The Lone Tree Incident

Among the Cheyenne in Medicine Water's band was a survivor of Sand Creek. Mochi, whose name means Buffalo Calf, was in Black Kettle's camp on November 29, 1864, when Colorado troops attacked; by her account she saw her mother shot and killed the soldier who then turned on her. As Medicine Water's wife she fought beside him for years after. The surveyors killed here were Capt. Oliver F. Short's party, among them his son Truman, 14. Mochi and Medicine Water were among 35 Cheyenne later imprisoned at Fort Marion, Florida; she died in 1881.

What the plaque says

The Lone Tree Incident During the first half of the 19th century the U.S. government, in response to public pressure for land and resources, began a program of concentrating Indian tribes on reservations. After the Civil War, an evergrowing number of settlers made it difficult for Native Americans to survive on the Plains. There was resistance from many Plains Indians, eventually resulting in open warfare. Several times during the summer of 1874, warriors left the confines of their reservations in present-day Oklahoma and moved north into western Kansas. Some 27 settlers were killed and many farms were destroyed. On August 24, 1874, a band of 25 Cheyennes led by Chief Medicine Water ambushed six men of a surveying company 11 miles southwest of this marker. The men fled, trading shots with the Indians. After some three miles the oxen pulling the surveyors' wagon were shot and all six men were killed. Two days later their bodies were found and buried near a solitary cottonwood five miles south of here. The lone tree gave its name to this incident and was for many years a famous prairie landmark. Erected by Kansas State Historical Society & Kansas Department of Transportation

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Meade State Park — 9.2 mi
  An 80-acre fishing lake among springs south of Meade, in country once known for artesian wells that pushed groundwater up under its own pressure, before irrigation drew the water table down.

More markers nearby

• Big Basin — 20 mi
• Arkalon and the Samson of the Cimarron — 23 mi