the summer fighting off Indians, losing several men and part of their oxen. The return from Santa Fe of the caravan with a Mexican escort was cel- ebrated in a colorful exchange of military inspections. Erected by Kansas Historical Society and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sandsage Bison Range and Wildlife Area — 22 mi
  The 3,760-acre remnant of the Kansas National Forest south of Garden City, where federal tree planting failed and the state's oldest publicly owned bison herd now grazes sand sage prairie.
• Lee Richardson Zoo — 22 mi
  Garden City's zoo in Finnup Park, begun in 1927 with two skunks and now accredited, free to walk in and open to cars on a drive-through loop for a vehicle fee.

More markers nearby

• Santa Fe Trail Ruts, 1821-1872 — 5.8 mi
• American Indians and the Buffalo — 24 mi