Good afternoon Blogger Friends,                                                               Today is the 30th of January.

This has been both a busy and profitable day so far. First I made a little trip to our very nice; All American Indian Center. Thought that might be a good place to get information about the Wichita Indians, but not so. The Curator of the Museum said they don't have information on the Wichita Indians because they didn't originate in Kansas, but had been moved here by the government in a resettling project. I also found out from this lady, (sorry, I don't remember her name), that the grass lodge that the Wichita Indians built on Mead Island burned down in the late 1920's. I believe she said 1929 and it was in bad shape by then as these lodges were only expected to survive six to eight years.
Leaving the Indian Center, I went a few miles west to the Old Cow Town Museum. I've always been a fan of Cow Town. After speaking to a very nice guy in the gift shop and explaining that I was there doing research for my term paper and what the subject is, he directed me to the man in charge of education at Cow Town. Didn't get his name either, but will probably see him again as I dig deeper into the story of the Wichita Indians that lived for a short time in the Riverside area. I did learn that they were here for a short 31/2 years. Their time here was hard and they were miserably poor, without food, clothes and horses. I will get into all of that later as I progress in my research. This very nice man was very helpful in giving me materials to read, even making copies of some W.S.U. student's essays. He game me a copied off book by H. Craig Miner titled; Wichita: The Early Years 1865-1880. This guy also told me about a book which is called; Hunting and Trading on the Great Plains, by James Mead. I'm really looking forward to reading that. Hopefully I will find it at the Wichita Public Library.
So far I've not found very much about the effect of the Civil War on the Wichita Indians, other than the fact that they sided with the Union. Maybe there will be more information in the essays and other materials which I haven't even come across yet.
Looks like I have a ton of reading to do, but it's going to be very interesting!
That's it for today guys and gals, I have so much going on that I have to move on to the next thing on today's agenda.  Cheri