This cache is part of the larger Santa Fe Trail GeoTour: santafetrail.org/geocaching Be sure to visit www.santafetrail.org/geocaching to learn about the PASSPORT ACTIVITY to accompany this Geo Tour.
All containers on the Santa Fe National Historic Trail Geo Tour are military ammunition canisters with an identifying Santa Fe Trail Association yellow sticker on the top of the box, under the handle and the dark green geocaching.com ID is on the side of the boxes with the information that provides coordinates, who set the cache and who to contact for information. Each cache contains a logbook to sign, a variety of items that provide information about the Santa Fe Trail as well as swag items. If you are participating in the Passport activity, the code word is located on the inside of the box, on the top of the lid and is clearly identified as Code Word. Permission to set caches has been obtained. We ask that all cachers please respect all property at the sites where our caches are set.
When Charlie Bentrup became owner of this ground, he realized the importance of these Trail relics, and did his best to preserve them. His son, Paul, also has done his best to preserve them as well as the history of the Santa Fe Trail.
West of Lakin, at a site known as Chouteau's Island, is the area to which Major Bennett Riley led the first military escorted caravan in 1829. He and his men waited three months on the banks of the Arkansas River for the caravan to return from Santa Fe. The returning caravan was accompanied by New Mexican troops, and each army entertained the other before heading toward their respective home stations. It was at this point also, that many caravans coming west, turned south to Wagon Bed Springs at the Upper Crossing of the Arkansas, thus avoiding the long waterless stretch from the Middle Cimarron Crossing to Wagon Bed Springs.
Capt. P. St. George Cooke stated that Chouteau’s Island is 60 miles above the Caches. In the notes accompanying Brown's original survey of the Santa Fe trail is the following statement regarding this island: "It is the largest island of timber seen on the river, and on the south side of the river at the lower end of the island is a thicket of willows with some cottonwood trees. On the north side of the river the hills approach tolerably nigh and on one of them is a sort of mound conspicuous at some miles distant."
From this description, coupled with information from other sources, the island has been located by later writers in section 14, township 25, range 37 west, which brings it near the town of Hartland. Chittenden, in his "American Fur Trade" (p. 540), says: "Chouteau's island was a well-known point on the upper Arkansas. The name dates from the Chouteau-De Munn expedition of 1815-17. While on his way to the Missouri in the spring of 1816 with the furs collected during the previous winter, Chouteau was attacked by a war party of 200 Pawnees and lost 1 man killed and 3 wounded. He retreated to an island in the Arkansas where he could more effectually defend himself and the name arose from this incident. Chouteau did not have any trading post here, as asserted by some authorities."