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 Fool Chief's Village - Topeka, KS Posted by:  Markerman62
N 39° 05.555 W 095° 44.935
15S E 262258 N 4330648
Located at NW Menoken Road and U.S. 24, north of Topeka
Waymark Code: WM159TM
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 11/16/2021
Views: 0
Sadly the exact location of the village has been destroyed by road widening.
Marker Name: Fool Chief's Village
Marker Type: Roadside
Marker text:
The Kansa, for whom the state is named, once occupied 20 million acres of land in eastern and northern Kansas. In 1825 the U.S. government reduced the lands to a reservation west of Topeka. In 1846 tribe members were sent to a 256,000 acre reservation near Council Grove and by 1872 they were forced onto 137 acres in Oklahoma. Today they are known as the Kaw Nation.
Near this site was a Kansa village with a population between 700 and 800. Occupied between 1828 and 1844 it included 80 bark-covered houses, about 30 feet in diameter with a central hearth. It was the largest of four nearby villages. The leader of this village was Fool Chief (Gahíge Wadáyinga). Gahíge means “chief;” Wadáyinga means "brave and courageous even to rashness.
The villagers had increasing contact with European and American goods and customs. They planted corn, beans, and squash and also had wheat or barley and domestic horses and hogs of European origin. The village was abandoned after the 1844 Kansas River flood.
Between 2006 and 2013 the site was excavated before the reconstruction of the intersection of Menoken Road and U.S. 24, which buried most of the site.
The State of Kansas
Marker Location: Shawnee
Year Marker Placed: 01/01/2014
Official Marker Number: 120
Name of agency setting marker: Other (Please identify in marker text)
Marker Web Address: [Web Link]
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