This Gateway to Kansas

The board's Huron Indian cemetery is now formally the Wyandot National Burying Ground; Huron was the French name for the Wyandot. After the 1843 removal from Ohio, epidemic illness struck the low-lying settlement, and the dead were buried on its ridge above the Missouri. When the land faced sale in the early 1900s, sisters Lyda, Helena and Ida Conley fought it, and in 1909 Lyda became the first Native American woman admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court as she carried the case there. She lost, but legislation in 1916 gave the ground some protection.

What the plaque says

This Gateway to Kansas- Where the Kaw river joins the mighty Missouri in its sweep eastward, has witnessed many events of historical significance to this area, among them: 1804. Lewis and Clark, on their epic exploring trip assaying the new Louisiana Purchase, camped 3 days 4 blocks east. 1809. Louis Bartholet built a cabin 3 blocks south - first white settler. 1843. The Wyandotte Indians came from Ohio and purchased land from the Delaware tribe. The Wyandottes established a ferry on the Kaw 3 blocks east; their council house, school, and jail 1 block northeast; and Huron Indian cemetery 2 blocks west. 1855. First court house and postoffice 3 blocks northeast. 1859. Wyandotte Constitutional Convention drafted the Kansas State Constitution in session at Lipman's Hall, 5 blocks northeast. Approved by Kansas State Historical Society 1965

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Quindaro Townsite — 3.2 mi
  The wooded ruins of a free-state river port built on a Wyandot woman's land in 1857, a crossing for people escaping slavery in Missouri and later the home of Western University.
• Shawnee Indian Mission State Historic Site — 5.8 mi
  Three brick buildings in Fairway from the manual labor school the Methodist church ran for Shawnee and other Native children from 1839, which the Shawnee Tribe now calls by its plain name, a boarding school.

More markers nearby

• Delaware Crossing and the Grinter Ferry — 8.0 mi
• Shawnee Friends Mission — 8.2 mi
• Kansas Indian Reservations — 13 mi
• The City of Leavenworth — 21 mi