MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 215 



ORIGIN OF NAMES OF KANSAS STREAMS. 



By J. R. Mead, Wichita, Kaa. 

 Read before the Academy, at lola, December 31, 1901. 



T^^HE origin of the names borne by some of our Kansas streams is 

 -*- well known ; others are unknown or uncertain. Of a few of 

 them I have personal knowledge. 



The "Kaw" or "Kansas" derived its name from the tribe of Indians 

 found living along its banks. 



The "Saline" from the character of its water. 



The "Smoky Hill" from the prominent isolated buttes within the 

 great bend, landmarks widely known, to be seen from a great distance 

 through an atmosphere frequently hazy from smoke. 



The above names were given by plainsmen and explorers prior to 

 the settlement of Kansas, and were probably known by the same names 

 by the Indians, using words expressing the same meaning. 



How the "Solomon" obtained its peculiar name is unknown to the 

 writer. We have no account of King Solomon visiting Kansas. 



In 1859 the writer, desiring to explore the Saline river, at that time 

 almost unknown, sought information from Col. Wm. A. Phillips, 

 who had recently staked out the town of Salina. He referred me to 

 his brother-in-law, a young man named Spillman, who had been up 

 the river forty miles to a large tributary from the north, miry and 

 difficult to cross on account of salt marshes near its mouth. We 

 arrived at this stream late at night and in the dark drove into a miry 

 bog. I remarked we had found "Spillman's creek" all right, and that 

 name it bears to this day. 



Fifteen miles west we found another heavily timbered stream, which 

 we called " Wolf creek," from the great number of wolves we killed 

 there. Other hunters, following us later, adopted the names we had 

 given these streams. 



The next winter I was hunting far up the Smoky Hill, but found 

 nothing, the country being burnt over, a silent, desolate waste. Cross- 

 ing north to the Saline we found the same desert conditions, but from 

 a high bluit' looking north I could see in the distance timber in a 

 gulch coming out of the divide, and the tops of the adjoining hills ap- 

 peared black. We drove in that direction, arriving just at sunset, 

 and found the hills covered with buffalo, elk and deer in the ravines, 

 gangs of wolves trotting around, and droves of turkeys in the groves 

 of oak, elm and cedar along the stream, which was dammed by beaver 

 at short intervals, so that no water escaped to the plain. All together, 

 it was the most beautiful spot I had ever seen. There was no indica- 



