Neodosha, December 1870

“Neodosha is becoming a stage center, and in this as in all things else, promises to beat neighboring towns. [The Southern Kansas Stage Company] has a stage every day from Independence … running each and every day… Persons are in the habit of setting the prairie on fire just to see it burn… The latest information from Thayer reports the L.L. & G [Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston] Railroad track is laid to within two miles of town.” [The railroad would continue south to Morehead, Cherryville, Liberty, and Coffeyville, but a branch would not reach Neodosha until 1879.]

“We are now enjoying weather that is really grand, … and warm… but ere many days a change in the weather will come.”

The Neodesha Citizen, Neodesha, Kansas, 09 Dec 1870

Ford County, Western Kansas, 1877

Ft. Row

Nothing remains of Ft. Row. And the story is little known of the thousands of Indians who died getting there and afterwards.

Even the site is uncertain though it is known to be on the south bank of the Verdigris River near the present town of Coyville.  Nine miles north of Fredonia on Harper Road, just as the road angles west to follow the southern bank of the Verdigris River, one comes across a commemorative plaque.

Late in 1861, Opothleyahola (Opothle Yahola), leader of a band of Creek Indian loyal to the Union, led an exodus of some 9,000 Creeks, Seminoles, and mixed Blacks and Indians, seeking refuge in Kansas from Confederate soldiers. Opposing Indian bands and Confederate Forces followed them, leading to the Battle of Round Mountain on November 19, Chusto-Talasah on December 9, and, finally, Chustenahlah on December 26.

At Chustenahlah in Oklahoma, the out-matched Creeks and Seminoles abandoned their livestock and wagons and fled for their lives in the snow and ice. Ft. Row was hastily built by Union soldiers, but it too was ill-equipped to handle such a large number of refugees. Many died on the way to Ft. Row, more died of exposure and lack of care. Many of the Indians moved on to Ft. Belmont in Woodson County. This location had only a few cabins and provided little relief.

Among the dead were , and Opthleyahola himself in 1863.

Of the surviving Indian braves, more than 1,000 made their way to Camp Hunter in Humboldt, Kansas where, along with Seminoles and African-Creeks and African Seminoles, they were inducted into the Union Army as the First Indian Regiment.  They would first see action at the Battle of Prairie Grove in Arkansas, on December 7, 1862. This battle re-established Union control of northwest Arkansas. They also saw action on the battlefields of Missouri and the Indian Territory and were mustered out in May 1865.

After the Civil War, the reconstruction treaty of 1866 required the cession of 3.2 million acres – approximately half of the Muscogee (Creek) domain.

Gold Dust Hotel, Fredonia

1885, Fredonia

Six years after the arrival of the St. Louis, Wichita, and Western Railway, fifteen years after the Santa Fe, three years before the first graduating senior class of Fredonia High School, and the same year that money was allocated to build the county courthouse in Fredonia’s town square, the Gold Dust Hotel was completed. Former Wilson County Sheriff Samuel Baughman had it built.

It was 1885, Fredonia, Wilson County, Kansas, a city whose population ranged somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500.

Samuel Baughman

He was a farmer, butcher, county, clerk. Samuel Baughman was also a Civil War veteran, who at the age of 19 enlisted and served from the war’s beginning until its end, being part of the Sixty-Sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Baughman and his unit saw action at Shiloh and Corinth, with General Sherman on the long march through Georgia and at Atlanta, then up through North Carolina until the war’s end. He would not arrive in Kansas until 1874, to take up farming near Altoona.

A grand ball celebrated the hotel’s opening. All the dignitaries of the county were sure to have come. There was music. There was dancing. Four days after the hotel opened, The Wilson County Citizen newspaper reported that no finer hotel was to be found in all of southern Kansas, including Wichita, and that this would be a splendid hotel in any city of ten or twenty thousand. Barely six months later, the west side of the town square burned. Six weeks later the north side of the square burned. The hotel, standing at the southeast side of the square was spared.

Baughman sold the hotel eight years later in 1893, and the reason for its colorful name is now forgotten.

Gold Dust Hotel, Fredonia, Kansas

The Creeks at Fort Row

If you head to a spot nine miles north of present day Fredonia on Harper Road, just as the road angles west on the southern bank of the Verdigris River, you will come to the location of what was once Fort Row.

Fort Row

In the first year of the Civil War, Confederate Captains John Mathews and his friend Tom Livingston led white Confederate pro-slavers, southern sympathizing Indians, and Missouri Bushwhackers in attacking Free State Humboldt in Allen County, Kansas, just northeast of Wilson County. In September of 1861, Union Forces found Matthews and  killed him.

On October 14, 1861, in retaliation, the Missouri Home Guard returned to Humboldt and burned the town to the ground.

To provide some defense of those loyal to the Union, Capt. John R. Row and a force of 80 Union soldiers built Fort Row, on a spot nine miles north of present day Fredonia on Harper Road, just as the road angles west on the southern bank of the Verdigris River.

The Opothleyahola Story

Chief Opotheleyahola

Creek Indians, forced out of Alabama and Georgia in the early 1800s, came on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma Indian Territory where they settled and established a new hopeful life.

Then came the Civil War.

In the winter of 1861, having received assurances from the Union that Indians loyal to the North would find safety and freedom in Kansas, loyal Creeks fled Oklahoma under the leadership of Opothleyahola. Thousands of Creek braves, women, and children traveled northward to Kansas and hoped for help. Along the way, they were joined by Union loyalists from other tribes as well as hundreds of slaves who had also been promised their freedom in Kansas. Twice the group was attacked by Southerners and again in December at Chustenahal (Bird’s Creek). That battle left the Indians fleeing for their lives in the bitter cold without clothing or food.

It was to tiny Fort Row that Opothleyahola and his beleaguered band fled. The small militia contingent manning the fort was overwhelmed by those seeking food and shelter. Many died that winter.

Opothleyahola settled at the Creek refugee camp near Quenemo and died on March 22, 1863. He was buried beside his daughter near Fort Belmont (two miles west of present-day Buffalo) in Woodson County, Kansas.

First Indian Regiment

The survivors eventually continued on to Woodson and Coffee Counties.

In May of 1862, approximately 1,000 Indian braves marched to Camp Hunter in Humboldt where they were inducted into the Union Army as the First Indian Regiment, both mounted and infantry.
In June of 1862, the First Indian Regiment rode to Baxter Springs accompanied by other Union Regiments. On July 3, the Indians led an attack and surprised a force of approximately four hundred Confederates under Colonel James Clarkson near Locust Grove. The combined forces of Indians and regular Union soldiers eventually captured over one hundred prisoners, including the colonel, along with supply wagons, gunpowder, and horses.
The Union Forces and their Indian allies went as far as Fort Gibson in the Cherokee Nation, near the junction of the Neosho and Arkansas rivers, from which they controlled  the road from Fort Scott to Texas.

The Full Story

Gold Dust Hotel, Fredonia

The Italianate style Gold Dust Hotel at the southeast corner of the Fredonia Square opened on May 4, 1885 with a grand ball. It was built by John Barton of Independence, Kansas at the request of Samuel Baughman, former Wilson County farmer, town clerk of Cheopta, and former Wilson County Sheriff before becoming manager of the Planters House Hotel on the northeast corner of the square. In 1885, the Gold Dust Hotel was opened and Baughman owned and operated it as such until 1893.

Today, the Gold Dust Hotel is a National Landmark and currently houses the Fredonia Chamber of Commerce.

Gold Hotel Hotel

The style of the building is described as Italianate because of its imposing front cornice or ledge with projecting corbels that crowns the building. Other features include the pedimented doors and windows, and elevated ground floor, as a reception room, in the style of the piano nobile (Italian, “noble floor” or corresponding French, bel étage). The idea of an elevated floor is carried on to the second and third floors in what the Italians called secondo piano nobile” (second principal floor).