Emigrants from Östergötland, Sweden formed the Rose Hill Church northeast of Lindsborg in 1874 with J.A. Pihl as pastor. They were joined by fifty people who had left Bethany Lutheran Church. In 1876 the congregation built a church in town, only to have it destroyed in a storm six months later.

Known for many years as the Mission Church, the members erected the unusual dome church in 1878. The present building was dedicated in 1929 and an addition was built in 1992.

The Evangelical Covenant denomination began in 1885. The early Founders were part of the läsare (readers) movement in Sweden with the Bible as their only creed for faith, doctrine and conduct. "Where is it written?" and "Do you have life in Jesus?" were expressions of their beliefs. These questions remain vital in the Evangelical Covenant Church.

(Churches, Etc. • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

THE FIRST SWEDISH AGRICULTURAL COMPANY was formed in Chicago in early 1868. The Company, with the assistance of Railroad Agents, purchased 13,160 acres of land here in the Smoky Valley, and sent Anders Olsson, A. Jacobson, L. N. Sandell, Magnus Carlson, Peter Peterson, and John Ferm to Kansas arriving in February of 1868, according to the town's first early historian, Dr. Alfred Bergin.

The group quickly fell in love with the Smoky Valley and made claim on land provided by the Union Pacific Railroad as homesteads or by sale. These early settlers lived in dugouts and hastily built shelters while they built the Bolaghuset (Company House) east of Coronado Heights, as well as their own homes.

The Company first decided to build the town in Section 7, a mile northwest of the present city where the church was to be built.

Upon the arrival of Magnus Carlson's brother-in-law C. R. Carlson in December of 1868, the group was persuaded to move the new town site to where it is presently located on the banks of the Smoky Hill River.

C. R. Carlson soon wrote a letter to his close friend Rev. Olof Olsson in Sweden to come to America and become the first Pastor of the church which was to be built in Section 7. Pastor Olsson accepted and brought 250 Swedes with him to America, with around 105 locating in the Smoky Valley. Pastor Olsson's group arrived in June of 1869.

It was Pastor Olsson who provided the leadership to incorporate the new settlement as the town of Lindsborg.

This trail was completed and dedicated during the summer of 2006. The population of Lindsborg at that time was 3,321.

(Churches, Etc. • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

In memory of our
departed comrades

(War, World II • War, Korean • War, Vietnam • Patriots & Patriotism) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Located about three miles northeast of Chanute on the eastern riverbank at a ford now known as Brown Wells Dam the town of Osage City sprang up in 1856. A man named John Beck and others came to the area from the Tioga River basin in New York. Beck owned a trading post and operated a sawmill until 1860. An Indian agent named Darius Rogers later owned a store there and was good friends with the Osage Indians wich [sic] had a village about one mile south of town. Another man named S.E. Beach operated a ferry on the river which carried settlers across who had headed west. Roger and Beach were responsible for establishing Neosho County's first county seat there in 1864. They applied for a post office but were denied because there was already a town in Kansas under that name. So they changed the name to Roger Mills in 1865. On June 10th, 1870 the 80 acre plat for the town of Tioga was filed by the towns people of Osage City and many buildings were re-located to the current site of Chanute. This marked the end of Osage City Rogers Mills. This stone marker was set at the old town site in 1922 and re-located here in the fall of 2006 by the City of Chanute Historical Society.

Thanks to Nathan Ward, Bill Slane, Jim Whaley, Dan McMillan, Chanute City Manager Office
——————————
Osage City Founded 1856
County Seat 1864-1867
Rogers Mills P.O.
1865 - 1870

(Native Americans • Industry & Commerce • Settlements & Settlers • Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

The King Bridge Company constructed the Austin Bridge in 1872. The 160-foot bowstring arch design would span the Neosho River east of what is now Chanute. The pioneers invested $15,000 in the bridge for their economic future of getting livestock and crops to the railhead.

In 1910 the bridge was moved down stream to the community of Austin. In 1972 it was closed to vehicular traffic, remaining open to foot traffic. On September 15, 1977 the bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

In August of 1999 the bridge was moved into Santa Fe Park to become the southern terminus of a 3.11-mile hike/bike path. A Federal grant, Neosho County and City of Chanute supplied funding for the project.

The Santa Fe Railroad enlarged a natural lake as a water source for their steam engines in 1911. The Santa Fe Railroad gave the lake, adjacent land, and the 762 Steam Engine to the City. Additional acreage was secured to create Santa Fe Park.

(Industry & Commerce • Railroads & Streetcars • Man-Made Features • Bridges & Viaducts) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

In Memory of
Our Honored Dead

(War, US Civil • Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Fraternal or Sororal Organizations • Patriots & Patriotism) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

This memorial is dedicated to all Chanute Area Veterans, past, present and future. We must never forget the sacrifices made by these brave men and women while protecting our freedoms and our way of life.

11 November, 2013
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History of the Chanute National Guard
The Kansas National Guard Unit of Chanute was organized on 25 February 1954 as Battery B 297th Field Artillery. It was reorganized on 1 March 1957 as Battery B 195th Field Artillery, then on 1 May 1957 it was reorganized a[s] Company B 174th Military Police. On 1 April 1963, became Company A 174th Quartermaster Battalion, and during the Vietnam War they were reorganized on 15 December 1967 as Company C 3rd Battalion 137th Infantry. On 1 February 1976 the unit became Company C 891st Engineer Battalion. Many citizens of Chanute and the surrounding area have been members of the Chanute National Guard over the years, and all served proudly and honorably with many completing twenty years or more of service. The unit was ordered to active duty for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004-2006 and was instrumental in the liberation of Iraq. Many members of the unit received outstanding citations for their actions while deployed. On 20 February 2010 the unit was deactivated. Many citizens of Chanute and the surrounding area are still members of the 891st Engineer Battalion.

(War, Vietnam • Patriots & Patriotism • War, 2nd Iraq) Includes location, directions, 10 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

With the faith and courage of
their forefathers who made
possible the freedom of these
United States

The Boy Scouts of America

dedicate this copy of the
Statue of Liberty as a pledge
of everlasting fidelity and
and loyalty

The Crusade to Stengthen Liberty
1951

(War, Cold • Man-Made Features • Patriots & Patriotism) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

The Confederate Occupation
The War Department established Fort Smith in 1817 and occupied it until April 23, 1861. Learning that the Arkansas militia was advancing, the garrison retreated, taking arms and supplies from the fort with them. Hours later, Arkansas Volunteers led by Col. Solon Borland, a former U.S. senator, marched into Fort Smith and took possession in the name of the state of Arkansas.

Fort Smith's location, transportation and communications network, and storage facilities made it an important supply depot. Over the next thirty months, Confederates launched military expeditions from this location. As the Union army approached Fort Smith on August 31, 1863, the Confederates withdrew.

During the occupation, Confederates buried their soldiers in the existing post cemetery. In 1867, the post cemetery was designated Fort Smith National Cemetery.

[Photo captions read]
Solon Borland, Democratic Senator from Arkansas, 1848-1853. Library of Congress.
Fort Smith, Arkansas, c. 1855. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

The Confederate Monument
Sometime after Fort Smith National Cemetery was established, former Confederate general James F. Fagan and Dr. Elias Duval decided to erect a memorial here honoring Confederate dead buried in the cemetery including Gens. Alexander E. Steen and James McIntosh. Fagan and Duval, aided by the women of Fort Smith, raised money for the memorial and sometime before 1898, "a modest, yet appropriate shaft" was erected in Section 2. A tornado in January 1898 destroyed the memorial and caused considerable damage to the cemetery.

The United Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy raised money to replace the monument, and in 1901 they submitted the design to the War Department. The design was rejected because the inscription violated government policy that text be "without praise and without censure." The proposed monument was eventually erected on the Sebastian County courthouse lawn, where it stands today. About 1904, the War Department replaced the destroyed monument with a small marble obelisk.

[Photo captions read]
James F. Fagan, c. 1880. Arkansas History Commission.
The Fort Smith Confederate Monument on the courthouse lawn, 1960. Arkansas History Commission.

Fort Smith National Cemetery
The largest group of Confederate burials in Fort Smith National Cemetery is in Section 3; other interments are scattered throughout Sections 1, 2, 4 and 8. Many graves contain two or more burials, and some as many as thirty individuals.

[Photo caption reads]
Confederate headstones, c. 1934, with the Southern Cross of Honor. The 1904 monument is in the background. National Cemetery Administration.

The Confederate Headstones
The distinctive pointed-top headstones on the Confederate graves were installed after 1930. That year, the War Department authorized the addition of the Southern Cross of Honor to the Confederate headstone. The United Daughters of the Confederacy created the cross medal in 1898 and bestowed it upon Confederate veterans or their families. The emblem on the headstone is a simplified version of what appears on the medal.

To learn more about benefits and programs for Veterans and families, visit. www.va.gov

(War, US Civil • Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Patriots & Patriotism) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Civil War Fort Smith
In 1817, the U.S. Army sent a detachment of soldiers to Arkansas Territory to keep the peace between the Osage and Cherokee nations. They built a post on the shore of the Arkansas River and named it for Gen. Thomas A. Smith.

The army abandoned Fort Smith in 1825 but returned in 1836. A federal garrison held Fort Smith until April 23, 1861, when the Arkansas militia seized it. Union forces retook the fort in September 1863 and held it for the rest of the war.

Fort Smith became an important supply depot and outpost at the edge of Indian Territory. In 1865, a council meeting at Fort Smith was held to negotiate between the federal government and tribes that had sided with the Confederacy. The council reestablished treaties between those tribes and the government.

[Photo caption reads]
Fort Smith, 1865. Courtesy of the Fort Smith National Historic Site.

National Cemetery
Post Surgeon Thomas Russell, who died in 1819, was the first interment at Fort Smith. The 5.5-acre cemetery served the garrisons, both Union and Confederate, during the Civil War. In 1867, it became one of three national cemeteries established in Arkansas. In addition to U.S. soldiers, burials include several hundred Confederates and more than 160 civilians who died at the fort.

In the 1870s, the U.S. Army Quartermaster General's office constructed a brick lodge and wall, and placed permanent marble headstones on the graves. In 1898, a tornado swept through Fort Smith and caused extensive damage. The wall was rebuilt in stone, and the lodge was replaced with the current two-story building in 1904. When a new entrance was erected in 1942, the old iron gates were moved into the cemetery. Over the years, the cemetery has expanded to more than 32 acres.

[Photo caption reads]
The lodge in 1941. National Archives and Records Administration.

Judge Parker
Isaac Charles Parker was born on October 15, 1838, in Ohio. In 1859, he became a lawyer and moved to St. Joseph, Missouri. Parker resigned from his position as city attorney in 1861 to join the Union Army. After the Civil War, he was elected county prosecutor and later served two terms in the U.S. Congress. On March 18, 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him judge of the Western District of Arkansas, based in Fort Smith.

Judge Parker held court six days a week, often hearing cases for ten hours each day. He presided over an unusually large number of cases with a mandatory death sentence. Although personally opposed to capital punishment, federal law required Parker to hand down the death sentence if the jury returned a guilty verdict for crimes of rape or murder.

Parker served until shortly before his death on November 17, 1896, and was buried in this cemetery (Section 9, Grave 4000). In the years after his death he was often referred to as the "Hanging Judge."

[Photo caption reads]
Isaac C. Parker, c. 1875. Library of Congress.

(War, US Civil • Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Patriots & Patriotism) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Civil War Dead
An estimated 700,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died in the Civil War between April 1861 and April 1865. As the death toll rose, the U.S. government struggled with the urgent but unplanned need to bury fallen Union troops. This propelled the creation of a national cemetery system.

On September 11, 1861, the War Department directed commanding officers to keep "accurate and permanent records of deceased soldiers." It also required the U.S. Army Quartermaster General, the office responsible for administering to the need of troops in life and in death, to mark each grave with a headboard. A few months later, the department mandated interment of the dead in graves marked with numbered headboards, recorded in a register.

[Photo caption reads]
Soldiers' graves near General Hospital, City Point, Va., c. 1863 Library of Congress.

Creating National Cemeteries
The authority to create military burial grounds came in an Omnibus Act of July 17, 1862. It directed the president to purchase land to be used as "a national cemetery for the soldiers who shall die in the service of the country." Fourteen national cemeteries were established by 1862.

When hostilities ended, a grim task began. In October 1865, Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs directed officers to survey lands in the Civil War theater to find Union dead and plan to reinter them in new national cemeteries. Cemetery sites were chosen where troops were concentrated: camps, hospitals, battlefields, railroad hubs. By 1872, 74 national cemeteries and several soldiers' lots contained 305,492 remains, about 45 percent were unknown.

[Photo caption reads]
Knoxville [National Cemetery] was established after the siege of the city and Battle of Fort Sanders in 1863. Cemetery plan, 1892, National Archives and Records Administration.

Most cemeteries were less than 10 acres, and layouts varied. In the Act to Establish and to Protect National Cemeteries of February 22, 1867, Congress funded new permanent walls or fences, grave markers, and lodges for cemetery superintendents.

At first only soldiers and sailors who died during the Civil War were buried in national cemeteries. In 1873, eligibility was expanded to all honorably discharged Union veterans, and Congress appropriated $1 million to mark the graves. Upright marble headstones honor individuals whose names were known; 6-inch-square blocks mark unknowns.

By 1873, military post cemeteries on the Western frontier joined the national cemetery system. The National Cemeteries Act of 1973 transferred 82 Army cemeteries, including 12 of the original 14, to what is now the National Cemetery Administration.

[Photo caption reads]
Lodge at City Point, Va., pre-1928. The first floor contained a cemetery office, and living room and kitchen for the superintendent's family; three bedrooms were upstairs.

Reflection and Memorialization
The country reflected upon the Civil War's human toll— 2 percent of the U.S. population died. Memorials honoring war service were built in national cemeteries. Most were donated by regimental units, state governments and veterans' organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic. Decoration Day, later Memorial Day, was a popular patriotic spring event that started in 1868. Visitors placed flowers on graves and monuments, and gathered around rostrums to hear speeches. Construction of Civil War monuments peaked in the 1890s. By 1920, as the number of aging veterans was dwindling, more than 120 monuments had been placed in the national cemeteries.

[Photo captions read]
National cemetery monuments, left to right: Massachusetts Monument, Winchester, Va., 1907; Maryland Sons Monument, Loudon Park, Baltimore, Md., 1885; and Women's [sic - Woman's] Relief Corps/Grand Army of the Republic Monument to the Unknown Dead, Crown Hill, Indianapolis, Ind., 1889.

To learn more about benefits and programs for Veterans and families, visit www.va.gov

(War, US Civil • Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Man-Made Features • Patriots & Patriotism) Includes location, directions, 8 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

After Iraq's defeat in the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi dictator ignored numerous United Nations Resolutions which resulted in America declaring a "regime change" as an official goal of U.S. policy. In the context of the new terrorist threat after 9/11, the Bush administration accused the Iraqi regime of gross wrongdoing: oppressing its own people, frustrating the U.N. weapons inspectors, developing weapons of mass destruction, and supporting terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda. Majorities in both houses of Congress passed a resolution in 2002 which authorized the president to employ armed forces against Iraq.

The long-anticipated invasion of Iraq began on March 19, 2003, and the once-vaunted Iraqi military machine collapsed immediately. Iraqi factions jockeyed for political position in the post-dictator era. Insurgents, aided by militants drawn from other Islamic nations, repeatedly attacked American troops. Even though, sectarian violence has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqi', democratic elections have taken place, a Prime Minister has been installed, and a Constitution has been ratified.

"A Democratic Hope in the Middle East" [map]

(Patriots & Patriotism • War, 2nd Iraq) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.