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KIOWA
Founded in 1865 as a Smoky Hill Trail station, Kiowa might well have vanished five years later, when the Kansas Pacific Railroad bypassed the town and made the trail obsolete. But enough ranchers had moved here by then to keep Kiowa alive. With plentiful pastures and rapidly growing markets in nearby Denver and Colorado Springs, this was a stockman’s paradise. By the 1880s more than 150,000 cattle and sheep grazed in this area, and farmers began to move in, swelling Kiowa’s population to a few hundred. The town prospered until the Great Depression, survived the Dust bowl and a devastating 1935 flood, and recovered after World War II, helped along by Denver’s suburban development. By 2000, however, that growth posed a new challenge to Kiowans; how to preserve their western roots in the face of metropolitan encroachment.
Frontier Communication
Kiowa was originally named after its postmaster, Henry Wendling. Such identifications were common among Colorado’s frontier hamlets,, where the post office often was the town. Widely dispersed settlers would congregate at these stations (usually housed in a ranch of general store) to stay in touch with each other and the outside world. As communities grew, residents kept informed via the local newspaper, which recorded hometown births, deaths, calving, paintings, fence-mendings, and well-diggings along with state and national events. Kiowa’s most notable publication was the Divide Review, which owner Floyd Lemon produced single-handedly from 1920 to 1960 without missing an edition. All these modes of correspondence—along with the telephone, which went into service here just after 1900—eased the loneliness and isolation of rural life and helped create a sense of community among distant neighbors.
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TRAIL UNDER SIEGE
Indians of colorado’s high Plains
Kiowa and Comanche Indians migrated to these prairies in the 1700s, followed by Cheyennes and Arapahos in the early 1800s. the region’s vast grasslands, thick bison herds, and brisk fur trade made for prosperous, if not entirely harmonious living; the allied Cheyennes and Arapahos warred frequently against the Comanches and Kiowas (who gradually moved south of here) until 1840, when the tribes agreed to historic peace. In 1851 the United States granted most of eastern Colorado to the Cheyennes and Arapahos, but when gold rushers began stampeding through here after 1859, strife erupted anew, this time between whites and Indians. One tragic episode (the 1864 Hungate Massacre) occurred about fourteen miles northwest of Kiowa. Though they fought for their homeland, the Indians were badly outgunned and outnumbered; by 1869 they had been banished from Colorado’s plains forever.
Smoky Hill Trail
Denver-bound travelers could save distance and time on the Smoky Hill Trail—but only if willing to risk death by Indian attack. The trail bisected the Cheyennes’ and Arapahos’ treaty-granted homeland, and the tribes kept it under siege almost continuously in the late 1860s. One branch earned notoriety as the “Starvation Trail” after an 1859 gold rush met a disastrous end, but the Smoky Hill became a main highway in 1865 when the Butterfield Overland Dispatch began running stagecoaches over it. With fortified stage stops every few miles (including one right here), the route was reasonably well defended, but passengers never rested easy; the war cry might go up at any moment. Enough people took their chances, though, to keep the Smoky Hill Trail busy until the 1870 opening of the Kansas Pacific Railroad.
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