Medicine Lodge, KS
Family & Community in Southern Kansas
Medicine Lodge, est 1873 by Derrick Updegraff. Stockade, built in 1873, was near center of Medicine Lodge, where historical markers are located. The Home of Carry A. Nation, where she lived when she began her tirades against liquor, next door to The Stockade Museum, 2 museums at 1 price!! The Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty was signed (just to south of Medicine Lodge) in 1867, with the U S Government and Five Southern Plains Tribes. Though the U.S. Treaty was not successful, the Treaty was Re-enacted in 1927, and held every three years, to tell the stories of “How the Great Southern Plains” was developed. (Next held in 2018, the Peace Treaty Pow Wow is held annually (last full week-end of Sept.) at the new Peace Treaty Pavilion, to keep the Native American heritage alive! The KS Championship Ranch Rodeo is also held annually, Sept. 23 – 24, 2016. Drive through the Gypsum Hills West to see panoramic views of the hills, like Twin Peaks, and Flower Pot Mountain, where geological finds and the countryside will leave you in utter awe at the beauty!
Carry A. Nation Home
Home where Carry A. Nation lived when she began her tirades against “demon rum” and alcohol. Museum replica of 1873 stockade built here, with historical artifacts of dinosaur bones and early days on the prairie; 130+ year-old Smith Log Cabin and old jail in courtyard, moved to museum in 1961. Get area tourism information and Pay admission (for both museums)at Stockade gift shop. Carry A. Nation was voted to be one of the “8 Wonders of Kansas People”, and Carry Nation’s Home is a National Historic Landmark.
Medicine Lodge Stockade Museum
The Medicine Lodge Indian Peace Treaty Pageant takes place every three years and commemorates the Great Peace Council of 1867 between the US Government and the five Plains Tribes: Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche and Kiowa. The next pageant will be held in September 2021.
The large-scale reenactment takes place in a natural amphitheater just east of Medicine Lodge in the beautiful Gyp Hills near the original site of the council where the Medicine River and Elm Creek flow together. It compresses 300 years of history into two hours of entertainment and education, celebrating the diverse cultures of the native peoples, discoverers, explorers and settlers.
The pageant is an invitation to watch history unfold. Witness the Spanish discovery with Coronado. Lewis and Clark and Zebulon Pike come alive on the prairie. The natives become unsure of their place in their homelands. Cowboys drive a herd of longhorn cattle. The settlers move west ahead of the impending railroads. Not all are peaceful journeys in the covered wagons, and the cavalry must rescue settlers from a warrior attack.
Peace Treaty Festival
Journey with us to a time in our country’s past where life was hard but hope for a better future was strong. The promise of new life in the west called many families to leave everything familiar behind. Pioneers were seeking a new land of opportunity where one could homestead and raise a family. Stockades became the gathering place of protection for these pioneers during troubled times. Within the stockade walls communities were built and friendships were forged as everyone daily worked together to provide adequate food and clothing for each family. At the close of the day families gathered together to spend time singing hymns and thanking the Lord for another day of safety. Occasionally, special events were celebrated with fiddle music and dancing.
The Medicine Lodge Stockade Museum gives you a taste of what life was like in a stockade in the 1870’s.
Memorial Peace Park
See the awesome natural landscape, with the Gypsum Hills on the horizon. Memorial Peace Park has been the site of the Peace Treaty re-enactment since 1927, and is noted as a part of the National Historic Landmark where the Treaty of 1867 was signed. From the hilltop, the rolling prairie of native grasses, wildlife, and wildflowers is abundant.
Medicine Lodge History
19th century
The particular medicine lodge, mystery house or sacred tabernacle from which the Medicine Lodge River received its name was in reality an arbor-like shelter of tree trunks and leafy branches which was erected by the Kiowa people for the celebration of their annual sun dance in the summer of 1866. It was in the valley of the Medicine Lodge River, several miles below the present town of Medicine Lodge, which is at the mouth of Elm Creek. In their own language, the Kiowa people called this stream A-ya-dalda P’a, meaning “Timber-hill River.” The Kiowa had considered the site sacred due to the high content of Epsom salts in the river.
The Medicine Lodge Treaty was a set of three treaties signed between the United States of America and the Kiowa, Comanche, Plains Apache, Southern Cheyenne, and Southern Arapaho in October 1867. The site of the Peace Council camp was about three miles above that of the future town and on the same side of the river. A Peace Treaty Pageant, first presented in 1927 in an outdoor amphitheater on a quarter section of Kansas prairie, commemorates this significant event in Western history.
Settlers led by a man named John Hutchinson founded the town of Medicine Lodge north of the confluence of Elm Creek and the Medicine Lodge River in February 1873. The community grew rapidly with a hotel, stores, and a post office established within a year.
In 1874, in response to Native raids in the region, residents and the state militia constructed a stockade. A group of Osage killed three settlers within a few miles of the compound, but no direct attack on the fortifications occurred. Medicine Lodge was incorporated as a city in 1879.
Temperance activist Carrie Nation launched her crusade against the sale of alcohol while living in Medicine Lodge in 1900. Her home and a reproduction of the 1873 stockade are open to the public. SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA
Medicine Lodge Chamber of Commerce website: https://medicinelodgechamber.com/
