Cheyenne Bottoms & the Great Bend
Cheyenne Bottoms' shorebird pools, Quivira's salt marsh and whooping cranes, Fort Larned on the Pawnee Fork, and the Wichita towns Coronado called Quivira.
At Great Bend the Arkansas River reaches the northern point of its long bend across Kansas, and on either side of it lie two wetlands of global importance to migrating birds. Cheyenne Bottoms, northeast of town, is a 41,000-acre natural sink that the state has diked into shallow pools. Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, to the south in Stafford County, is an inland salt marsh fed by salty groundwater. Both are listed as Wetlands of International Importance, and the Wetlands and Wildlife National Scenic Byway links them in 77 miles.
Long before the marshes had names on a map, the ancestors of the Wichita people lived here in towns of grass lodges near present Lyons, the province Coronado's men called Quivira in 1541. Later the Santa Fe Trail followed the river past Pawnee Rock, the trail's halfway point, to Fort Larned on the Pawnee Fork, which was both a garrison and the agency for the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache.
For a driver the region is a line and two loops. US-56 and the Santa Fe railroad run beside the river from Lyons through Great Bend and Larned to Kinsley, the town that put up a sign in 1939 calling itself Midway USA, halfway between New York and San Francisco. K-156, US-281 and K-4 reach the marshes.
What to See in Cheyenne Bottoms & the Great Bend
7 places across the region, grouped by what they are.
Natural Areas
Historic Sites
Towns & Gateways
Scenic Drives through Cheyenne Bottoms & the Great Bend
Cheyenne Bottoms & the Great Bend rewards the unhurried. Pick a base, fan out, and let the country between the headline stops surprise you.
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