ON THE ROAD A Trip through Kansas and Oklahoma


Oklahoma. Several interesting museums in the small university town of Norman, which lies just a few kilometres southwards, make it a good place to begin a journey towards the South of Oklahoma, where the Arbuckle Mountains with the Turner Falls and also the Chickasaw National Recreational Area are located. A visit to the Chickasaw Cultural Center in that tribe’s homelands between the towns of Davis and Sulphur is recommended.


Oklahoma City is the ideal starting point and destination for a journey of discovery through Kansas and


The Chisholm Trail runs to the west of the Arbuckle Mountains. It was used from the 1860s to the 1880s for cattle drives between Texas and Kansas. The small town of Duncan was once a station on the trail and is now home to the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center. Further to the West, in the Wichita Mountains, lies the oldest wildlife reserve in the USA, home to bison and longhorn cattle. Medicine Park, a small town at the foot of the mountain chain, is a popular holiday destination. The home of the Comanche people is close to Lawton and Fort Sill is the fi nal resting place of the legendary Apache leader Geronimo.


Travelling northwards, the route crosses the I-40 highway, which runs parallel to Route 66. Traces of the historic road still remain, but it is mainly commemorated in the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum in Clinton and the National Route 66 Museum, with its open-air replica buildings, in Elk City to the west. In the vicinity of Elk City, the Black Kettle National Grassland provides an idea of how the prairie looked once upon a time, whilst the Washita Battlefi eld National Historic Site commemorates a notorious chapter in history: the US Army’s attack on a peaceful Cheyenne village in 1868. The route on US highway 283 continues northwards


through the sparsely populated prairie to Kansas. The Wild West lives on in Dodge City and this is also where you will fi nd traces of the oldest trade route in the South west, the Santa Fe Trail. Further eastwards, an almost perfectly preserved US Army border post can be explored at Fort Larned. An unusual eco-system lies to the east of the small town of Great Bend: the Kansas Wetlands consist of Quivira National Wildlife Refuge and Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife area. It is hard to believe that the soil of the area around the small town of Hutchinson conceals one of the largest salt domes in the world. You can fi nd out more about how salt is extracted in the Kansas Underground Salt Museum and the Kansas Cosmosphere Space Museum and Space Center gives visitors an insight into the universe.


There are fi nds to be made by art and antique fans close to the town of Salina to the north of Hutchinson: thanks to the artist Birger Sandzén who once lived here, Lindsborg, which was founded by Swedish immigrants, has developed into an artists’ colony. A little further to the west, Lucas, on the other hand, proudly proclaims itself as a centre of folk art, the Grassroots Art Capital of America.


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