Tag: Baxter Springs
Baxter Springs is a city in Cherokee County, Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 4,238. It is the most populous city of Cherokee County. Baxter Springs’ downtown main street is part of the historic U.S. Route 66 that passes through Kansas.
For thousands of years, indigenous peoples had lived along the waterways throughout the west. The Osage migrated west from the Ohio River area of Kentucky, driven out by the Iroquois. They settled in Kansas by the mid-17th century and competed with other tribes. By 1750 they dominated much of the region of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. One of the largest Osage bands in present-day Oklahoma, led by Chief Black Dog (Manka – Chonka), made the Black Dog Trail before 1800. It started from their winter territory east of Baxter Springs and extended northwest to their hunting grounds at the Great Salt Plains in present-day Alfalfa County, Oklahoma. The Osage stopped at the springs for healing on their way to summer hunting grounds….
