The scene that confronted Maj. Thomas I. McKenny the evening of June 9, 1864, was heightened by the eerie silence of desolation. Burned out log shelters and looted dugout dwellings told a story of failure.

McKenny, as Inspector General of the Department of Kansas, had been sent to survey the damage and secure the site that had been the trading ranch of Joseph Lehman and Daniel Page, situated on the banks of the Smoky Hill River along the Fort Riley Military Road. The Smoky Hill crossing was a lucrative location, supplying a respectable amount of military and commercial freighting traffic.

The country was a virtual hunter’s paradise teeming with buffalo, antelope, elk, mule deer, rabbits, prairie chicken and turkeys. Wolf pelts were in great demand and wolves could be easily poisoned by “salting” a buffalo carcass with strychnine.

But the “Eden” that Lehman and Page had known was shattered when trouble erupted on the plains of eastern Colorado between settlers and Indians. The clash of culture spread into Kansas when Lean Bear, a Cheyenne Peace Chief, was shot to death as he approached the oncoming First Colorado Cavalry (approximately 70 miles west of the Lehman and Page Ranch near present- day Schoenchen).

Lean Bear’s death shocked the plains tribes, bringing outrage and an unusual alliance of Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa and Sioux warriors. Attacks on trading posts and mail stations along the Santa Fe Trail and Fort Riley Military Road began May 17.

Hearing drums upriver, Lehman and Page abandoned their ranch and fled to Salina. As the ranchers approached Salina, they could see a circle of wagons as citizens prepared to defend the town. An American flag waved above the wagons at the intersection of Santa Fe and Iron avenues. The Indian War of 1864 had begun. All trails were closed, leaving Denver isolated without supply.

Maj. McKenney, supported by troopers of the 7th Iowa Cavalry, established Camp on the Smoky Hill at the site of the burned out Leman and Page ranch. A log blockhouse and a line of dugout quarters were dug into the left bank of the Smoky Hill River. Forty miles to the southwest, Camp Dunlap was established at the confluence of Walnut Creek with the Arkansas River. The two posts were later renamed Fort Ellsworth and Fort Zarah.

The mission was to secure the trail and keep it open for freighting and stage traffic. Within weeks, post horses and Kansas Stage Company mules were stampeded. Only two horses were saved. Capt. Henry Booth of the 11th Kansas Cavalry filed a report from his headquarters at Salina.

“The soldiers from the ranch pursued them on foot as far as was any use, firing upon them with their carbines, but had accomplished nothing... I shall send a scout up the Saline River tomorrow morning, as I think there is more possibility of finding them on that stream than on the Smoky Hill.”

Booth would remain active throughout the summer.

Butterfield’s Overland Despatch, a freight and stage company, was established in 1865. The route of the B.O.D. diverted from the Fort Riley Military Road at Fort Ellsworth to follow the old Smoky Hill Trail westward on the north side of the Smoky Hill River. Fort Ellsworth was designated a “home station,” where passengers were fed a good frontier meal, as it was the last contact passengers would have with civilization for the next 400 miles. They could expect open prairie all the way to Denver City, Colorado Territory.

In August 1866, the government attempted to wrestle the Smoky Hills away from the Cheyenne with a new peace treaty held at Fort Ellsworth. A railroad was under construction and about to extend west to Denver. The leading Cheyenne chiefs and warriors were in attendance Aug. 13, 1866. Representatives of the railroad wearing silk hats and long coats were supported by a regiment of cavalry and scores of buckskin-clad frontiersmen.

All of the chiefs spoke in their turn. It looked as though the Cheyenne were about to give the railroad men what they wanted. Roman Nose, a respected warrior, only spoke after the last chief had spoken. Gen. James Fry was greatly impressed with Roman Nose.

“Clad in buckskin leggings and embroidered with beads and feathers with a single eagle feather in his scalp lock, and with that rarest of robes, a white buffalo, beautifully tanned and soft as cashmere, thrown over his shoulders, he stood forth…” In his closing remarks, Roman Nose vowed, “This is the first time that I have ever shaken the white man’s hand in friendship. If the railway is continued, I shall be his enemy forever!”

He only spoke for 3 short minutes, but they were powerful minutes that completely undid all the progress the railroad and military officials had gained. However, the profits of eastern capitalists held more weight than the desires of aboriginal people in the back country of a desolate prairie. Despite Cheyenne opposition, the railroaders, with the support of the U.S. government, resolved to build at all costs.

Within a few months, Fort Ellsworth was renamed Fort Harker. By Jan. 1, 1867, Fort Harker was relocated a mile north to allow for expanded service as the railroad prepared to push across Kansas on The Way West.