Historic Kansas

The post rock the plaque points to comes from one bed of stone, the topmost layer of the Greenhorn Limestone, a thin, resistant bed that forms the middle bluffs of the Smoky Hills from the Nebraska line near Mahaska some 200 miles southwest to near Dodge City. Farmers drilled a line of holes about halfway through the freshly uncovered, still-soft bed, set feathers and wedges, and hammered until a post split away, which is why so many posts still show the drill holes. The same rust-streaked stone went into the region's stone buildings.

What the plaque says

Historic Kansas The rolling land in this area was once sheep country, but now cattle roam here. These stone fence posts found are examples of the many still in use in this portion of Kansas. In an area where wood for posts was scarce, settlers used the materials at hand. The Greenhorn "post rock" was split from limestone strata, and with a little working, posts were created. Prior to American settlement, American Indians occupied this land for centuries. Although relations between over- land travelers, settlers, and the Indians were generally peaceful, tensions developed as traffic increased and more permanent settlers arrived. This area witnessed a number of violent clashes during the 1860s as Indians took action to defend their lands and the U.S. government responded. Ellsworth, a former cattle town, is located approximately 7 miles south of here on K-14. Like other "Wild West" towns, Ellsworth experienced its share of lawlessness and violence. One incident in 1873 involved the shooting of several men, including the sheriff, and the taking over of Main Street. Ahead are Wilson (with the Wilson reservoir 5 miles to the north); Russell, an oil town; and historic Hays and Fort Hays. Erected by the State of Kansas

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• S. P. Dinsmoor's Garden of Eden — 26 mi
  A Civil War veteran's limestone log cabin in Lucas, ringed by forty-foot cement trees, Adam and Eve, and his Populist sermon on the people who crucify labor, with the builder himself in the mausoleum.
• Rock City — 27 mi
  About two hundred sandstone spheres, many as big as a room, crowded into a strip of pasture above the Solomon River south of Minneapolis, where groundwater cemented them inside buried sand.
• Coronado Heights — 29 mi
  A Dakota sandstone bluff 300 feet above the Smoky Valley north of Lindsborg, named by boosters for a Spanish visit that never happened here, with a WPA stone castle on top.
• Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum — 32 mi
  A roller mill of 1898 on the Smoky Hill that still turns over once a year, and a Swedish manor house shipped to the 1904 World's Fair and given to Lindsborg's college afterward.

More markers nearby

• Smoky Hills Region — 0.5 mi
• Ellsworth, the Cowtown and Fort — 10 mi
• Frontier in Lincoln County — 12 mi