Richmond Chapt. 2 Exploration of the Great Plains

I find the Quivira Spring a very interesting subject. My class has already studied about it this year. We read about it our Kansas Kaleidoscope magazine and we had fun discussing it. I was not aware however that Coronado was actually killed in Kansas. I remember learning about Coronado in 8th grade history, but I never remember there being a tie between him and Kansas. While I do believe that his importance to Kansas is a little above my fourth graders, we do talk about him, what he was in search of, and what it meant to our state so that they have an introduction to this and will be able to master it in later years. J I also find it so interesting that the Spanish were exploring Kansas already in 1541. We focus so much on Lewis and Clark in the 1800’s, which I find it interesting that “whites” had already been here and done exploring. I did find the information on Pike interesting. It seems as though he spent much more time in Kansas exploring than Lewis and Clark, but he often is shunned for calling Kansas the “Great American Desert.”