Coon Creek.—There are four streams in Kansas that bear this name. The first rises in Washington county and flows east, emptying into the Little Blue river in Marshall county; the third rises in Osborne county and flows south until it discharges its waters into Wolf creek near the town of Luray, Russell county; and the fourth rises in Ford county and flows northeast, almost parallel to the Arkansas river, into which it empties near the town of Garfield, Pawnee county.

The last is the only one with which any important historical event is connected. Fowler's Journal of Glenn's expedition for Oct. 21, 1821, says: "We passed a point of Rocks on Which stands two trees about 600 yeards from the River—and seven and a half miles came to a deep and mudey Crick 100 feet Wide. Heare Some of our Horses Run to drink and Ware Swomped With their loads and Ware forsed to be pulled out." Coues thinks this creek is Coon creek, and that the camp of the 20th was somewhere between the towns of Garfield and Kinsley.

In May, 1848, a company of 76 recruits left Fort Leavenworth to join the Santa Fe battalion in Chihuahua. On June 17 they camped on Coon creek, not far from the present town of Kinsley, and the next morning were attacked by some 800 Comanches and Apaches. The white men were armed with breech-loading carbines, but the bullets rattled harmlessly from the raw-hide shields of the savages who came on in a charge that looked as though the whites were to be exterminated. When they were almost upon the camp the soldiers turned their attention to firing upon the horses, and with their breech-loading guns soon turned the tide of battle. Nearly all the horses in the front rank were killed at the first volley and the remaining Indians sought safety in flight. The affair is known as the battle of Coon creek.