Thursday, July 17, 2025
A one of a kind steel bison art installation was dedicated at Waconda Lake on Saturday, June 21, 2025. The bison made from chains, gears, steel and copper was crafted by Alex Shaw of Holstein, Nebraska in memory of Carl Root and family. The piece’s inspiration came from the great history of bison in the Solomon Valley. Kyle Peterson, Mitchell County Museum Director, highlighted a timeline of how bison played an important piece to the rich history of the valley.
Around 10,000 years ago, Bison Antiquus that roamed the prairie were starting to disappear to the modern bison. They were 25% bigger to the modern bison. Humans migrating to the area from the west were hunting both species. Most likely within the first few thousand years of Native American hunting in this area, they found that running the bison off cliffs to their deaths was the most productive way to feed their tribes. These are referred to as “Buffalo Jumps”. Archeology shows that there are several in Mitchell County. The Kansas State Historical Society shows in their references that between 6,000 BCE and 1 BCE Native Americans were starting to make spear points to hunt with.
Don Blakeslee with Wichita State University’s anthropology department did significant archeological digs in Mitchell County over the years. Through this collection of data, a sub category has been named the Solomon River Phase which occurred during the “Middle Ceramic Period”. That is a term set by archeologist and anthropologist indicating the years of 1005-1350 AD. During that time along the Solomon Valley, Native Americans were farming, making pottery to store food and water and build earthen lodges with central fire pits. They had ceremonial burial practices, particularly forming burial mounds for their dead. They refined their bison hunting practices and mounds were being created from the bones and butchering trash alongside the “buffalo jumps”. Evidence still exists today of these in Mitchell County, most are on private land and not accessible to the public.
The Spanish explorers in the 1500s as well as Pierre and Paul Mallet, French Canadian brother explorers, in the 1700s hunted bison for food in the area. During this era the climate had changed significantly to cause the Native American tribes to only utilize Mitchell County as nomadic hunting grounds. Wildfires, draughts and floods would push the bison in and out of the area allowing the grass prairie to rejuvenate itself. Early explorers would note the millions of heads of bison scattered along the prairie in huge herds. One such being recorded in the Solomon Valley 20 miles wide, drinking the river dry. Then the herd would graze down to the Saline River doing the same, creating patterns that hunters would follow. In 1806, then Lieutenant Zebulon Pike made his way through the county on an exploratory mission with twenty men. He visited the county’s famous Waconda Springs, now under Waconda lake. He wrote on long accounts of the bison as the “great wild ox of the West that against the landscape almost as unbroken as the ocean in deep buffalo trails worn by the hoofs of the herds that had passed and re-passed through countless ages.”
Thomas Howie, one of Mitchell County’s first pioneers and true American Legends, was famous for his connection to the bison. In 1862, he was hired by Col. Bill Matthewson, the original “Buffalo Bill”, to be a brigadier wagon master to run supply wagons along the Santa Fe Trail and to supply forts out west and up to Fort Kearney. All the meat supplied was bison. Thomas hired William F. Cody in 1863 at Great Bend, KS to hunt bison and scout. It was during these years that W.F. Cody took on the name of “Buffalo Bill”. Kansas Governor Samuel Crawford appointed Thomas Howie as justice of the peace of the territory that included Mitchell County in 1865. He came and set up a fort/stockade with a large underground stable just north of Asherville, KS on the creek. It had fortified walls and a cannon for protection. It became a major stop, as well as “Saints’ Rest” at Solomon Rapids and the military block house and fortification by Waconda Springs, for the military bison hunters including both “Buffalo Bills”.
The Union Pacific Railroad had reached out to Hays, Kansas by 1867. William F Cody had supplied the railroad crews with 4350 head of bison for food during the year of building. Along with the train came hundreds of “buffalo hunters” that merely killed thousands upon thousands of heads of bison for sport, not even utilizing the meat. This scared the herds North and settlers would talk about stampedes of scared bison that would destroy their homesteads. In Beloit, buffalo stampede through town in 1869. At the time, school was being held in the Cottonwood Store on South Mill Street. A buffalo broke down the back door and ran through the building trampling kids and ran out the front door, luckily no one was killed.
Texas cattle were being brought up to Mitchell County from 1867-1874 by the thousands. Many coming from King Ranch in Southern Texas sent here with the Mexican and roughneck cowboys. They would purposely scare the bison out of the area to give room for the grazing cattle. The grasshopper plague came in 1874 and 1875 in such force that every bit of vegetation was eaten. Even the homesteaders were fighting for their lives. It made it impossible for the Texas cattle and bison to stay in Mitchell County. The bison all fled north into the Dakotas and very much ended that time of the buffalo here for a very long period. Reports of lone bison on the prairie have been accounted in pioneer stories but nothing in the great volumes that were seen just decades before that.
Larry and Kay Butterfield in 1978 started bringing bison back to the county. They grew their herd to over 400. Their dedication to the animal’s survival here has to be commended. Larry sat as President of the National Bison Association for several years and was the cornerstone of educating the public about the importance of bison’s nutritional value.
If you want to learn more about Mitchell County’s rich history or want to see the “buffalo Jump” exhibit with a Bison Antiquus skull, please come by the museum at 1915 N Independence in Beloit. The museum has a full set of new displays including a rare radio exhibit on loan from master radio restorer, Kevin Vering. Also celebrating Beloit of the 1940s with a special display to BHS and E.M Chestnut.
