John Brown Country KS50
Osawatomie - the name derives from a combination of Osage and Pottawatomie - was settled in 1854 by Free-State families from the Ohio Valley and New England. John Brown, soon to become famous for his militant abolitionism, joined five of his sons at their homes near the new town in October 1855. By the spring of 1856, local defiance of proslavery laws and officials was so notorious that 170 Missourians "punished" the area by looting Osawatomie. Two months later Free-State men destroyed a nearby proslavery camp. On August 30 occurred the second battle of Osawatomie, in which a Proslavery force of 400 drove out the defenders, 50 men led by John Brown, and then plundered and burned the town. Among those killed that day was Brown's son Frederick. At the John Brown Memorial Park in Osawatomie is the cabin of the Rev. Samuel Adair, Brown's brother-in-law, with whom he often stayed. The Republican party of Kansas was organized at Osawatomie in May, 1859, with Horace Greeley, famous editor of the New York Tribune, as the convention's principal speaker.

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Historical Kansas KS97

You are on the eastern edge of a Bluestem pasture region known as the Flint Hills. Extending past Junction City, this nutritious grazing area averages 60 miles in width, and reaches south into Oklahoma. For centuries buffalo in great numbers grazed its acres. Eventually they were succeeded by rangy Texas cattle. "Texans shipped up the horns and we put the bodies under them," old Kansas cowmen used to say. Today the Flint Hills fatten more than a million fine cattle annually.

White men exploring this region in the early 1800s found only a few Kaw Indian villages. Several miles west, Osages attacked Fremont's 1843 expedition and stole some of its best horses. Later this area was part of an Indian reserve for the Potawatomis.

The Connecticut Kansas colony - of Beecher Bible and Rifle fame - settled at Wabaunsee, 15 miles northwest, in 1856. This Free-State colony erected a stone church in 1862, which still stands. Farther northwest is Manhattan, established in 1855, the home of Kansas State University designated a land grant college in 1863. Above Manhattan is Tuttle Creek reservoir.

Fort Riley is 34 miles ahead. J.E.B. Stuart, George A. Custer and George Patton, Jr., were among world-renowned cavalrymen once stationed there.

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