2017 Spring Newsletter

”PRAIRIE MONARCHS” State Animal of Kansas

The American Bison, interchangeably called the Buf falo, numbered perhaps 75 million and lived from the woods of the east coast of America to the California shores, from Canada to Mexico. Few other mammals were so dispersed in America. Yet their greatest num bers were on the Great Plains, centering in Kansas. The Na ve Americans had long held an indispens able rela onship with this noble beast. Especially the Plains Indians where the animal provided food, cloth ing, tools and had religious symbolism. To the Indians, the animal was so closely ed to their life that the buf falo was one of the few things that they called “theirs” and immediately saw the dangers and significance of their destruc on so wantonly by the white men invad ing ever so quickly across the landscape of America.

westward across the state. 1850 was the beginning of the end for the wild buffalo, by the late 1870’s their numbers were limited to the southwestern part of the state. The buffalo and white se lers could never survive together with the coming of the ca le, sheep and horses combined with the plow that destroyed the grazing habitats of the buffalo. By the 1880’s few remained in Kansas and finally their numbers were re duced to only a few hundred where there had been millions in Kansas alone.

The government did nothing to save the animal and it seems encouraged its destruc on for that was the quickest way to control the Plains Indians. Hides brought several dollars and soon Leavenworth, Kan sas City and other border ci es were centers of ex port of the byproducts of the animals. Dodge City and areas west of Wichita saw a boom in popula on of hunters with several thousand killing animals for com mercial purposes. Acres of ground could be covered with the stacked out hides drying in the sun. The rail roads made great capital of the hides, meat, bones of the poor animals and they shipped the products to the ci es of the east. In the 1870’s the Union Pacific, Kansas Pacific and other railroads shipped over one and a third million hides out of Kansas and over six and 314th million pounds of meat, and over six mil lion pounds of bones. The destruc on could not last.

In the 1830’s when Kansas was seen as a refuge for the Indians of the Ohio Valley and the U. S. government began to create reserva ons along the open plains of Kansas, there were s ll buffalo in the eastern third of what was to be the state of Kansas. The Indians had killed only for their needs and livelihood and there were more than enough to replicate the losses. But with the white man, soon the wanton killing for plea sure sport, meat for the railroad workers, hides for eastern leather works and markets even as far away as Europe, the numbers could not be sustained. The line of existence of the buffalo con nued to move rapidly

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