UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
KANSAS
Cheyenne County

map →

Saint Francis, KS is situated at an elevation of 3,356 ft (1,022 m) on the Republican River in the extreme northwest of Kansas. St. Francis is the county seat of Cheyenne County. It is the larger of two cities in the county and as of the census of 2000 has a population of 1,497.

St. Francis was founded in 1887 by the people of a town known as Wano, about 2 miles to the southwest. By an election held on February 26, 1889, St. Francis was made county seat. The town was incorporated as a city of the third class in April, 1903.

Two miles north of St. Francis, the Cherry Creek Encampment Memorial was set up in 1990. The memorial is located on the site where Cheyenne and other Indians, survivors of the November 29, 1864 massacre at Sand Creek, Colorado, had set up a camp in order to wait to be joined by other tribes before attacking Old Julesburg on the South Platte to seek revenge. It was from this historical site on Cherry Creek that the runners were sent to notify the tribes that they were coming, and criers announced the plans in all camps. These events also mark the beginning of the Plains War between the Indians and the Whites, a war that lasted twelve years and culmniated in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana in 1876. On September 9, 1990, a dedication ceremony, in honor of the Cheyenne Indian survivors of the Sand Creek massacre, was held at this site. Descendants of those survivors participated in the dedication.
[Text adapted in part from http://www.kansastravel.org/cherrycreekencampment.htm]