| Burnett’s Mound | |
|---|---|
| Shunganunga | |
  Burnett’s Mound Location of Burnett’s Mound in Kansas | |
| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 349 m (1,145 ft)[1] |
| Coordinates | 39°00′34.74″N 095°44′12.15″W / 39.0096500°N 95.7367083°W[2] GNIS feature ID: 478675 |
| Geography | |
| Location | Shawnee County, Kansas, United States |
Burnett’s Mound, also known as Shunganunga Mound,[3] Webster's Mound,[4][5] and Knox Knob Top,[4][6] is a natural landmark in Shawnee County, Kansas, as mentioned in early histories[3] and scientific journals.[7][8] The site also holds significance to some Indian cultures and is a burial location.[9]
The common name of the landmark came from the mound's one-time owner, Potawatomi Chief Abram Burnett, Nan-Wesh-Mah,[4] who was an important founding businessman of Shawnee County, also referred to as "the biggest man in Kansas".[10]
Today, the landmark is within the incorporated limits of Topeka, recognizable from Interstate 470 by the large water tank that is constructed near its summit. However, in the mid-1800s the Mound was just within the eastern border of the prior Kaw reservation that the Potawatomi settled in 1847.
Tradition held that the mound spiritually, if not physically, protected Topeka from tornados; but when the hill was eventually disturbed by major construction, a strong tornado happened to cross the very summit of Burnett's Mound before rampaging through Topeka to the State House.[11]
Pre-Columbian burial site
editThe first U.S. settlers well knew that prior settlements used prominent natural mounds for burial or cremation of their dead. A succession of cultures, including Archaic, Woodland, Central Plains, and historic (Pawnee, Kanza, and Potawatomi) components, had used the summits along the Kansas River for worship and burials, with a concordant succession of different traditional forms for those burials.[12][13]
On June 10th, 1856, Charles B. Lines, correspondent for the Free-Stater Connecticut Company settlers at Wabaunsee, wrote from the summit of Shunganunga within the Indian reservation. Witnessing the passage on the prairie below of Indians trading in Union Town, and the view of a few early settler cabins just east of the reservation border, Lines also mentioned the Indian's burial practice and described their burial mound on top of Shunganunga.[9]
Geological Exploration
editKansas Glaciation/Shunganunga Lake (proglacial)
editUnlike the present planetary warm spell, the Arctic glaciers have reached far down into North America several times in the past millions of years. The greatest advance, 700,000 years ago, has been named the Kansan glacier. This glacier blocked both the Kansas River and the Missouri River. So, for a time, the full, swollen flow of both rivers flowed down Shunganunga valley; never fully topping the peak here, but flowing around all sides. At its greatest extent, the glacier crossed Shunganunga Creek, fully blocking it and forming a proglacial lake the glaciologists have named Shunganunga Lake. Buried moraines of Sioux Quartzite surround the base of Burnett's Mound proving that this was the furthest the south that the glacier reached. The moraines record that the glacier parted here. Passing on both sides of the ridge, the glacier surrounded Bernett's Mound with all of its might, but never touched it.[8]
Abram Burnett
editThe Topeka Tornado
editReferences
edit- ^ Burnett Mound, Lists of Peaks, List of John. Retrieved 2023-05-05.
- ^ "Feature Detail Report for: Burnett's Mound". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
- ^ a b Charles B. Lines (1856). Alberta Pantle (ed.). "The Connecticut Kansas Colony; Letters of Charles B. Lines to the New Haven Daily Palladium" (PDF). The Kansas Historical Quarterly. 22 (summer 1956). Kansas State Historical Society: 146.
[footenote 63.] Shunganunga mound is another name for Burnett's mound ...
- ^ a b c "Burnett's Mound". Kansas Memory. Kansas Historical Society. Retrieved 2023-05-06.
A drawing of Burnett's Mound, Topeka, originally called Webster's Mound and possibly known as Knox's Mound.
Cite error: The named reference "Knox2" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ Hugh H. Moore (1941). "Letters of Hugh M. Moore, 1856-1860". The Kansas Historical Quarterly. 10 (2). Kansas State Historical Society.
4 miles south of this city [early Topeka] is Websters Peak [4] as beautiful a sight as I ever saw. The bottom covers some 4 akers then running to a peak some 230 feet high on the shape of a sugar loaf & what is more remarkable it is all covered with grass from 1 to 3 feet high & not a stick of would about it. [Footnote] 4. Now called Burnett's mound.
- ^ "The NGS Data Sheet: Knox Knob Top". U.S. National Geodetic Survey
- ^ F.B. Meek and F.V. Hayden (1859). "Geological Explorations in Kansas Territory" (PDF). Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. IX (9). Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University: 12. Retrieved 2023-04-08.
After passing this locality, we heard of a coal mine some three or four miles south of here, near the base of an isolated hill, known as Shunganunga Mound.
- ^ a b B. B. Smyth (1896). "The Buried Moraine of the Shunganunga" (PDF). Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science. 1895–1896. Kansas Academy of Science: 100. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
1. This Shunganunga creek existed during glacial times very much the same as it is now. 2. When the ice-field reached the creek in its southward progress, it crossed the lower portion of the stream ... 4. The ice never touched Burnett's mound, though it stood around it on three sides to a height equal to or greater than the top of the mound. ... An ancient shoreline is distinctly to be seen surrounding the mound at an elevation of about 50 feet below its summit. About 30 feet below this a second shoreline is seen. This lower one is nearly 200 feet in breadth on the north side of the mound. This follows along the hillside to the west as far as the .... was at Maple Hill, exceeding 200 feet. It overflowed southward into Mission lake. The top of Buffalo mound, like the top of Burnett's mound, stuck up out of water.
- ^ a b Lines, p. 147. "These mounds by the way are objects of interest to the Indians as they are in the habit of selecting the highest peaks as places of sepulture for their "Chiefs," ...."
- ^ "Park Exhibit Remembers Burnetts Mound Namesake". Potawatomi.org. 21 July 2020. Retrieved 2023-05-05.
- ^ Rex C. Buchanan; James R. McCauley (1987). Roadside Kansas. University Press of Kansas (Kansas Geological Survey). p. 280. ISBN 978-0-7006-0322-0.
Kansas Turnpike Mile 176.0 ... To the northwest, partially obscured by trees, Burnett's Mound appears on the horizon. This 200-foot-high hill is capped by Bern Limestone. According to legend, it [the mound] protected Topeka from tornadoes. On June 8, 1966, however, a funnel passed over the mound and cut a swath 0.5 miles wide through the heart of Topeka, killing thirteen people and destroying more than $100 million worth of property. Even the dome of the State House was damaged.
- ^ Lauren W. Ritterbush (August 2009). "Chapters 1-2". Manhattan Archaeological Survey Phase I and II. City of Manhattan, Kansas. Retrieved 2023-05-06.
Included are Archaic, Woodland, Central Plains tradition, historic Native American, and Historic Euroamerican components ....
- ^ Lauren W. Ritterbush (August 2009). "Chapter 3". Manhattan Archaeological Survey Phase I and II. City of Manhattan, Kansas. Retrieved 2023-05-06.