By KAREN MADORIN
Some folks explore history with metal detectors. Listening to them discuss their unearthed treasures intrigues me.
I can contribute historical facts by reading old newspapers, memorial collections, and searching archives. Often, decades pass before enough dots connect to construct a meaningful picture of a place or event. Nearly five5 decades after reading mention of Parks Fort, I’ve assembled enough info to share and see what others might add.
By 1866-67, surveyors had recorded Ellis and Trego County surveys. Lincoln had signed the 1862 Homestead Act, and the Kansas Pacific Railroad expanded West. Native people who relied on this regional hunting ground to supply food, shelter, and clothing discouraged such intrusions, leading to one cultural collision after another.
As a result, the post-Civil War Army provided protection for construction crews and settlers. This led to transitory forts that paralleled advancing track. Fort Ogallah, later called Parks Fort, was among those.
According to sources found at the Trego County Historical Museum, Captain King, U.S. Army established an earth-work fortification six miles west of Ogallah.
In 1867, the site became Parks Fort following a conflict with native tribes. At that time, the fort was a 30' x 30' sod embankment with a deep well where approximately 300 graders under the direction of Thomas Parks and soldiers gathered for meals and water as well as protection.
An additional source written by soldier E.S. Lane explained that Parks and fellow contractor Charles Saffel followed by a 10th Calvary Buffalo Soldier traveled north to hunt meat for camp. Another group of three also headed north driving a wagon to collect wood they’d cut on the Saline. Indians attacked, wounding Fred Dick in the thigh.
Hastily returning to camp, the three informed the military of the hunters’ danger. Parks’ dog returned to camp, wounded by an arrow, confirming this. A party of more than 50 soldiers and railroad workers set out to search for Parks and companions. They soon found signs of battle: “lances, pieces of cloth, cartridge hulls, trampled ground, and Saffel’s body, scalped and full of arrows.”
Up the ravine, trapped by a collapsed limestone slab, they found Park dead but not scalped. Upon removing the rock pinning Parks’ body, they found Beaton, the badly wounded 10th Cavalry soldier.
Lee and Raynesford’s Trails of the Smoky Hill referenced Parks Fort so nominally it wasn’t indexed. However, the 1872 attack on the Jordan hunting party did appear.
Later, Parks Fort was referenced in William D. Street’s Twenty-Five Years among the Indians and Buffalo. Street stated that 1874 hunters freighted hides at the site. According to Street, farmers, hunters, and trappers traveling throughout the region frequented it regularly.
Reading Jennie Martin’s A Brief History of the Early Days of Ellis, Kansas enriched the story. Martin, sister to Mary Jordan, who vanished in late summer of 1872 while on a buffalo hunt with her husband Dick Jordan, his 19-year-old brother George, and a 23-year-old Swede named Fred Nelson, told the story of the men’s deaths. The three were found either shot with rifles or arrows and scalped. Despite leaving a trail of fabric from her cloak, Mary vanished.
According to Martin, around 1872, prior to this event, Dick constructed a home for his new bride and himself at Parks Fort. At that time, a box car on the side of the track served as a telegraph office and the deep well remained. Dick and his bride shared their home and fixed up two dugouts once used by soldiers on the south side of the track. There he could dry buffalo meat.
Another pioneer family stayed at Parks Fort in 1879 until they could claim their land. Claire Yoxall of the Cortwright family noted that in 1879, only the deep well remained.
Visit Trego County Historical Museum to view artifacts H. and M. Newcomer found near what once served as Park’s Fort. Turn your mind loose with stories of native tribes, hunters, soldiers, railroad builders, and homesteaders. Imagine a meadowlark trill and a prairie wolf howl to complete your time travel.
Karen Madorin is a retired teacher, writer, photographer, outdoors lover, and sixth-generation Kansan.