Frontier in Rawlins County

The fight on Sappa Creek is also remembered as the Massacre at Cheyenne Hole. Little Bull's camp had fled the agency country that April after word came that soldiers were killing Cheyenne there, and on April 23, 1875, Second Lieutenant Austin Henely's Company H of the Sixth Cavalry caught it. Henely reported nineteen warriors and eight women and children killed; a Cheyenne account counts seven men and twenty women and children. His report left out a Cheyenne attempt to parley. He recommended eight of his men for the Medal of Honor and drowned in Arizona a year later.

What the plaque says

Frontier in Rawlins County The vast expanse of High Plains that today encompasses Rawlins County was once home and hunting ground to Cheyenne, Comanche, and Arapaho Indians. With continued railroad construction and the growth of permanent settlements, American westward expansion during the 1860s and 1870s threatened these lands, resulting in increased tension and armed conflict. On April 23, 1875, the final violent act in the so-called Red River War occurred about 14 miles south of here on Sappa Creek. Waged mainly in Texas, the war ended with the Comanches' surrender. But a group of about 75 Northern Cheyennes who had fought alongside the Comanches escaped to the north. While camped on Sappa Creek, 40 men of the Sixth U.S. Cavalry attacked them. Two troopers and almost 30 Indians - men, women, and children - were killed. The brutality of this surprise dawn attack remained a bitter memory, perhaps helping explain the murder of more than 30 settlers on Sappa and Beaver Creeks in Rawlins and adjoining Decatur County during the Cheyennes' famous trek north in the autumn of 1878. The following year, the city of Atwood was established. It became the seat of county government when Rawlins County was organized in 1881. Erected by the State of Kansas

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Stone Church — 24 mi
• The Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express — 25 mi