Last Indian Raid Museum

Location:  Downtown Oberlin

Contact:  785.475.2712

Fee:  Yes

Photos Copyright Harland J. Schuster.  Please do not use without permission.

Inside the dim interior of a sod house at the Last Indian Raid Museum, you can get some feel for what it was like for the pioneers to live on the Kansas Plains.  This particular sod house was constructed in 1958, but the crude furniture and utilitarian items give the visitor at least some feel for the life of the pioneers.

A one room school house on the museum grounds is also from the pioneer period.  Settlers put a high value on education.  This was the case across Kansas, and indeed across the nation.  They understood that an educated public was necessary for a successful democratic government, and the sacrifices they made to provide an education for their children is evidence of this realization.

The depot on display here was the gateway to the rest of the world back in the days when the train was the primary means of long distance transportation.  The telegraph office was usually located there, the mail came in and was shipped from the local depot, and any trip of any distance began and ended there as well.

Other pioneer artifacts are on display at the museum as well.  One section of the museum is devoted to the last Indian raid in Kansas, which took place on September 30 and October 1 of 1878.  Though it was just two years after Custer's demise at Little Big Horn, folks in Kansas had mostly settled into the notion that the threat of Indian attack was something of the past.  In fact, the passing of the occasional band of Indians was more of a curiosity than anything else.   The reality that there were still hostile Indians was brought home during this brief rein of terror in 1878.  Several settlers were killed, mostly farmers and ranchers who'd been caught by surprise,and away from the relative safety of their homes.   The raid was the act of a small band of Indians, escaped from the reservation.   These were the remnants of a once proud people, now dependent, desperate, and angry with the White people who'd driven them from their land and ended their way of life.   The acts of the raid, viewed even in this context, were deplorable under any circumstances, and were what we would probably call today an act of terrorism.   Unfortunately, reports of the raid were at first discounted by the US Army, and this may have contributed to the loss of the settler's lives in the area.  A monument was erected in the Oberlin cemetery to honor those who died in the raid, and this is still standing today.

BACK TO  INDEX