Note 31 — MEMORANDOM OF THE VOIGE BY LAND FROM FORT SMITH TO THE ROCKEY MOUNTAINS.

A mistake—Fowler has not yet reached the Pawnee fork of the Arkansaw. His “paney River” is Walnut creek, near which is Great Bend, seat of Barton Co. This identification is proven by: (1) The west course assigned for to-day, the reach from Ellinwood to Great Bend being the only one in that direction. (2) The walnut and other trees named as growing on this stream. (3) The statement that this is the second stream crossed since leaving the Little Arkansaw—the only other one being Cow creek of p. 19. (4) The courses and distances given beyond for the identifiable streams crossed, namely: Pawnee fork, Coon creek, and Mulberry creek, all of which fetch out quite right, if the present adjustment be made, otherwise all wrong. It would be curious to know if this is simply a blunder of Fowler’s, or if Walnut creek was once known as “paney river”; most likely the former, as I have never met with the present malidentification before. See Pike, ed. of 1895, p. 425.

Fowler rounds the great bend, past Great Bend, and camps, as he says, 9 m. short of the true Pawnee fork. It will be observed that he has no name but “Red Rock” for the subsequently and long famous Pawnee Rock, which now gives name to a station on the railroad, said to be 16 m. above Great Bend and 13 m. below Larned. It is said to have received its name from a fight there in May or June, 1826, when an expedition which Col. Ceran St. Vrain had fitted out was attacked by Pawnees, and Kit Carson, then a boy, killed his own mule by mistake for an Indian during a false alarm the night before. “Pawnee Rock is no longer conspicuous. Its material has been torn away both by the railroad and the settlers in the vicinity, to build foundations for water-tanks, in the one instance, and for the construction of their houses, barns, and sheds, in the other. Nothing remains of the once famous landmark, its site is occupied as a cattle corral by the owner of the claim in which it is situated,” says Inman, Old Santa Fé Trail, 1897, pp. 404, 405.