=Coronado in Kansas.= It must be remembered that the whole country was a vast wilderness without names or boundary lines, and we can describe the journey of the Spaniards only by using names and boundary lines that have come into existence long since that time. As nearly as can be learned, Coronado and his men entered Kansas about where Clark County now is, and went on northward, crossing the Arkansas River at or near the site of Dodge City. From this point they followed the river to Great Bend, and then continued in a northeasterly direction to the vicinity of Junction City. At the end of their journey they set up a cross bearing the inscription: “Francisco Vasqueth de Coronado, commander of an expedition, arrived at this place.” [Illustration: “FRANCISCO VASQUETH DE CORONADO, COMMANDER OF AN EXPEDITION, ARRIVED AT THIS PLACE.”] =Quivira Found.= After all this weary journey they had reached Quivira and found it to be merely the home of a tribe of Indians, the Quiviras, later known as the Pawnees. Coronado wrote in a letter to the King of Spain: “The country itself is the best I have ever seen for producing all of the fruits of Spain, for, besides the land itself being very fat and black, and being very well watered by rivulets, springs, and rivers, I found prunes like those in Spain and nuts and very good sweet grapes and mulberries. I remained twenty-five days in this province of Quivira, both to see and explore the country, and to find out whether there was anything beyond which could be of service to your Majesty, because the guides who had brought me had given me an account of other provinces beyond this. And what I am sure of is that there is not any gold or any other metal in all that country, and the other things of which they told me are nothing but little villages, and in many of these they do not plant anything, and do not have any houses, except of skins and sticks, and they wander around with the cows. So that the account they gave me was false, because they wanted to get me to go there with the whole force, believing that as the way was through such uninhabitable deserts, and from lack of water they would get us where our horses and we would die of thirst. And the guides confessed this, and they said they did it by the advice of the natives of these provinces.”[1] =Coronado’s Return to New Spain.= Empty-handed, Coronado and his little band of Spanish knights turned toward New Spain and carried to their waiting countrymen the disappointing story of their two years’ expedition. With this event fifty years had passed since the discovery of America, and for the next two and a half centuries little attention was paid to the Kansas country. SUMMARY