Wagon Bed Spring (Kansas)

Wagon Bed Spring (also Lower Spring or Lower Cimarron Spring), located in Grant County, Kansas, was an important watering spot on the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail. The flow of the spring came from an outcropping of the Ogallala Formation. Center pivot irrigation adjacent to the spring resulted in lowering of the water table and the spring ceased to flow in the 1960s. A number of small artifacts dating from the days of the Santa Fe Trail have been recovered from lands near the spring which were used by both American Indians and wagon trains as a campground. The name "wagon bed" dates from later use of an old wagon bed as a trough to collect water from the spring. There is a foundation on the site of an ice house. Floods have changed the course of the Cimarron River; the site of the spring is now in the bed of the river rather than on its bank as it was in the days of the Santa Fe Trail.

It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

It is located about 12 miles (19 km) south of Ulysses, on the west side of US 270.

Famous quotes containing the words wagon, bed and/or spring:

    We joined long wagon trains moving south; we met hundreds of wagons going north; the roads east and west were crawling lines of families traveling under canvas, looking for work, for another foothold somewhere on the land.... The country was ruined, the whole world was ruined; nothing like this had ever happened before. There was no hope, but everyone felt the courage of despair.
    Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)

    There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
    William James (1842–1910)

    It is even more grim and wild than you had anticipated, a damp and intricate wilderness, in the spring everywhere wet and miry. The aspect of the country, indeed, is universally stern and savage, excepting the distant views of the forest from hills, and the lake prospects, which are mild and civilizing in a degree.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)