Wichita eagle., 1889-02-24
THE FIRST CYCLONE IN KANSAS.
Also the First Man and Woman Men
toned as Residents Of the Sun
flower State.

WASHINGTON CITY, Feb. Il, 1889.
To the Editor of the Eagle.
In the congressional library there is an
old account ip French Of the visit of Cor
nado to Kansas in 1541, being the rela-
ton given by Castenada, who was on the
expedition. Ali desire to give in this
letter is the description of the first Kan
sas cyclone known to history as trans
lated: After leaving the Indian town Of
Cicuye, situated little south of where
Las Vegas now is, Coronado marched
| toward Quivera, so the author says,
''north-northeast," and came on to In
dams who lived in tents made of tanned
buffalo skins. The Spaniards saw such
vast numbers of buffalo upon the plains
that sit seemed to be thing incredible
of belief" ''These Indians assured US
anew that we would find many villages,
and we directed our steps to the east"
:'Shortly afterwards D. Garcia brokeshis
arm and we lost Spaniard who disap-
peared in the chase. The country was
very fiat"
The party still marched toward the
east trying to discover village, and came
upon an Incredible herd of bison." of
which they killed many. marched
! sixty miles without seeing anything but
buffalo and sky" Note: This is the
best buffalo story ever told
After this painted Indian turned up
in the command who was native Of
Quivera, and named Sopete He is the
first kansan whose name is known to
history.
After considerable more marching
they came to a village (name and loca-
ton not given where they saw an Indian
woman as white as a Spaniard and
painted.
"While the army was camped here in
irvine there came up in the evening a
violent cyclone [tourbillon] Of wind and
hail, which threw into camp quantity
of hailstones as large as porringers
[ecuelles and even larger. They fell as
thick as ram and IN some places the
ground was covered to the depth of two
or three palms. The horses all broke
their fastenings and all escaped with the
exception of two or three who were held
onto by ''les negres" the negroes,v
please note the first appearance of the
colored brother in Kansas history-he is
holding onto somethingl who had taken
helmets and bucklers to shelter them
selves with. The wind carried some of
the horses and glued them up against
the walls of the ravine, while others
were carried to places whence it was not
worth the trouble of regaining
them. If we had been assailed by
this tempest out on the plain we would
have lost almost all of the horses with
out its being possible to have rebound
them. The hailstones also broke
many of the tents, damaged many he'll.
NETS, wounded quantity of the horses
and broke all of the camp cooking YES
sells. This was not any small embar-
rassment for there We're not any more of
such articles in the country. One could
not find there even gourd calabashes and
neither corn nor bread was to be seen
anywhere, for the inhabitants lived only
on flesh either raw or badly cooked. and
fruits. Here ends the description of
the cyclone.
Thence Coronado marched four DAYS
journey and came 10 "a populous country
and the town of Coma. which is the first
mentioned Kansas town. He after
wards visited the present site Of your
city, no doubt having been impressed
with the conviction that at the conflu-
ence OF the st. Peters and st. PauTs
rivers (the Great and Little Arkansas) he
would find Cibola where he might posi-
bly, meet De Soto. who was then march
ing westward by way of IT. Scott. also
in search of the Mecca of Quivara, better
known to modern geographers IS Wich-
ita, Kansas. Very respectfully,
Z. F. WARE.