Historical Marker · No. 114
When Coronado Came to Kansas
Seward County · Kansas
Erected by Seward County and State Historical Societies
Father Juan de Padilla came back. A former soldier who had joined the Franciscans and gone to Mexico in 1528, he followed Coronado home in 1541 and then, a year later, returned to Quivira to preach to the Wichita with two fellow missionaries, Luis de Escalona and Juan de la Cruz. He was killed in 1542 near present Herington, and he is counted among the first Christian martyrs in what became the United States. In 1950 the Knights of Columbus raised a commemorative cross for him near Lyons, its stone inscribed as their gift to the people of Kansas.
What the plaque says
When Coronado Came to Kansas Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, with 36 soldiers and Father Juan de Padilla, marched north from the Rio Grande valley in the spring of 1541. Coronado's objective was the land of Quivira, described to the Spaniards as a fabulously wealthy kingdom where gold was commonplace. In June the expedition entered present Kansas presumably at or near here, and moved on northeastward across the Arkansas River to what is now Rice and McPherson counties. The Spaniards found no gold, only the grass lodges of the Quiviran Indians, and the guide who misled Coronado was killed. After more than a month spent in exploring central Kansas, the expedition returned to the Southwest, disap- pointed in the quest for riches but favorably impressed by the land itself. Juan Jaramillo, Coronado's lieutenant, wrote: "It is not a hilly country, but has table-lands, plains, and charming rivers.....I am of the belief that it will be very productive of all sorts of commodities." According to legend, Seymour S. Rogers, the first settler here in the mid-1880's, was said to have been "mighty liberal" with water from his well. From this came the name for the city established here in 1888. Erected by the Seward County and State Historical Societies
Where it stands
37.03395, -100.91044 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Mid-America Air Museum — 2.3 miMore than 100 aircraft in a former Beechcraft plant on the old Liberal Army Airfield, where nearly a third of all B-24 Liberator command pilots trained during World War II.
- Meade State Park — 27 miAn 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.